The Crush (3 page)

This stretch of the beach didn’t seem to get too much traffic other then a few kids near the water, hard at work building sandcastles while their mom looked on and a few more beach towels dotted here and there.

“Well it’s too late now but I wish you could have tried out for the cheer squad. We’re all on it. We’ll have to find someone for you to sit with at the games. The Sharks are doing really good this season. You’ll have to come to the game on Friday, everyone will be there.”

That was one thing I definitely knew about this town. Football was their life around here according to my mom. My real dad had been the star quarterback when he had played in highschool and my mom was the head cheerleader, they had been high school sweethearts and I had been a prom night woopsie as my mom liked to say. I don’t think she ever loved Richard like she loved my dad, I could see it in her eyes whenever she brought up any old memories the two had together.

I was a bit of a football fan but hadn’t really gone to too many of my old schools games. When your records been 0-12 for the past three years, people tend not to show up. But now I had to deal with the issue of crowds, I hated anyone to touch me.

“Um, we’ll see.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon turning over like rotisserie chickens back and forth from our stomachs to our backs. I must have drifted off listening to the chatter of the three other girls and the light sound of music coming through their ear buds because I was abruptly  woken up to the feeling of cold water being dripped down my back. I twisted over from stomach onto my back while the other girls started to shriek, jumping off their beach towels as I shielded my eyes to look up at the two guys standing near my feet.

“You asshole! What do you think you boys are doin’?” Tessa demanded, pushing into the chest of the guy who must have been the culprit of the cold water, judging by the appearance of his drenched body. He shook his hair at her like a wet dog, getting her even wetter.

“Oh come on Tessa, what did y’all come down to the beach for if you weren’t looking to get a little wet?” The guy with shaggy blonde hair asked with a cocky grin, his arms folded across his tan chest.

Tessa still looked to be ticked but Collins and Hallie were trying to smother giggles with the backs of their hands. It was in fact just a little water and with it being about 85 degrees out, the water was a welcome relief from the sun baking my skin to a crisp.

“Whose y’alls friend here,” blonde shaggy guy asked with a southern twang as he ran a hand through his wet hair, pushing it out of his hazel eyes. I was really jealous that I didn’t have an accent like that.

“This is my cousin Wynn, she just moved here from Michigan. She’s startin’ school with us on Monday,” Collins piped up as she settled herself back onto one elbow and pulled out the tanning lotion she had brought along.

“Wynn this here is Vance Daniels,” she poined to the blonde shaggy guy who looked to be assessing my body with a quick flick of his eyes and a small smirk playing on his lips.

“And this is Grier Daniels.”

The guy introduced as Grier flicked up his aviator sunglasses giving me a quick nod and a small wave before concentrating on the football he was tossing back and forth up into the air. With jet black hair that’s spiked all over the place and what looks to be bright blue eyes that look to match the water perfectly, Grier looked to be every girls dream guy, I’m sure he’s highly sought after at Gulf Shores. Just watching the taut muscles work in his hard stomach makes me want to forget about my no guys rule and get in line for a shot with Grier Daniels.

I managed to peel my eyes away from Grier who certainly wasn’t interested in me at all with his square jaw turned in the direction of the soft waves and flicked my eyes back to Vance who was watching me with an amused look on his face.

“Are you guys out here surfing?”

“Ha, no.” Vance barked out a laugh. He certainly had the whole surfer look going on. “Surfing isn’t much fun in Alabama. No we’re just out for a quick swim, we were just heading up to Griers place before we saw you beautiful ladies,” he motioned behind him up the beach to where I assume Grier must live, giving me a quick wink.

“Yeah we really need to go dude. My moms waiting on us,” Grier said, without a look back to us and jogged in the direction of Vances thumb. “See you Monday y’all,” he tossed over his shoulder.

Vance crouched down next to me, balancing his elbows on his knees. “See you Monday Wynn. I’ll save you a spot at lunch, right next to me, sound good?”

I shrugged my shoulders at him before he jumped to his feet with a quick wave to the other girls.

“Bye ladies.”

“Uh oh, you’re in big trouble,” Collin warned with a snort before stretching out onto her back and throwing on arm over her eyes. Tessa and Hallie nodded their heads in agreement with smiles crossing their faces even though I noticed Hallies looked a little forced.

“Um why?”

“Did you miss the way Vance was checking you out honey? That boy looked like he wanted to eat you alive,” Collins replied, peeking one eye open at me like she was trying to gauge my reaction to her statement.

“And he will if you let him. Vance has worked his way through almost every girl at our school, your fresh meat so you probably just moved to number one on his list of conquests. Besides Hallie over here, for some reason she’s immune to his one liners that tend to make every girls panties drop.”

