Just Like Yesterday

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

When P’Arthit came out I watched him and he avoided my eyes. I was half tempted to grab his chin and force him to meet my eyes, but I didn’t think that was a good idea. I didn’t want to breach anymore of the no contact rule I had enacted last night. P’Arthit didn’t look like he was having any fun at the beach though. In fact he looked right out miserable.

The guys had divided into groups to water fight. The girls thought they were too violent and left to go play volleyball on the beach. They were having fun making P’arthit the easy target as he wasn’t really fighting back. I had to protect him and fight against P’Pem, and P’Bright who were seriously playing too hard and did not seem to notice that P’Arthit was not feeling it.

“P’Arthit, grab P’Bright I will take P’Pem!” I called to him and he seemed to wake up from his daze and jumped at P’Pem .  They fell into the water laughing and struggling to beat each other at the water game. I slipped away from P’Bright’s splash and sent a large splash of my own and like that we were playing like kids for a while.

When we got out of the water and started heading back to the hotel I felt a shiver flow through me. It was a little too cold to be getting wet. I glanced at P’Arthit and found him hugging himself. Quickly I took off to get the towels under the umbrella, came back and passed it to them.

“Thank you,” P’Arthit said without looking at me and started wiping off water from his face. He wasn’t getting to his hair very fast and seemed to be lost in thought. I was also wiping off too but he distracted me completely.

“P’Arthit?” I called him yet he did not answer. I called again and the guys seemed to have noticed too. I grabbed P’Arhtit’s arm and took the towel from him then I began to dry his hair for him.

He looked at me with wide eyes. “Don’t look at me like that, you can’t wipe yourself off fast enough you are going to get sick at the pace you were going,” I said.

He blinked and said nothing but he continued to stare at me and I tried my best to ignore his eyes. The guys cheered at us. I had half forgotten we had an audience. It was really easy for me to me to slip back into the man who thought of nothing but of caring for P’Arthit. I didn’t pull away though and only turned to look at them.

Grinning from ear to ear the two said, “Wow so the husband is taking care of the wife.” Did they rehearse it?

“Are you two back together again? That would be so great we were getting bored with all the staring.”

What were they talking about, I didn’t stare at him all that much. His hand caught mine to stop the slow movement I was making with the towel. I turned to seeing him flushed and remembered that he didn’t like being seen when I show affection or when we show each other affection. I tried not to be hurt by that as I pulled my hand back and apologized.

He shook his head, “thank you Kongpob.” Getting a thank you instead of a silent glare terrified me a little. What was he thinking? He walked past me and was heading for the seats. I suddenly felt apprehensive because I couldn’t understand P’Arthit. I think at some point I was walking with a clear understanding of where I stood with him. P’Arthit cared for me and doesn’t want to keep being silent with me like we did all these years but as far as romantic feelings go, he didn’t have them for me. For men in general. That was a lot easier to accept than I thought. I was going to have to deal with being just friends with P’Arthit; I don’t know why I agreed to that. Just that P’Arthit looked a little desperate when he asked me and I didn’t want to refuse him.

Now I was very confused. One arm fell around one of my shoulder, I turn to see P’bright’s grin. “Hey man,” he said.

“Hey man,” another arm wrapped around my other shoulder.