White Cloud

6- No Dogs

The next few days go by pretty quickly and I don't really see Lionel around. When I do see him though, he looks pretty busy so I just wave or say hi as I'm passing and leave him to his job. He says hi back in a friendly way so I don't think that things are going to be awkward between us, which is good. I wish that we hadn't made out in my room like we did but it did happen so now we have to deal with that. It's not much of a big deal, I guess, as long as I make sure that Dylan keeps his mouth shut about it.

I gave my brother the twenty dollars and I talked to my mom about not bothering Dylan so the rest is in his hands which is terrifying. We're doing a family dinner tonight, which I'm not looking forward to because I think that if Dylan decides that my twenty bucks can't buy his secrecy, this is where he'll tell our parents about what happened with Lionel.

However, it's only like, ten o'clock in the morning so I have some time before then and I've decided that today, I'm going to go talk to the lifeguard on duty. The only lifeguard that I've met is the girl, Mackenzie, and from what Lionel has said to me, there are two other lifeguards that I haven't met. Whoever is working today though, I want to talk to him or her about how it is working as a lifeguard and maybe if it's something that I want to do, they can tell me how to get the training.

I've decided that I'm going to spend a few hours at the beach and then on my way out to the beach or maybe on my way back, I'll find the lifeguard at the pool.

Making sure that my hair looks okay since I dried and straightened it, I grab my bag and hook my dogs to their leashes and then head down to the pool. When I get down there, the pool is on a break period which means that only people older than eighteen are allowed to swim and the lifeguard gets a fifteen minute break.

That means that this is the perfect time to talk to the lifeguard since he or she is on break so they don't have to focus on the people not drowning.

Looking in the pool, I notice one guy swimming around in the deep end and he's wearing red board shorts, which makes me think that he's the lifeguard on duty. So as he's swimming under the water toward the edge that I'm standing near, I step to the side so that when he comes up for air, I'll be standing right in front of him to get his attention.

When his black hair rises out of the water, I start to speak and I make sure to hold on to Ronny's leash because I can see him eyeballing the clear pool water right in front of us.

"Hey," I say loud enough to catch the guy's attention. He wipes his eyes free of the chlorinated water and looks up at me, his eyes squinting to bear the glare of the bright sun. "Do you work here?"

"What?" He grumbles, seemingly caught off guard by my question.

"Do you work here," I repeat, my voice now slower and louder so that he can hear me better although I don't think that it's very loud at all. There's a few kids sitting on the edge of the pool since they're not allowed to swim right now and there's a few groups of adults standing in the shallow end of the pool, a few other adults tanning along the side of the pool.

"Um. Yeah," He confirms, clearing his throat and then he presses his hands to the concrete beside the pool and pushes himself up onto the edge of the pool. Dripping with pool water, he stands before me looking a lot taller than I had expected. "I'm the lifeguard. No dogs near the pool."

"I know, but-"

"Dogs that size aren't even allowed at this hotel," He explains slowly, probably confused as to how I got the dogs all the way through the hotel without somebody saying something. They aren't exactly easy to hide.

"Yeah, I've got that. I've been told that they'll make an exception for me though," I offer him a wide, polite smile and extend my hand for a hand shake. "I'm Bea. Holloway. I'm-"