Jake Jock Kick Me in the Back Handshake-Hot Jones Double Barrel!
He looked so out of place here, and I blinked rapidly to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. I wasn’t. There he was, high-fiving my brother, and it was so strange and utterly surreal that I felt like I’d been suddenly sucked into the canvas of a Salvador Dalí painting, jumping over melted clocks as a giant eyeball stared on.
I didn’t want to see him. Not since the embarrassing ball incident, followed by the even more embarrassing sandwich incident. Crap! What to do?
Hide behind a bush? Wait for him to leave then nab my brother and make a stealthy run for it? But just as I was playing these rather ridiculous scenarios out in my head, it happened . . .
“Lori!” Zac screamed so loudly that I was sure everyone as far away as BWH looked up. He waved, and as he did, Jake’s head began to turn.
It was as if everything started playing out in dramatic slow motion—perhaps even to some dark, ominous soundtrack. Jake’s head turned slowly, so slooooowly and then . . . bam! Eye contact. Followed by a look of recognition and then . . .
Small smile. Why was he smiling at me?
Small wave. Why was he waving at me?
And then he started walking toward me. Oh crap!
I tried to keep cool. I tried to look so indifferent and unfazed and above it all, but knew I was failing dismally. I concentrated hard on trying to get my facial features to behave normally, even though I could feel them wanting to do a bunch of things that would probably just make me look like a weirdo.
Hand on hip? Would that help my cause?
Arms folded? Would that make me look cooler? Or would that just make me look like I had one giant boob?
Run hand through hair nonchalantly? No, it would probably just get stuck in the curly knots.
I was overthinking this to the extreme, and it made me so acutely aware of all my body parts and where they were, and what they were and weren’t doing.
Jake and my brother were coming closer as I shuffled nervously from foot to foot, and then someone joined them. A girl about my brother’s age ran up to Jake and put an arm around his waist.
“Hey, Lori,” Jake said when he finally reached me.
“What the hell are you doing here?” The words flew out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying.
“What the hell? Hell?” my brother repeated.
Jake laughed and I started to apologize. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .”
He laughed even more when the girl holding on to him started giggling.
“No need to say sorry,” he said for the second time that day.
I stopped talking and pursed my lips tightly for fear that something else might fly out. An awkward lull forced itself into the conversation, and seemed to linger there until I couldn’t take it a second longer and had to break it.
“Zac is my brother,” I gushed. “He’s my brother.” I’m not sure why I repeated it, but I did.
“That’s cool.” Jake smiled down at Zac. “He’s awesome.”
My jaw loosened. People seldom called my brother awesome, and if they did, it certainly didn’t sound as sincere as when Jake said it.
“This is my sister, Lisa.” He looked down at the girl who had attached herself to him tightly. She had the same blue eyes as his and her hair was up in cute ponytails, flecks of golden curls in the sea of brown, just like his.
“What do you say?” Jake asked.
“Nice to meet you,” she said overly loudly with a smile so big her eyes disappeared into her cheeks.
“Nice to meet you too,” I replied, and then without warning, she hugged me.
I glanced at Zac. I knew what he was thinking. He didn’t like it when other people showed me affection; he got strangely jealous, even though he didn’t show much affection himself. When she finally let go of me, I walked over to Zac and held my hand out. He hesitated for a few moments and then took it and moved to my side possessively, giving Lisa a scowl as he went. Sometimes he can come across as rude, but he’s not, I swear, he just struggles to express certain emotions. This is one of the hardest parts of having a brother like Zac—few get to see the boy that I do. They only see the “bad” and make their assumptions based on that. I’m always trying to convince them of his other side, the side that isn’t too abrupt and doesn’t scream in public if he’s having a sensory meltdown. The world is cheated out of this other version of my brother, and maybe that’s one of the saddest things about it all.
“Zac played an amazing game of hoop ball today,” Jake said, breaking my train of thought.
“Hoop ball?” I asked.
“It’s a combination of Hula-Hooping, tennis, soccer, baseball, and volleyball. We all made the rules up together.”
