Hazel's Hitchhiker

49: Hangin' at the Pool

Hazel

After my shower, Joey decided to do a little shopping trip to get snacks to enjoy our time at the pool. While he did that, I ended up laying on one of the pool chairs to work on my tan. All I can say is tanning in Texas is nothing like it is in California. It was way too humid to be lying outside in the sun and not being in the cool and refreshing water. When Joey returned, we would hopefully get in the pool. After an hour, he returned with several bags of snacks and found a pool chair next to me to sit on.

"What did you get?" I asked sitting up.

He began dumping some of the stuff out of the bags. "Oh you know, a couple of bags of Cheetos, Takis, Munchies, Pretzels, and some other stuff."

It was astonishing to see the amount of large bags he ended up buying. In the back of my mind, I thought the boy would be buying smaller bags like the ones we were buying at Circle K. Of course, he ended up going to a grocery store. I guess buying those big bags made sense.

"I also got a few cans of Arizona Iced Tea and a couple of bottles of Bud Light."

"Of course you did." Was he ever going to get rid of that fake ID? Let's just hope there would be no more run-ins with the law during the rest of this trip.

Little did I realize that Joey also bought a cooler to store everything in with lots of ice. It was still in the car. Another trip to get it was made. The hell? Why didn't he put everything in the cooler after he bought everything? Lots of eye-rolling had ensued. Once everything was in the cooler, Joey stripped into his swimsuit and we got into the pool. We were one of the few people at the pool that day. There were a couple of other people. Essentially, we had the pool to ourselves.

I felt like a little girl at the pool that day. Usually, when I go to the pool, I just lay around and maybe do a little swimming. With Joey, he had me active. Some of the things that we did include Marco Polo, swim racing, and holding our breath underwater. Joey bragged that he could hold his breath underwater for an entire minute and claimed that I couldn't beat him. In turn, I agreed to have this little contest. With our eyes closed, we went under the water. After about ten seconds, there was no way in hell that I could hold my breath for a minute. For a quick second, I made my way back up for a quick breath. Joey still had his eyes closed. The winner ended up being none other than me.

"You cheated," he claimed with a smile.

"How the hell did I cheat?" I returned the grin.

"I saw you go back up for air." The boy ended up laughing which led me to laugh along.

"That means you cheated. Did you open your eyes?"

The boy gave no response and just gave me a glare. I did the same to him. For a long moment, our eyes continued to stare. Part of me was tempted to look away from his face and put my sight on that body of his. In an unexpected move, he grew closer to me and placed his hand on my shoulder. Not once did he blink. It was like he was trying to prove a point. My lips were doing everything they could to not bite, but it was difficult with my senses starting to tingle.

"Guess we're both cheaters," he finally spoke while splashing my face. The tingles were thankfully officially dead.

For the next several minutes, we began splashing each other. Who knew something like this could be fun? With all my force, large amounts of water splashed Joey. At that point, we were probably making too much noise, but I didn't care. There was a lot of weird stuff in me that needed to be released. While my muscles were getting a great workout, they are felt like they were somewhat being relieved. This day was ours. A long week of driving will do that to you I suppose.

Time goes by when you're having fun. Before we knew it, the evening was creeping upon us. The sun was starting to set and we were both done with swimming for the day. All we wanted to do was lay down on the pool chairs and relax before we had to head off in the morning to our final destination.

"You hungry?" asked Joey who began digging through the cooler that he bought.

"Yeah, I could eat something. Can you hand me some Munchies?"

Within a blink of an eye, a giant bag of Munchies was thrown at me. And I became concerned about my stomach. Would it be able to handle this amount of chips in one sitting? Was it wise to eat that much? Guess we would just have to play it by ear. Meanwhile, Joey had a bag of pretzels on him and began loudly chewing on them, and naturally, there was a sigh.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm going to try to chew as a normal guy should."

"It's the thought that counts," I responded back with a chuckle.

Honestly, with everything that had happened to us on this trip, the last thing I cared about was the way Joey ate his food. If he was confident enough to live his life and chew like a raccoon, it was fine by me. In some ways, it was nice to have a little background noise. And the fact that it was just the two of us at the pool that evening was all the more special. There was no place that I'd rather be. I could recall the dozens of times I had sat outside and watched the sunset with Amber. It was one of my favorite things to do with her. But having Joey by my side was nice. I don't know why, but I felt safe. My lungs could breathe easy knowing that the boy was present.

A pool day does sound nice. Thanks for reading! Remember to comment and vote!

Have you ever had a pool day?

Will Joey and Hazel ever realize their feelings for each other and come clean?