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The Introduction

September 2008

The summer after Nora's second year at Townbridge was filled with quite a few firsts for her.

She passed her driver's test with flying colors, and while her mother was working as Chief of Staff over at The Breakers, Nora was allowed to use the car. Whenever she wasn't working at her new job as a lifeguard at Rejects Beach, she would take the beat-up '97 Corolla down Ocean Drive and blast A-Punk by Vampire Weekend with the windows down, feeling her blonde hair whip against her neck as she screamed Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

During her shift one day, Nora was standing along the shoreline with water lapping against her ankles, wearing her bright red one-piece bathing suit and visor over her head. As she was watching the younger kids splash along the waves, she heard a loud, "watch out!" call out from her right. And when she turned at the last second, she ducked just in time for a brown leather football to go flying right over her head.

"Watch it!" Nora shouted back, standing up fully with her hands perched on her hips.

The boy who ran past her to grab the football turned to her with an apologetic smile on his face. And when Nora really looked at him, she found that he was actually quite attractive. All broad shoulders and tanned skin, defined chest and muscular stomach, long legs and thick thighs. He had to have been a full foot taller than her, and when she saw the way his eyes fell down her body, she felt a sharp electric current shoot up her spine.

It's no secret that the summer just before Nora turned seventeen, her body changed quite a bit. Not only did she have her final growth spurt, but she also moved up a few cup sizes. Her bum had gotten rounder thanks to puberty as well as her time spent in the gym prepping for next year's swim season, and when she saw the way this boy was clearly ogling at her, Nora began to feel confident under his unwavering gaze.

"I'm sorry, really. My friends are assholes." From the way he pronounced the word 'are,' Nora knew immediately that he was from Boston. He had the whole dark hair light eyes thing going for him, and when she looked over his shoulder and found that a group of boys were snickering and pointing in their direction, she gave him a teasing smirk.

"How so?" For the first time ever, Nora was knowingly flirting with somebody else. And when he chuckled to himself, shifting a bit in the sand nervously, Nora came to the conclusion that she was quite good at it.

"They overthrew the pass so that I would have to talk to the pretty lifeguard," he admitted, causing Nora to grin.

"You could have just come up to me, ya know," Nora explains, watching the way his shoulders relaxed and he breathed a deep sigh of relief, walking towards her a bit with a very cute grin covering his face.

His name was Connor and he was spending three weeks at his grandmother's beach cottage until he had to go back to the city for the start of school. That afternoon on the beach was midway through his vacation, and when he asked Nora if they could get ice cream and watch the sunset together the next evening, she couldn't have said yes faster.

Nora had never had a summer fling before. She read enough romance novels to know that they were almost always fleeting, and Nora found that she was okay with that. She had never really done anything at that point, and the thought that this cute stranger from Boston could fulfill a monumental first for her was both exhilarating and nerve-wracking at the same time.

One week and three sunset dates later, Connor finally kissed Nora. The first time was quick, a smashing of lips that lasted all about four seconds. And when he leaned in again, Nora made sure to lock her hands around his neck in order to keep him there longer, so that their mouths could figure out how to work against the others.