Page 225 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 9
"What would you like?" my lifeguard asked me.
"Whatever you're having is fine."
He turned to the bartender and ordered two beers.
Before he could press me, I decided I should ask him a question. "So, are you in school?"
"No, I just graduated. I start my real job in the fall." The bartender came back with two beers. My lifeguard took a long sip.
"You wanted one last fun summer?"
"Something like that." He smiled at me. "So are you going to answer my question? Or do I have to get you drunk first?" It looked like he winked, but I couldn’t be sure because he was still wearing his sunglasses.
How could I possibly word the answer to his question? That my boyfriend of two and a half years had cheated on me at the beginning of last semester with some girl with huge tits? I thought he was my forever. We had talked about our future all the time. I thought he was going to propose on the night I walked in on him in bed with someone else. He was the first person to befriend me on campus and all of his friends kind of just adopted me. When we split up, those friends turned out to not actually be my friends either. The rest of spring semester had been lonely and unbearable. I hated SMU. And I hated California. I didn't want to go back. But I also didn't want to switch schools with only one year left. I needed to finish some degree. I was close enough on a few majors, I just needed to choose which one. Was that what he wanted to hear?
"You probably have to get me drunk first,” I said instead of telling him the whole depressing story.
He laughed. "Okay. I'll see what I can do. Let's try a different question then. Do you have any siblings?"
"No, I'm an only child. Well, kind of. I have half-sisters. But they’re a lot younger than me and I rarely ever see them.” I looked down at my beer. “My dad’s new family.”
"Okay. Kind of an only child of divorced parents. Do they live around here?"
"My dad lives in Austin. But my mom lives about an hour from here. My original plan was to stay with her this summer. But she's dating this new guy and I felt like I'd be intruding." I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. When I called her back the other day, she had been talking about some cruise she was going on later this summer. I decided it was better not to bother her with the fact that I was back in town since she was leaving soon anyway. I didn’t want to make her feel bad.
We both finished our beers and he ordered us another round. "So, that leads me back to my original question. Why did you come back?"
I took another sip of my beer, wishing I could down the whole thing as unladylike as possible. "The simple answer is that I felt lost. I needed to come home. And when I couldn't go home, I thought that this was the next best place. I spent so much time here when I was younger that this seems like home to me."
"So what made you feel lost?"
My lifeguard was particularly nosey. But for some reason it didn’t bother me. Or maybe the beer running through my veinsmade me forget about the fact that I shouldn’t have even been out with him in the first place. "I think it was a lot of things all at once. I'm having trouble deciding what I want to do when I graduate for one. You're lucky that you have it all figured out."
"Yeah, lucky. I. Am. All. Set." He took a long sip of his beer.
The way he said it made it seem like he didn't really feel like he was all set or lucky. "You're not excited about it? What are you going to be doing?"
"Pushing papers in Corporate America. The dream job."
"If you don't want to work at the place that offered you a job, then why are you gonna do it?"
"I don't know. I had an internship there and they offered me a job. I accepted it. It pays well." He shrugged.
"Well maybe you should cancel."
"Being a lifeguard only in the summer doesn't exactly pay well."
"I don't know. I'm tempted to stay here. Maybe I'll drop out of school and be a beach bum."
He laughed. "I doubt you'd actually do that. But let me know if you do and I'll reconsider my position."
A girl walked over to us. "Hey, I need a teammate for pool. You in?" She touched his shoulder. It was the same lifeguard I had seen him with the other day. I disliked her even more.
"Do you need two more?" He looked over at me.
"Ben and Jillian are challengingus," the girl said in a rather rude tone. "Come on."
"Oh, it's okay," I said. "Go ahead. I'm horrible at pool, so it's better if I just watch. And my friend will be here any second."Probably. Hopefully.
