Voices • Jack Avery

35 • Beach Day

The picture above is Alex's swimsuit

Third Person Point of View

A few days after Alex and Jack's date, everyone had decided to have a beach day. The couple decided to tell their friends that they had made up but refrained from informing them about their date or the fact that they had kissed. Twice.

It's not that they didn't trust them, they just felt like they needed to keep it to themselves for a while. After all, neither of them fully knew what they were; they had gone on a date and kissed but they hadn't established whether or not they were boyfriend and girlfriend - even though they both clearly wanted it.

However, for now they kept that to themselves. In a way, they were still both scared of rejection. Each felt that the other was out of their league and thought that they would suddenly realise that.

Now, Alex was laughing in the passenger seat of London's car as Jackson's phone played music through the aux cord. They weren't far away from the beach now and Alex was getting more and more excited and nervous at the same time.

"Hey, are you sure today won't be awkward? I know you and Jack are good now but you do still like him" London said softly as she glanced at her best friend. Alex smiled to herself at the thought of Jack.

"I'll be fine" she answered simply. However, Alex couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt in her chest. She hated not telling London the truth but she knew that she wasn't ready, not yet.

Before London could press any further, the car was parked and Jackson had practically jumped over the door of her convertible before running towards the beach. If Alex didn't know how much Jackson talked about the "hot girl from yoga" she could swear he was gay for these guys.

Alex grinned as she followed behind him, only a lot slower. Unlike usual, she didn't have a strong sense of anxiety building up in her stomach. Any time she would go to the beach she would always panic about how she looked, but not today.

Ever since Alex had become closer with Jack, she had become more comfortable around him and the other guys. She would always be self-conscious about how she looked but now she didn't have a panic attack at the thought of wearing her swimsuit around them.

Of course, there would always be a voice in the back of her mind telling her that she looked fat or ugly but it was a lot quieter than usual, meaning it was easier for her to ignore it. The fact that she had seemed to have lost weight lately also helped a lot.

Both Alex and London snorted when they reached everyone else, seeing Jackson on top of Daniel trying to fight him. "Hey! You guys finally made it" Christina exclaimed.

Alex smiled at her. She was glad that she had decided to stay for most of the summer rather than leaving after a week or two.

"Sorry, we didn't run here to tackle Daniel. Unlike some people" London taunted, watching the two boys struggle on the sand. "I honestly don't know how that happened" Corbyn shrugged from where he was sitting.

The conversations continued between different people but Alex couldn't help but let her gaze drift to Jack. She hadn't looked at him since she arrived, afraid she might break and give everything away.

When her eyes finally fell on the curly-haired boy, she found he was already staring at her. His eyes raked up and down her body with a look of desire.

His gaze was so intense that it caused her to blush and shift uncomfortably on her towel, making a smirk tug on Jack's lips.

It made her nervous but she couldn't exactly scold him considering it would be suspicious to the others - and there was the fact that she had been doing the same with him.

"You could cut the sexual tension with a knife" London whispered in Alex's ear, causing her to jump in surprise and look away. She glared at her best friend only to earn a grin in return.

Deciding not to attract any more attention, Alex lay back and put her sunglasses on, allowing the sun to warm her skin. By now, the guys were running off to play soccer - or football, as Alex kept calling it.

"Stop trying to impress Alex!" they heard Zach yell as Jack scored against him. London and Christina smirked over at the blue-haired girl as she rolled her eyes.

"Cheers for that Zach!" she yelled back at him sarcastically while glaring. Zach's eyes visibly widened as he ran to hide behind Jonah, causing the others to laugh.

"If I don't get away from that soon, I'm going to crack. Do you want to join me for a swim?" Alex asked the girls as she stood up. They both nodded at her and began to race each other to the ocean. However, Christina decided to grab Corbyn on her way, meaning the others followed as well.

"So much for getting away from these twits" Alex playfully taunted as the group of nine floated near each other. Corbyn, Daniel, Jonah and Zach looked at her questioningly, still not fully understanding her British slang.

However, much to Alex's surprise, it wasn't London or Jackson that explained it to them. "She's calling us idiots" Jack's voice came. Alex smiled up at him. Clearly he had been spending too much time with her if he knew what she meant.

"Someone's trying to suck up" Daniel teased with a grin on his face. Alex felt her cheeks begin to burn from embarrassment as Jack splashed water at his friend.

This inevitably started an all out war. It was every man for themselves as everyone began to splash water at each other. They all smiled as their ears were filled with a mixture of laughs and squeals.

At one point, Alex managed to splash Jack. She immediately began to laugh at him but this soon died away as she noticed the look of determination on his face.

Her eyes widened in both fear and realisation as she began to swim away. However, Jack was faster than her and eventually caught up. His arms snaked around her waist as he dragged her under the water's surface with him.

When they eventually came up for air, Jack's arms were still tightly around Alex's waist. She smiled brightly at him as she pushed her wet hair out of her face.

Jack slowly began to lean closer until he was next to her ear. "It's really hard not to kiss you in front of everyone when you're wearing that" he whispered to her, causing shivers to run down her spine.

Alex's eyes widened and her jaw dropped slightly in shock. As Jack pulled away, a smirk was plastered on his face. She glared at him as he began to swim back to their friends who remained completly oblivious.

This was going to be harder to keep a secret than she had thought.

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I'm updating slightly earlier than usual because I'm going to be editing later and I'll probably forget about this oops (y'all should follow me if you wanna see my shitty edits lmao it's @ethxrealccp)

Also I feel like every few chapters I suddenly remember that Alex is British and then throw in some slang words so sorry if that's annoying sjfbjejfks