The next morning as Taylor predicted, mom was up by 6:30 am and dragging him out of bed.
Their talking woke me up, much too my annoyance. This is vacation, people!
Taylor is still half asleep, and his voice is muffled by his pillow. "Eleanor, did you know that you're actually allowed to sleep in while you're on vacation?"
"Ok, fine—Suit yourself. I'll walk on the beach by myself," she says, unfazed with his lack of enthusiasm.
"Oh no you're not," he says. I can hear the bed creaking and his feet hitting the floor as he yawns.
"I'm up, ya tyrant."
"You have an issue with me going to the beach by myself? Actually, I was thinking about going for a run."
"So not only do you wake up early on vacation, you also workout? Are you even human?" Taylor asks, his voice still thick with sleep.
After a second of silence, I hear him sigh. "Fine, I'll grab some shorts."
"Answer me, mister—You have a problem with me going to the beach by myself?"
"Yup"
"And why's that?"
"I wouldn't even want my sister walking by herself on the beach—There's a lotta freaks out there. However, looking the way that you do is just a recipe for disaster. Plus, Ellie Jane, you're kinda clumsy. My luck, you would fall into the ocean and drown."
I don't actually think he's teasing—He sounds serious.
"Ok, I'm ready. Let's go run, ya little freak," he chuckles.
"Think we should see if the boys wanna join us?"
If she thinks I'm getting out of bed to run, she IS a freak.
"Don't you dare," he says in mock horror. "You've already got your victim, come on."
I hear them leave the room, and I thank the heavens for Taylor. The man just saved me from cardiovascular crap on vacation—They don't call him a hero for nothin'.
~*~
I wake up to the sound of the door opening, and I look at my phone. They were only gone for an hour.
Duncan is still snoring logs, but I'm not—I seriously can't catch a break.
"Running on the sand is so much different," Taylor says, grabbing something out of the fridge.
"I know! It was amazing though. Can we move here?"
"Sure," Taylor says, and I can hear him opening something.
I decide to get up now. I'm already awake, and they're done running—Officially no danger of me gettin' sucked into that. Point one, Liam!
"Morning bud," mom says, coming over and kissing my cheek.
"She hooked ya, huh?" I ask Taylor with a smile.
"Yup! I never had a chance," he smirks, taking a drink of his water.
"You act like I'm this controlling dictator," mom says, taking the water out of his hand and taking a drink.
"I'm not acting," Taylor says, trying not to smile.
"Funny!"
Mom dumps some water on his head as she turns to their bedroom to take a shower.
Taylor goes to the sink and runs his hand through his hair, getting the water out and cackling like a fool.
"We're doing that shark-tooth hunt at 9, but I thought we'd spend the rest of the day at the beach today. Interested?" Taylor asks me.
"Yeah. Duncan and I were hoping that's what we'd do."
"Cool," Taylor says, clapping me on the shoulder.
~*~
Mom and Taylor get back around 10, and mom is excited to show us her loot.
"You guys missed out—I'm not sharing either," she grins, showing us all of her shark teeth.
"Aren't they cool?!?" Mom asks proudly as she waits for us to act interested.
"Oh yeah—We're jealous," I grin as Duncan laughs.
"Actually...this one's pretty cool," Duncan says as he picks up a bigger one and looks at it.
"I found that baby," Taylor says, just as proud.
These guys are old and boring—They go perfectly together.
Mom starts packing a cooler with drinks, and a bag with snacks. We go and get on our suits as we're waiting for mom and Taylor to get ready.
Mom and Taylor come out, and I have to elbow Duncan in the ribs. This traitor is trying not to stare at mom, but failing. "Knock it off, dude."
"Man, I'm trying. She's so freakin' hot."
"Don't let Taylor hear ya say that."
We get down to the beach, and Taylor is carrying the cooler while I have the bag of snacks—Duncan is carrying the bag with towels and things.
Taylor's a stickler on pampering mom. I learned REAL quickly to take things out of mom's hands and carry them myself. It used to make mom mad—She's always so used to doing everything herself. She's finally given in, though, because she knows this topic is nonnegotiable for Taylor.
We get under the umbrella that we rented, and mom lays out the blankets so we don't have to lie on sand. Taylor sets up the chairs that we also rented, and Duncan and I head to the water.
