The Turn of a Page

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

            A few weeks or so later, it was one of the hottest weeks of the year and someone had the brilliant idea of going for a pool party and bringing the stereo system and a load of drinks enough for about twenty or more people (I didn’t even know Baz’s friends extended to that many, then I realised they would all be friends of friends).

            The pool was huge and very warm; I was stood in the shallow end with some girls that were very familiar to me and we had a catch up talk about who was who and who we were here with. Meanwhile the guys, all in surfer shorts and sunglasses stood around the pool in small groups with beer bottles and cans.

            ‘Do any of you like wine?’ asked Sharlene, a long blonde haired girl with dark green, slightly slanted eyes.

            ‘Depends what type,’ some of us replied (there were about seven of us).

            ‘I have a few bottles of all sorts, and plastic wine glasses so we can’t break any glass in the pool.’ She seemed nice and not like some of the girls I knew in school. She brought out a bottle of each (red, white and rosé) and we all poured ourselves a glass of our preferred choice. After about another twenty minutes, someone decided we should be up to more than just chatting and drinking wine.

            ‘Can we please put on some songs that we like? At the moment it seems to be all about the guys, they can be boring sometimes,’ complained Ashley (she was the first to befriend me; we seemed to understand each other a little).

            ‘How do you mean?’ asked another.

            ‘Well, they’re all stood around the pool having fun, and we are here having a nice chat.’ She smiled as though she had a plan forming in her head. ‘Have any of you brought some girly CDs that we can play? We can just slip them in the hi-fi and then finally have some fun of our own.’

            At that moment, we all knew exactly what she meant; as one we all looked at the groups of guys with innocent smiles.

            ‘I can go see if I did, I’m sure I put some in my car,’ I contributed; it had just got back from the garage.

            ‘Excellent, I’ll come with and get some of mine too,’ Ashley added.

            We climbed out of the pool, grabbed our towels to wrap round us and headed over to the small car park.

            ‘So you’re a human?’ she asked with a tone of curiosity.

            I smiled and slipped my sunglasses down over my eyes, the sun was so warm and I could feel myself tanning in its rays. ‘Yeh, but it don’t bother me being around you lot. I’m used to it by now, and Baz looks out for me when he’s around.’

            ‘Ah,’ she said with a giggle and a smile. ‘He’s cute, how come he’s ignoring you now then?’ I knew she was just asking questions to make me feel more welcome (she didn’t have that jealous tone that Sharon always spoke in).

            ‘I dunno, he’s with his friends and I guess he doesn’t want to look like he’s being too over-protective.’

            We got our CD’s and made our way back to the poolside and slipped a few into the hi-fi; unfortunately, the only way to put in new CD’s was to stop the current one and put them in the empty trays. Letting Ashley get on with that and change the CD number that the system was on to one of ours; I looked over to Baz with the same smile I had on earlier while in the pool.