“We?”
“I volunteer here once a week, doing sports with the kids,” he qualified.
“And he’s the best,” his sister quickly added. “The best.”
“Best. Best,” Zac echoed and then fluttered his fingers together. I looked up at Jake; it was usually around this stage, when Zac started doing something weird, that people backed off. But Jake didn’t flinch.
“We better get going.” I inched away from Jake and Lisa.
“We’re going to the beach now to build a giant sandcastle with five turrets and a moat and underground tunnels for my mouse spies and a fridge in it too in case we get thirsty while we build it because we wouldn’t want to get dehydrated and then have to go to the doctor and be put on a drip. You can come with us?” The words flew out of Zac’s mouth like bullets from a machine gun.
“Uh . . . um . . . Zac.” I turned to him. “I’m sure that Jake and Lisa have a lot of things to do this afternoon. Maybe we can just build it ourselves?”
I didn’t want Zac to be heartbroken when yet another person turned down one of the impromptu social invitations that he always seemed to deliver at the wrong time, and usually in the most inappropriate way possible.
“Just how big is this castle going to be?” Jake asked.
“Big. Like huge. In fact, it’s going to be the biggest sandcastle ever built and then I’m going to call the Guinness Book of Records and they will come out and take photos of it.”
“Whoa!” Lisa lifted off the ground, that was how excited she looked.
“Sounds like you’re going to need some extra hands?” Jake raised his brows at me.
“Sorry . . . you . . . uh, you want to . . . ?”
“Yeah. Totally.” Jake looked at me and our eyes met and—Be still my beating heart. No seriously, be still!
“Which beach?” he asked, running a hand through his hair and letting it flop back down into his face. I tried not to stare at that one strand that seemed to have wrapped around itself, creating that perfect, circular curl.
“I don’t know their names. I just know it’s the one below our house. We live in Clifton.”
“What does your house look like? I surf a lot, so know most of the beach houses.”
Of course he surfed.
“It’s the white one. With the blinding silver pillars and the reflective, blue glass front. It kind of looks like it’s meant to be in Greece but somehow found its way to Africa instead.”
Jake laughed. “I know that house. Wasn’t it owned by Will Smith?”
“Julio Iglesias,” I clarified. “Not exactly like Will Smith, but I guess they do both make music . . . sort of.”
At that, he laughed—again. “My mom loves Julio Iglesias! I can’t wait to tell her that.”
“All moms love Julio,” I said. “He’s so cheesy. And he has a lot of chest hair. He’s like the Spanish Hasselhoff.”
Jake laughed even harder, and I couldn’t remember the last time someone had found me this funny, well, other than the art-school guys. “I can’t believe you live in Julio’s house,” Jake mused.
“What’s funny? Why are you laughing? It’s too loud.” Zac let go of my hand and put his hands over his ears.
“Sorry, we’ll whisper.” Jake lowered his voice, and then looked at me and winked.
Wait . . . did he just wink at me? And again, I was transported straight back into the dreamlike canvas of a surrealist. This had never happened to me before! Guys did not wink at me, and certainly not guys like Jake Jones-Bloody-Evans!
“Should we meet on the beach in front of your house at five, when it’s not so hot?” he asked, but despite the fact he was looking at me, it took me a moment to register what he was saying.
“You were being serious?” I asked.
“Unless five is too late? Or we could do it another day?”
“Today!” Zac raised his voice.
“Five it is then,” Jake said, and pulled his phone out. “Swap numbers in case something changes?”
My already loosened jaw now tumbled to the ground, and I hoped he couldn’t see my shocked, dangling tonsils. I pulled my phone out, almost dropping it because my fingers were shaking. We exchanged numbers and then he walked away, tossing a casual, “See you soon,” over his shoulder.
But there was nothing casual about this at all. Casual was watching Netflix in your pajamas with the guys. Casual was your cousins coming around on a Sunday afternoon. Casual was not hot Jake coming ’round to your house to build sandcastles!