St. Joseph's Island

8 - May

My first day went fine, nothing too exciting. Brady and I sat in stands on either side of the huge pool that was filled with kids so we had plenty to do. We switched seats every hour just to have a reason to walk around, and we got into a pretty good rhythm by the end of the day. 

Lizzie and I walked in through the employee entrance on our second day, and went straight to the locker room. 

"Ladies." Brady said from his locker as we walked up to ours. 

"Hi Brady." I said, dropping my bag in my locker and grabbing my suit. He smiled and winked. 

Then, the boy from the car accident, who I've since been informed is named Noah, leaned against the locker by Lizzie's.

"Liz, change fast I wanna get to the beach early today." 

She responded but I didn't hear the rest of their conversation, I was a little distracted by Brady pulling his shirt over his head and spraying sunscreen over his chest. 

"May!" Lizzie exclaimed, poking me in the shoulder and I turned my head to see Noah had left. 

"Liz?" I asked her after snapping back to reality. 

"Don't even get me started." She rolled her eyes and slammed her locker. 

I just laughed and made my way to the changing rooms. 

When we walked out to the pool I could see there were already kids lined up on the edge, ready to jump in as soon as we blew the whistle. As soon as we were situated, Brady and I made eye contact and watched as the kids cannon-balled into the pool on the whistle.

The most eventful thing that happened in that first hour was a kid who slipped and fell, cutting his hand on a rock. But, Brady gave him a race car band-aid and he was good to go. 

However, as the day went on I noticed Brady staring at me more and more. In fact, anytime I looked in his direction, he quickly averted his stormy blue eyes and when we did make eye contact I felt that warm feeling in my stomach again. It was a little worrisome that he had that affect on me, but I didn't care. He was cute and fun and he always cracked jokes at switches. 

About halfway through the shift he walked up next to me to switch seats and I got up from the chair, just like I had done multiple times before. 

"You're making it pretty hard to focus on drowning kids, ya know." He said, as he sat down. 

Even though we weren't supposed to stop looking at the pool, I turned to look him in the eye. He looked back at me and winked. I just walked away and tried to shake off the warmth in my stomach. 

We walked back to the locker room together once the next shift arrived to take our spots, and he kept joking, as if he hadn't said anything remotely controversial during the shift. We made it to our lockers and I still hadn't said anything. Not that I needed to, he talked enough for the both of us. 

"Did you see that little kid with the Spiderman rashguard?" He said, as I stuck my nose in my locker. "It looked so real, I bet that cost his parents a fortune. The things kids do to look like superheros these days. Ya know I once saw this show about a guy who had so much plastic surgery done on him so that he'd look like Superman and they put, like, silicon abs in and everything. Like, bro, it's not that hard just go to the gym." He patted his stomach, where his abs were showing through the shirt he'd just put on. "Are you okay? You haven't said much. Although I guess it's pretty hard to talk around me. Sorry, I talk a lot when I'm nervous." He laughed a little at that. 

I looked up at him. "You're nervous?" 

"Yeah." He said, like it was obvious. 

Just then, Lizzie and Noah walked up and opened their lockers. Noah didn't look happy, but Lizzie smirked as she threw her water bottle and sunscreen into her locker. 

"That's mine." Noah said without looking up. 

Lizzie groaned and handed him his sunscreen. 

"If you forget yours again tomorrow, I'm not lending you any." He said, closing his locker. Brady and I just chuckled. 

"I don't know how you've been friends with her for so long." Noah said as he passed me on the way to the changing rooms. 

"Me neither." I called after him. 

Then Peter walked up and opened his locker. He said hey to Lizzie and I, then gave Brady a bro-y handshake. Then Noah got back from changing out of his guard suit and the five of us futzed around in our lockers quietly until Brady finally spoke up.

"So, who's going to the staff party?" He asked, beaming with his arms out. 

Peter shut his locker and walked away. 

"Not him." Said Noah, with an uncharacteristically dopey smile. 

"Yeah, what is his problem?" Lizzie asked. 

"He's not a very social person, we've learned to accept it." Brady put an arm around each of us as he said this and I could feel my cheeks getting warm when his sandy mop of hair tickled mine. 

"Staff party?" I ask, shifting my focus back to my locker as an excuse to get out of his grasp before I imploded. 

Brady kept his arm around Lizzie but seemed a little dejected that I was gone. Maybe this is how you play hard to get. He eyed me for a second before saying, "Yeah it's awesome! They're once a month. We shut down the pool and spend the whole night swimming and playing games and stuff it's a lot of fun!"

"It's mostly just cheap booze a game of spin the bottle, it's not that exciting." Noah said, closing his locker and leaning against it. 

I'd never played spin the bottle before and I was not excited to start with people I'd just met. 

"We'll think about it." Lizzie said, stepping away from Brady and noting the hesitation on my face.

"That's better than no!" Brady said and pranced to the changing rooms, patting Noah on the back as he did so.