Have a Little Faith

Levi's POV

Levi’s POV

The night had ended on a peaceful note. Dakota has fallen asleep after we murmured stories to each other on a mattress of leaves and under a blanket of stars. When I had bought her home her parents had allowed to bring her up to her bedroom. I had tucked her in and pressed a lingering kiss to her lips before slipping out of her room, leaving the small light on beside her bed. Her dad gave me a small nod and her mother sent me a smile before I closed the door to the house and drove to my apartment above the lifeguard base.

*

It was Monday morning and i was sitting in my highchair beside Jackie- another lifeguard who would be taking over my shift while i coached the volunteers.

There were seven of them. I watched the come down from the parking lot, all of them looking sleepy. It was six a.m. and the sun had risen half an hour ago. A cool wind was blowing in from the ocean but the waves were calm and the beach still empty.

When they stood in front of me I smiled at them. There were four guys and three girls, all around sixteen and seventeen years of age. After quick introductions and a brief discussion about previous experiences they stripped off their clothes revealing their lifeguard uniform. I had to hide a smile at how new the shirts and pants looked. The girls wore red swimsuits that looked as if they had never been worn before.

After warming up I sent them swimming around an orange buoy that bobbed up and down fifty meters from shore. I squinted my eyes as I watched them cut through the water. They were all strong swimmers and came back faster than i had expected.

We covered basic rules and the proved to be advanced in the theoretical part of life guarding.

The sun rose higher and higher into the clear sky as we went through the introductory steps. By lunchtime we sat in the sand, all of us wrapped in towels and hungrily ate our food. They shared stories and revealed that none of them knew each other before today.

We stayed in the sand for another half hour to digest the food before we went over to the highchair to grab equipment. They’d start practicing the basic saving strokes and how to use the equipment to it’s maximum capacity.

We worked all throughout the afternoon, the hot sun beating down us. I taught them how to drag an unconscious person out of a current, how to preform CPR - to not just in theory, the different strokes, and how to save victims using the board - amongst other things. When the sun had almost reached its bed and the seven of the were huffing next to each on the sand, exhausted from the day’s work i called it a day. They gave grateful smiles and retreated back further onto the sand where they collapsed to catch their breath.

I had to smile at the sight and dried my hair while i walked over to Jackie. When he saw me coming, he jumped down from the highchair with a sly smile on his face.

“What?” i said grinning back at him.

“There’s been a certain someone watching you since this afternoon, copying all your instruction from afar.”

I tried seeming nonchalant as i nodded my head and returned the handshake, watching him go. When he had disappeared, i spun around and scanned the beach.

True to his words, Dakota sat in the sand twenty meters away, breathing hard. She hadn’t noticed that i had spotted her as I tried to ‘casually’ stroll over and not look like a lovesick idiot who could barely contain himself.

I walked up behind her and placed my hands over her eyes, careful of course not to smudge her  glasses. I felt her stiffen up, her spine becoming straight like a rod before she carefully raised her hand and trailed her slender fingers up my arm. When her fingers bumped over the sun faded bracelet on my left wrist I felt her face morph into a smile and her shoulders sagged back into a relaxed posture.