Page 228 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 9
"Plain is good."
"My favorite. I'll be right back."
His favorite? Everyone always made fun of me for ordering plain pizza. I smiled to myself. I watched him go toward the front counter. Another girl stopped him along the way and hugged him. He seemed pretty popular with the ladies. Which made sense, because he was gorgeous. Really freaking gorgeous. I watched him lean against the counter and order the pizza. He laughed with the girl at the counter. It was the same way he had leaned against the counter at the ice cream shop yesterday.
I swallowed hard.Is this not a date?Did he just invite me here as a friend?I was having trouble focusing. I shouldn't have had so much to drink. I put my bottle down on an empty table.Geez, this isn't a date.He was just a nice guy, being nice to the weird girl who was always alone on the beach. Who made up fake friends. At least in his eyes. I felt so embarrassed. I looked down at my flip flops. Maybe I could just leave before he came back.
"Is it okay if we do doubles?"
I looked up. My lifeguard was standing in front of me with two guys.
"Um, yeah. That's fine." Now I was just reduced to one of the guys. I wanted to be okay with the turn of the evening. But for a while there, I’d given myself this small shred of hope that he liked me. My heart was still healing from the last blow and now it just felt like it exploded again. At least, whatever was left of it. I took a deep breath.It’s fine. It’s for the best.
"Stalkers aren't usually hot," one of them said. "Do you want to be my partner?"
I looked up at my lifeguard. He looked embarrassed. Why? Because he had told them that I was a stalker? Or because he hadn't realized that they'd talk about it in front of me?Asshole.This definitely wasn't a date. I was just the weird, loner stalker girl. "That depends," I said to the guy who had just talked to me. "Are you any good?"
"Yeah, we'll crush them."
"Perfect." The table had just freed up. I picked up a paddle. I wanted to win. I wanted to completely annihilate my lifeguard. He could have just told me he was inviting me as a friend. I felt like he had purposefully tried to embarrass me. And I was pissed. Or drunk. Drunk and pissed.
"You guys can serve first," my lifeguard said.
"You really shouldn't be cocky right now.” I served the ball. It bounced low and went perfectly between them so that neither of them went for it.
"Shit, nice serve!" my partner said.
"Eh, it wasn't my best." I served again. This time my lifeguard made contact with the ball but missed the table by about a foot.
After my five serves, we were up five to zero. I grabbed the ball that my lifeguard's partner had just flubbed and tossed it hard at my lifeguard. He caught it.
They only had three points when I slammed the winning shot.
"Dude, that was awesome!" My partner high-fived me.
"Should we switch up the teams?" my lifeguard's partner asked. It looked like he wanted nothing to do with my lifeguard anymore either. “It’s only fair that we each get a turn with the stalker.”
Seriously?I felt a lump forming in my throat that I couldn’t swallow down. "Actually, I have to get going. Thanks for letting me play with you guys. It was lots of fun." It felt good to win. But I was losing my composure. I put the paddle down and walked away from the table toward the front of the restaurant.
"Hey!" I heard my lifeguard yell after me.
I kept walking. I was supposed to stay single this summer. It was good that he had invited me here as a joke. I never thought I'd need a reminder that all men were assholes, but here it was. My eyes were starting to burn. I should have never come with him. I wasn't ready for anything like this. I just needed to be alone.
"Jellyfish Girl!"
I stopped in the middle of the boardwalk and turned around. "That's not my name. Or Stalker. Not that you care." People were staring at me. This was so mortifying.
“I’m sorry, I…”
"Please just leave me alone." I needed to get away from all the prying eyes. And most of all I needed to get away from him. I walked across the boardwalk and onto the beach. The sand was cold at night. I slid off my flip flops, picked them up, and ran as fast as I could down to the water.
Those Summer Nights - Chapter 5
Friday
My alarm went off and I groaned. It couldn’t possibly be time to wake up. I touched my forehead where I had a pounding headache. People who just got hit by a ton of bricks in the face shouldn’t have to wake up in the morning. It was only fair. But the beeping was relentless despite how unfair it was.
I reached out to silence my phone. When the alarm stopped, I was about to let go of my phone when everything came back to me in a rush.
