From Nought To Sixty

Two

The next two days pretty much followed the first. Beach, back to the house to shower and get changed, and then head down into town to find a bar that served food. Y/N had made sure that she'd had Penelope slather her back with sun cream, keeping it out of direct sunlight and more or less hiding under a huge beach umbrella for those two days. Spencer remained on the sun loungers nearby, engrossed in a book, trying to avoid eye contact with her.

Her teasing had got to him and although he wasn't purposely being off with her, he wasn't being as openly chatty with her as he had before. Something had changed.

Something had changed for her too. For some reason that one moment where she'd mentally called him cute had stuck in her mind and now she was looking at him in a new way. He was cute. Which she'd never really realised before. And he was sweet and kind. For whatever reason, the banter had dropped out between them but he still offered to fetch her drinks whenever he went back inside the house. She was starting to wonder if she'd developed a tiny crush on him, shaking off the thought time and time again.

By the third day, she was bored of sunbathing and had read the three books she'd bought with her. She'd eyed up Spencer's huge pile of books this morning, not really seeing anything that caught her eye. Losing interest in watching Penelope horse around with Derek in the surf, she hauled herself off her sunbed and slipped her sandals back on. She was wearing denim shorts and a loose vest over her bikini despite her sun burn being nearly healed. She adjusted her hair, pulling her sunglasses down over her eyes.

"I'm going into town. See if I can get a visitors pass from the library or at least find a decent bookstore," she announced to Rossi and Reid.

Dave stirred from his 'I'm not sleeping, I'm just resting my eyes' pose, on his lounger.

"Bella, if you're going into town, fancy finding a grocery store? I'll cook for us all tonight instead of going out."

"Sure." Y/N digged in her bag for her phone, noting down the list of ingredients he was giving her and thinking they were in for a treat tonight.

"Want some company?" Spencer asked her, feeling slightly awkward. He didn't feel as comfortable around her anymore for some reason, but he couldn't quite put his finger on why. Maybe being alone again with Y/N would help him figure it out.

"Always," she was relieved. She was starting to wonder how on earth she was going to get the food and drink that Dave had asked for back home. She hadn't really been planning on taking one of the two cars they'd traveled down in, and now it seemed like she wouldn't have to.

"Have you finished all your books already?"

"More or less. Morgan wouldn't let me bring anymore with me. Said it took too much room up." He pouted slightly and Y/N saw it again. The cuteness...

"Spencer, you know there are these things now called ebooks? You can download hundreds and hundreds onto your phone or tablet." Rossi smiled at the younger man, knowing his disdain for e-readers.

Spencer wrinkled up his nose and was just about to launch into his usual speech about how actual books would always be superior over ebooks, when Y/N stopped him.

"Rossi, we both know what Spencer's going to say. And I'm with him here. I'll agree that ebooks are handy for vacations and stuff, but actual physical books will always be better. So let's go in search of that new book smell, yeah Spence?"

He smiled at her, the awkwardness he'd felt for the last few days fading away and he quickly shoved his feet into his old battered Vans, following her up the pathway and around the house, out onto the main road.

They'd been lucky with the area they'd chose to vacation in. Rossi had been here multiple times, a pretty beach town. Large enough to have everything they needed and to have some fairly decent properties to rent, but small enough so as not to attract large crowds of sun seekers. The house they were renting was one of the fancier in the area and Y/N suspected that Rossi had footed a larger portion of the rent than he'd let on, the deal seemed too good to be true for the house and the time of year. But the rest of the group didn't argue with him too much. He'd done all of the booking so they had to trust that what he told them they owed, was what they actually owed.