Cara Colter - First Love, Second Chance

His stomach sank. McKinley. ‘Don’t tell me. You developed that sense right around the final year of school.’

She stared at him. Hard. ‘On the contrary. It took me nearly a decade.’

Somewhere in there was some hidden meaning he should probably have been seeing. He felt like he always used to with Beth, as if he was operating on seven second delay. Always the last to get it. Always needing things spelled out. He’d forgotten what that felt like. He used to think that he was just not bright enough for her but now, with adult eyes, he wondered if it wasn’t just that she tended to be cryptic.

He blew out a breath. ‘Okay, as much as I’m enjoying our little trip down memory lane, it’s not helping this whale. I want you to take over on the wetting; I’m going to try something.’

‘Wait! What?’

‘You’ll see.’

Beth shifted nervously. ‘No, I… Will it take long?’

‘Probably. Why?’

‘I need to … ‘ She looked around. ‘Despite the heat …’

Understanding hit him. ‘Oh. Well, you’re in the ocean. Go here.’

The look she gave him was hysterical. ‘I’m not going to pee in the water while you’re standing in it. And while a whale’s lying in it.’

‘What do you reckon the whale does, Beth?’

‘I’m not a whale!’

True enough. She was slight enough to be the krill that whales liked to feast on. ‘Look, the tide’s running diagonally from the south, so if you go over there—’ he pointed to a spot about ten metres away ‘—then the whale and I will be safely upstream.’ He grinned. ‘As it were.’

Beth turned and looked at the spot, then back at him. ‘I can’t.’

‘Bashful bladder?’

‘You’re not helping, Marc.’ She started to search around the shore for another alternative.

‘Before you even suggest it, the dunes are not safe. Tiger snakes. Up beach might be okay but it’s a lot more exposed and it’s probably safer if we stay fairly close together.’ If you stay close to me. ‘Besides, a swim first will cool you off.’

‘Oh, my God … ‘ She looked around one more time, desperately, as if a Portaloo might materialise on the beach if she willed it hard enough.

It was difficult not to find that panicked expression endearing. Despite everything. He tightened his jaw. ‘Come on, Princess. When did you get so precious? The quicker you get out there the quicker it’ll be over.’

‘Are you laughing at me?’

He forced his face into a more neutral expression. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

‘I’m sure you’d have the same concern if you were in my situation.’

‘I was in your situation, Beth. About an hour ago. I just didn’t make a fuss about it.’

It took her about two seconds to realise he hadn’t left the water. Or his wetsuit. She lurched away from the whale—and him—and waded hastily away. ‘Oh, my God. Men are so disgusting!’

He just grinned at her, the years falling away. ‘It’s human,’ he cried after her as she kept striding up-beach, slowly into deeper water. He kept poking, in the painfully reasonable tone he knew she hated the most, calling after her fleeing shape. ‘We all do it.’

Her cheeks had flamed from a heap more than windburn. Watching the mighty fall should have brought him more satisfaction. But Beth’s prudishness only served to remind him of the vast gulf that lay between them. That always had. In school, she’d always had an aura about her, a subtle kind of quality that set her apart from everyone else. Definitely from him. Her brains certainly had. She was by far the brightest person he’d known, but she didn’t hang out with the brains. Or the geeks. Or the beautiful people—until the end—though it was where she and her luminescence had truly belonged.

She’d pretty much hung out with him. Rain, hail or shine. And he’d pretty much lived for that back then.

When he was younger, he hadn’t thought to wonder about it. It wasn’t until he was about fourteen and some helpful jackass had pointed out the social differences between poor Marcus Duncannon and rich girl Elizabeth Hughes that it had started to niggle. But she’d been unwavering in her friendship, uncaring about the condition of his mum’s ancient car, the shabby hems on T-shirts he’d been wearing for two years. Or the fact that she had to ride buses to hang out with him. Some deep part of him had feared she might bail on him like everyone else when his father’s life insurance money had run out. But she hadn’t.

Not for three years. On the other side of that day, it had all looked more sinister. Maybe slumming with the poor fatherless kid gave her some kind of weird social cachet, some intrigue. Maybe he propped up her ego daily with his sycophantic interest. Maybe she was just biding her time until someone better came along.

Or maybe she just outgrew him. She’d said as much. He just never would have picked McKinley as the sort of chump she’d grow towards.

At seventeen he’d thought about ditching school immediately. Lord knew his mother needed the extra income back then. And he certainly could have done without the daily taunts of the beautiful people that his Beth was now one of them. McKinley’s Beth, in fact, but always his Beth deep in his heart.

And now the Princess of Pyrmont High was peeing in the ocean. In public.

There was a certain satisfaction in that. No matter how belated. He hadn’t let himself go over these memories for years. Call it a self-preservation thing. He didn’t like the person he’d become in those final months of school.

Beth’s discomfort at being so debased only birthed a raw, shining affection deep in his gut—a feeling he hadn’t allowed for a long, long time. He laughed to dislodge the glow deep within, to sever the golden filaments that threatened to re-establish between them.

He laughed to save himself from himself.

Then he locked his jaw and forced his attention back onto the only female out here who deserved his sympathy.

The ocean was full of water. What were a few drops more? And Beth was incredibly overheated. The idea of taking a quick swim before. Well, it wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

She waded out into the deeper water, waist height, and peeled off Marc’s oversized fleecy sweatshirt before bundling it high above her head to keep it dry. Then she slowly lowered her body up to her neck in the cold Southern Ocean. The frigid kiss of liquid on parched skin made her shiver. Cool ocean water rinsed away dried sweat. She tipped her head all the way back until cold water washed around her ears.

Bliss.

‘Turn around!’ she shouted back to Marc, onshore. Yes, it was pointless but it felt very necessary. He complied, busying himself with the whale, but she was sure his whole body was lurching with laughter.

Sure, laugh at the spectacle. Nice. Her humiliation was probably a gift to him.

She swapped the sweater into a raised hand, carefully unfastened her jeans with the other and tugged them down single-handed, muttering the whole time. There was no way she was going to repeat Marc’s wetsuit trick. She may have done some low things in her life but there were some barrel bottoms even she wouldn’t scrape.

Getting her jeans down single-handed was one thing but getting them back on when she was finished, wet and underwater.

‘Oh, no.’ Beth looked urgently between Marc and the great expanse of nothing around them and realised there was no way—nowhere—she was going to be able to get out of this water with dignity.

‘Come on, Beth. I’m doing all the work here,’ Marc complained from his side of the whale.

For crying out loud! She wriggled left and then right and eventually stepped free of her adhesive jeans, trapping them on the ocean floor between her feet and standing fully up. Then she slid Marc’s enormous hoodie back on over her cotton blouse. Its thickness cut out some of the sun’s glare and pressed her wet blouse more tightly to her, cooling her even more. With one hand, she held the sweater high of the waterline and then she hooked her jeans up out of the water with a foot, into her free hand.