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I made sure that Tyler was gone before I chased after Scarlett. I could see her long, wavy hair bobbing against her back as she made her way down the beach.
As she started to become a tiny speck in my field of vision, I broke into a sprint. I passed all of the beachgoers, who stared back at me with confused and somewhat panicked expressions on their faces. They probably thought I was running to save someone.
Once my lifeguard chair was no longer in sight, I heard someone call my name from behind me.
“Felicia! Come back!” the deep voice shouted.
I whirled around in time to see Jackson chasing after me. “You can’t just leave your chair while you’re on duty!” he yelled. “You’re going to get fired!”
I was tempted to tell him that I didn’t care, that finding my sister was much more important to me right now than this summer job. But why should I have to explain myself to him? It wasn’t any of his business what I did. He didn’t really even know me and every second that he slowed me down, I was another second away from being reunited with Scarlett.
So, instead, I kept running.
When I was halfway to the pier, I stopped and gazed across the beach. Children were happily building a sand castle, and an old woman was collecting seashells. But Scarlett was no longer in sight.
Had she been able to run away from me that quickly? I didn’t think she’d even seen me chasing her, but maybe she had.
As I stared into the ocean, I tried not to think of the other possibility—that I had imagined the whole thing, and that Scarlett had never been there at all. Maybe I really was becoming like my mother.
As I was debating on whether I should go back to my lifeguard chair or if I should continue in the other direction to see if Scarlett had gone on the other side of the pier, I felt strong hands grip my shoulders from behind and spin me around.
I found myself staring back into Jackson’s intense blue eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” I replied, stepping out of the grip he held on me. “I was just going back.” I took a step forward, expecting him to follow me. When he didn’t, I turned to him. “You’re not supposed to just abandon your chair while you’re on duty either,” I pointed out.
“I always help friends whenever they’re in need,” Jackson replied coolly, shrugging his shoulders.
I walked a few steps further before saying, “So, I’m your friend now, huh?”
Jackson’s lips turned into a cocky grin. “Well, I figure . . . I’m in chair twelve for the rest of the summer, and you’re in chair thirteen. We’re practically neighbors, so we might as well make the best of it, right?”
“I suppose,” I replied, even though I wasn’t completely convinced that I wanted to be his friend. Maybe I should just do what Gram always says to do when people are giving you a hard time—forgive, but never forget.
“So, friends, then?” Jackson asked, extending his hand to me.
“Friends,” I replied, shaking it. “But no more trying to act so mysterious.”
“Now, that, I can’t promise you,” Jackson muttered.
Before I could question him further, a woman, who looked to be about twenty-five, strolled over to us. “Well, well, look what we have here. Parks . . .” the woman said, nodding at me. “It’s Felicia, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“I noticed that you left your lifeguard chair unattended for a good ten minutes without letting your supervisor know,” the woman said.
“Well, who can blame her?” Jackson asked. “I hear the supervisor’s a total bitch.”
“Very funny, Jackson. You’re lucky dad made me get you this job,” the woman snapped at him, studying his face. “In case you didn’t forget, I can just as easily take it away from you.”
I stared back at them both blankly. Our supervisor was Jackson’s sister? Glancing from one to the other, I realized that they did look alike. They both had dark hair and tanned skin. But why were they arguing? Talk about sibling rivalry.
“Oh, please,” Jackson said. “You need to pull your panties out of a knot.”
Jackson’s sister stared at him for a moment, her face expressionless, before she said, “You’re both fired. You may finish out today because we don’t have any other lifeguards to replace you with, but after that, you’re done. We don’t have time for this type of foolishness. If you can’t take your jobs seriously, someone else will. And I’ll make sure dad hears about this, too.”
As Nora was about to walk away, I called, “Wait! You can’t fire him!”
Nora turned to look at me with a confused expression on her face. She’d probably expected me to defend myself instead of Jackson, but she had no idea that it was mostly my fault we were even in this situation, which made me feel guilty. “And why is that?”
“I wasn’t feeling well,” I lied. “And Jackson . . . he was just making sure I was okay. I promise he won’t do it again as long as you don’t fire him.”
Nora hesitated as though she were seriously taking my words into consideration. I got the feeling that it gave her a new impression of her brother.
“And you can’t fire her for being sick,” Jackson pointed out. “I told her she’s probably just dehydrated. She needs to keep more water at her station, and she’ll be fine in the future. Please don’t fire her.”
“I’ll consider it,” Nora replied curtly before turning around and walking away from both of us.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Jackson said quietly. “I don’t mind if I get fired. I hate that she’s practically my boss as it is. What’s one more failure in my dad’s eyes?”
“Nonsense,” I replied, shaking my head and trying to ignore his comments. “I can’t let you get fired because of me.”
Jackson looked at me and opened his mouth, but he quickly closed it. “Well, I guess we better get back to our chairs if either of us wants to try to keep our jobs.”
I agreed and climbed the steps of my own chair. Once I was settled, I glanced over at Jackson. As I suspected, he was staring at me. Except that now, when his blue eyes met my own, I didn’t feel creeped out. I felt like, for the first time in a long time, someone actually had my back.
*
As I was about to leave for the day, Carrie waved and ran over to me. Bumping me with a hip, she smiled. “Want to go out? There’s a party at Bryson’s again tonight.”
“I have plans with Tyler already,” I said apologetically.
“Well, you could always bring him along, you know,” Carrie suggested.
“We’ll see,” I replied. “If he wants to, we might.” Carrie’s lip turned into a pout, and I decided to change the subject. “So, how did things go with that guy earlier?”
“Not so great,” Carrie admitted.
I felt my eyes widen with surprise. “It seemed like he liked you. What happened?”
“He liked me at first, I think. His name was Tate, by the way. But when he saw you . . .” Carrie trailed off, before looking over at me. “He completely changed when he saw you. I’m supposed to ask if you want to go out with him sometime, by the way.”
I raised an eyebrow. “He’s got to be nuts if he would choose me over you.” I knew it made me sound really unconfident, but I didn’t care. It was the truth. Carrie had won Homecoming Queen this year, and I was just a Nobody. I didn’t think I was ugly, per se, but I was a lot plainer than Carrie—which usually wasn’t what most of the guys in Ocean Grove went for. Not to mention the fact that she was way more confident than me, too.
Carrie shrugged. “It doesn’t matter either way. It’s whatever. He’s more interested in you, end of story. I’m over it.”
“Good. I think we’ll be able to find you a much better guy this summer, anyway.”
“Speaking of which,” Carrie said, motioning ahead of us with our chin. I followed the direction that she was pointing in, and I felt myself suck in my breath.
The guy who stood in front of me was breathtaking. Cute or attractive didn’t even begin to describe it. His dark brown hair was longish and fell into his eyes, a stark contrast to his fair skin tone. From afar, his abs looked perfectly chiseled into his body.
What was most breathtaking, though, were his eyes. They were the lightest shade of hazel I had ever seen. They nearly blended in with the color of the almost white sand. I had never seen anything like it before.
“I’m gonna go talk to him. See ya later at Bryson’s, hopefully,” Carrie said, blowing me a kiss over her shoulder as she practically skipped over to the guy.
I hoped that she didn’t notice that he was staring at me.