We're there all day, enjoying our time. Mom and Taylor are swimming in the ocean, splashing each other and goofing off. I laugh to myself as I glance over, noticing a group of guys staring at mom. They've been watching her all day. Taylor has noticed, and has made a few disgusted comments under his breath, but hasn't drawn attention to it.
Once we get back to our spot, one of the guys comes up to her.
"Hey baby! How 'bout you ditch this loser and come hang out with me. I'll show ya what being with a REAL man is like," he taunts as he grabs her butt.
Before mom can do anything, Taylor picks him up by his biceps and slams him, hard, into the sand. He then gets on top of him and starts punching—Over and over.
Duncan and I rush over and grab Taylor, pulling him off, as the guy's buddies comes over to help too. Once Taylor gets off of him, it's obvious that this guy has a broken nose, a swollen lip, and is gonna have a nasty black eye.
"Any of you want a turn?" He asks, still clenching his fists, ready to keep fighting. The rest of the guys shake their heads and back up a little.
I'd be doing the SAME thing: Taylor looks terrifying.
A lifeguard runs over and gets in Taylor's face. "I've got the cops called."
"Great! I'd love to talk to them about how this one just assaulted a woman," he spits, never taking his eyes off of the guy who grabbed mom.
We wait around for the cops to get there, and Taylor talks to them. Duncan, mom, and I agree with his side of the story, and they let Taylor go. We pack up our things and head back to the room. Taylor still hasn't spoken to mom—He's furious, and he knows that she's equally mad...at him.
When we get in, mom silently reaches for her first aid kit. She opens it up and gets out the things she needs.
Taylor busted his knuckles on the guy's teeth, and they're split and bloodied.
She grabs his hand and starts to clean the gash, getting the sand out. He winces when she dumps the alcohol on and tries to wipe away the blood.
"Ouch! Ellie, you're hurting me."
"You didn't care about that when you were attacking that guy," mom snaps back.
Duncan and I just look at each other—He's never seen mom and Taylor irritated at each other before.
"You're seriously pissed? Really? What did you want me to do—Let him grab you?"
"You didn't have to hit him."
He snorts. "Ok, Ellie—You're telling me that if I wasn't here, you wouldn't have hit him yourself?"
"I wouldn't have beaten the crap outta him, no. You broke his nose, Taylor. I wouldn't be surprised if he has a fracture in his cheekbone too."
"Good," Taylor says shortly.
"Real mature," she snaps as she roughly wipes more sand out of his knuckle.
"Ouch! Jeesh, talk about mature—Knock it off," he hisses as he yanks his hand away.
She grabs his hand back and starts putting bandages on it.
"I'm not apologizing for what I did...I'm not sorry. I NEVER do anything...EVER. Guys look at you All. Of. The. Time—They make comments about you almost as often, and I just ignore it. However, I REFUSE to allow anyone to put their hands on you against your will. I'm sorry that you're mad, but I'm NOT sorry for what I did. I hope that these two would do the same thing if somebody did that to their significant other. Hell, I hope they do that if any girl is being harassed."
Duncan and I both just silently nod.
"Yeah, well you didn't have to keep hitting him," mom says, her voice softening as she wipes some hair off of her face.
"Yeah, you're right about that—I'm still not sorry, though," he says, grabbing her hand in his and kissing her forehead.
"Am I gonna live, doc?" He asks with a smirk.
"I don't know," she says, smiling a little. "I'm still trying to decide if I'm gonna kill you or not."
"Well, I hope you don't. I wanna go sightseeing tomorrow."
"We're gonna go back to the beach for a while—We don't need to be here while you two make up," I say, clapping Duncan on the back.
"Don't be gross," mom scolds.
"I'm not being gross—I'm just not an idiot. I know that you guys were fighting, and now you're not. I don't wanna be around for the makeup. Can we go to the beach or not?"
"Yeah, thanks," Taylor says, giving me a smile that says he's kidding...kind of.
Mom sighs. "Fine—But you two better be good. If you even THINK about going to the party I saw happening down there, you're dead. Hear me?"
We both nod, leaving the room quickly and giving each other a secret smile.
Unfortunately for her, that's EXACTLY what we're planning on doing—That party was full of hot girls. It's getting later, and the sun will be setting in a couple of hours.
Let vacation begin, beaches!