My blog was posted and I’d been sent a few advance print copies. I squealed (quite loudly) when I saw my byline. I was so excited but I had no-one to share my happiness with. I bounced around the apartment all by myself and a few minutes later there was a knock at the door. I ran over and swung open the door. It was Justin with a rather worried look on his face.
“Are you ok?” he scanned the room behind me “The neighbours reported screaming”
“Really? Ha ha ha no I’m fine. Absolutely bloody brilliant” I said hugging him and taking him by surprise.
“Huh? What’s going on?” he asked quizzically
“My blog was posted, Cmere looook” I ran over to the table, picked up a copy of the paper and shoved it in his hands “My name is in the paper” I squealed again but not as loudly this time.
He congratulated me and returned back down to the front desk but I don’t think he really understood what the hell was going on. Poor guy my excitement was clearly lost on him.
I decided that the only people who may share my upbeat over the top mood was maybe Reidy & the other lifeguards – Reidy always seemed to be in that kind of mood so I picked up a couple of copies and headed over to the Lifeguard Tower. I hoped they liked what I’d written about them.
I knocked, rather nervously on the door. The sign said only knock in an emergency, hmm maybe I shouldn’t have. Uh oh too late the door swung open.
The lifeguard that stood there in front of me was Whippet, one of the best looking of all the lifeguards. Don’t get me wrong they were all gorgeous but Whippet, or Ryan was one of my favourites from the show. I’d been so nervous and excited about so many other things I hadn’t even thought about what I’d do meeting my secret crushes. Oh lord, help me. Now something else you should know about me is that I have a loooong history of making a complete idiot out of myself, especially when around celebs or hot guys. So I’m stood there and my mouth is moving but there are no words coming out. I must’ve looked like a goldfish flapping away.
“Are you ok, Miss?” he asked. Such pleasant manners, there were still no words. It felt like I’d been stood there for an hour.
Reidy popped his head around the door and the force that had kept my gaze glued to Whippet was broken.
“Alex, Hey” he said
Oh Thank god, Reidy does a rescue that he doesn’t even know about. He’d saved me from imminent embarrassment.
“Hey, Reidy” I tested the water with the nickname. He didn’t even blink. I guess it was ok to use his then “My blog got posted. Look” I gave him a copy of the paper and he took it up to the desk at the front of the Tower.
“Come in” Whippet said and I followed Reidy up to the front desk. Wow, what a view. It was a gorgeous day. I’d been in such a rush leaving the apartment I hadn’t even paid attention to it on the way over the road. No wonder the guys hung about here on their days off. A couple more lifeguards came in, again I recognised them. Yatesy, Maxi & Jesse they all introduced themselves to me. Each one had such nice manners and broad grins. There was a lot of joking around between the guys – or bagging as they called it. They all had a read of my blog and seemed impressed with it.
Maxi sat in the chair beside me and started tapping into the laptop in front of him.
“Wow, guys” he said turning round to the others “Look I’ve nearly hit 32,000 followers on Twitter” he seemed quite proud of the fact. It was amazing but not that surprising surely.
Yatesy started jumping up and down and squealing like a little girl “Yay, Yay, Yay for Maxi. Maxi I loooooovee you” he was laughing so hard.
Maxi jumped up and joined in. They were hilarious. 2 grown men jumping around like little girls. Maxi returned to the laptop and I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
“How many do you need to get you up to 32k?” I asked him
“Erm about 5” he said “no 3 now”
“Hang on and I’ll follow you what’s your twitter name?” I asked him.
“Are you on Twitter? Awesome”
I’d been on Twitter for a while and I had come across their pages but I wasn’t brave enough to follow or comment on any of their posts. I’d become much, much braver over the last month. Almost as soon as I found his page and clicked follow a notification popped up on my screen
@lifeguardmaxi is now following you
“Hey, you’re following back” I said.
“Yeah, thanks for that” he smiled. He had a lovely wide grin.
Another notification popped up. A new mention... from Lifeguard Maxi
Hey, everyone welcome @AlexB2026 to Bondi & Twitter
Oh my lord, my phone didn’t stop pinging for an hour solid after that. Everyone was so nice. A few asked me how I knew him but most just said hi or welcome. I couldn’t keep up with replying to all of them. God only knows how they coped with their legions of fans. My followers jumped from a modest 32 to a staggering 92 in that hour. I got follows from a few of the other lifeguards; a couple that I’d met Whippet, Beardy & Reidy and a few that I hadn’t too which was a bit strange. The guys were all talking about going to the pub that night for a few beers after work. Their local was called The Royal Hotel. I stayed quiet in the corner looking at my phone – I’d had to put it on silent so it wasn’t distracting anyone.
“Hey Alex, Why don’t you come along tonight?” Reidy poked me in the shoulder “It would give you a chance to meet some of the other guys and we always have a bit of a laugh. You up for that ay?
Sitting there and listening to them all ribbing each other and placing bets on who would beat who at darts and pool was one of the funniest conversations I’d ever listened to. Hell, I wanted to be part of that so I dived into Bondi life and agreed to meet them at The Royal. What was the worst that could happen ay?
