Lily's Summer of Precarious Happenings

Chapter Six

"Shit!" Colin rushed over to me, panic pulling at every feature on his face, not knowing exactly what to do. My eyes were swimming with uncontrolled tears from the impact, and I furiously wiped them away.  He gripped my shoulders, "Why would you do that? Are you crazy?"

Through the pain, I smirked and looked up at him.  "Don't mess with an O'Sullivan."

One second Colin was standing in front of me, looking partly flabbergasted and partly impressed, and the next, he was on the ground. "What the hell, man?!" Wesley was screaming at him, and had pinned his shoulders into the sand.

"I can't believe that bastard actually punched you," Kennedy was saying, and I realized I was being led by her small hands into the shade of our umbrella.

I grinned at her sheepishly.

"What... why are you smiling?"

"Wesley, it's okay," I yelled over to the pair, and he looked over his shoulder, his face screwed in confusion, "I... technically I punched myself."

"Kennedy, is she insane?"  The pair looked at each other in total befuddlement.  

She sighed, and put her head in her hand, "Honestly, hell if I know."

"Will you let me up, man?" Colin was saying from the sand, "If you haven't noticed, her nose is bleeding."

I touched my face, and realized blood was dripping pretty rapidly down my chin and leaking into my mouth.  I groaned.  It never made me squeamish, but getting it in my mouth was always the worst.  The taste was horrible, and it always ended up staining my teeth until I got to a toothbrush.

"I'm not helping you until you explain what exactly is going on here,"  Kennedy had said as she crossed her arms in defiance, and I had barely been paying attention.

Wesley looked firmly into Colin's eyes, "You hurt her, you die."

"Trust me, she doesn't need a guard dog," Colin grumbled, shoving Wesley off and clambering to his feet.  I watched tentatively as he grabbed something from a bag on the ground, moving cautiously towards me as though I were a feral animal.  

My eyebrows furrowed, "I'm not going to bite."

"Honestly, at this point, I wouldn't put it past you," He was finally in front of me, and I realized he had grabbed a t-shirt and a water bottle.  Wesley had joined Kennedy, looking worriedly at her stoic expression, then angrily glancing back at Colin.  I unconsciously wiped my nose, wincing slightly at the pain, and I looked down to see the back of my hand covered in blood.

Colin wet the fabric in his heads, and lightly grabbed the back of my neck to brace my head.  My breath hitched sharply in my throat, as the sudden proximity registered and my fingertips began to tingle.  He was adorably concentrated, gently dabbing my face and rubbing where the blood had already dried.  I might have been hallucinating (or maybe I gave myself a concussion with my dramatics) but I felt the thumb at the back of my head lightly stroke my scalp a few times.  

His skin was darker than mine, sun-kissed and even in tone, aside from the light spackling of freckles across his nose.  In that moment, I felt like I had never truly appreciated dark brown eyes until I was under his gaze.  Dark, wavy hair flopped over his forehead, decorating his face as an ornate, golden frame complements a work of art.  

If anyone heard my poetic thoughts about the boy who had just punched me in the face, they might be genuinely worried.  However, a punch to the face wasn't anything new to me;  and besides, I allowed him to do it, knowing that he never actually intended to land the blow.  I knew he had wanted to call my bluff, and my deeply irrational self had no desire to fold just yet.