“Well I’m not looking to date, so I guess he’ll have to look elsewhere,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders and I noticed Hallie looked a little relieved by that.

“Not looking to date? What 17 year old girl doesn’t want to date?” Tessa asked with a roll of her eyes, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

 “And trust me Vance would be one to date. He knows his way around, if you know what I mean.” Collins gave Tessa a quick shake of her head. Apparently she hadn’t clued her friends in on my situation and I wasn’t about to.

“Well why don’t you date him then Tessa?”

“Oh Tessa has her own man,” Hallie answered with dreamy eyes. “Dylan, he’s such a sweetheart.”

Collins quickly changed the subject from talking about guys and we began to pack up for the day. We made plans to meet up on Monday morning so the girls could show me around school and I would be able to find my way without getting lost. I wasn’t looking forward to starting at a new school my senior year but if I could have days at the beach like this I guess it couldn’t be too bad.

Oh I was so not looking forward to this day. I laid in bed for a couple of minutes longer after hitting my snooze button a few times on Monday morning. I listened to the faint sounds of the shower running and I could hear Collins lightly humming to herself through the door before she came out wrapped in a towel and began rifling through her drawers.

“All yours Wynnie.” She chirped out. After being around Collins for the past three days I had yet to see her in a bad mood and we had spent a lot of time together too since Grams, mom, and Aunt Gracie spent most of their time at the diner. Apparently that’s where Collins and I would be heading straight after school as well to help out.

“Let me know if you need anything but you need to get a move on girl.”

I gave her a silent salute, grabbing clothes on my way and headed towards the shower. By the time I pulled my outfit on, dried and straightened my hair, and applied a light coat of makeup, Collins was impatiently waiting for me tapping the heel of her calf high boots in time to the music streaming out of her iPod that was almost permanently attached to her. She fit the country girl picture to the tee in my eyes with her frayed denim skirt, white tank top and a plaid shirt rolled at the sleeves and tied a little above the waist.

“Sorry Coll, apparently I need to get up before you to get ready in the morning.”

“Not a problem,” she replied looping her arm through mine. “We just have to nail down our routine, we’ll figure it out eventually. But we really need to get going.”

We said our goodbyes with mom wishing me good luck and Grams telling Collins to give me a helping hand who had replied with a “yes ma’m.” Collins led the way, walking the two blocks to school, something I never envisioned myself doing. I was used to my car being my main mode of transportation.

We made our way up the wide cement pathway that was dotted with palm trees and led to the front entrance. Collins had already filled me in that this was the one and only school in Bayside. The building was split into three sections for the elementary, junior high, and high schools.

“Here we go Wynn.” She came to a stop at a door that identified it as the guidance counselor’s office and leaned against the wall.

“I’ll wait out here while you get your schedule, we should have a few classes together. Tessa and Hallie should be here pretty soon too.”

I introduced myself at the front desk and was quickly led into the office where Ms. Billingsley handed me my schedule and sent me on my way to the girls who were in fact waiting for me in a small circle outside the door.

“Oh let me see.” Hallie grabbed the small square sheet out of my hands and scanned it quickly.

“Yes!” She pumped her fist and stuck her tongue out at Collins. “We have like almost every class together Wynn.”

I glanced over her shoulder, quickly reviewing the list of classes which included all of the basic core classes, p.e.(which I was so not looking forward to), and home economics.

“What the heck is home economics?” I asked, shifting my bag on my shoulder. It was already uncomfortable and I knew by the end of the day it would be loaded down with my new textbooks.

“Oh you know Wynn, it’s to teach us how to be a proper southern lady,” Tessa drawled out.

“We learn to cook, how to take care of babies, sewing, all that fun stuff to take of our future husbands. Theres like two guys in the class.”

“Seriously? I’m surprised there’s not more guys, it sounds like one of those blow off classes.”

“Oh no,” Collins gave a quick shake of her and had a serious look on her face like I had just said the unthinkable.

“That old Mrs. Early will fail your ass if you can’t bake a pecan pie to perfection. The guys are too scared of her to use it as a goof off class.”

After our goodbyes and plans for meeting up at lunch, Hallie led me off to our first class and I went through half the day having to introduce myself. By the time lunch came around, I already saw a lot of familiar faces since the senior class was pretty small. Everyone seemed to be friendly, plus I don’t think they got new students very often so apparently I was the talk of the school. Great.

“Over here,” Collins yelled over the chatter of all the students already crammed into the small lunchroom which looked like it also doubled as the schools auditorium judging by the small stage that was near the long rectangular table that her, Tessa, and Hallie were situated around. Yup they were definitely at the top of the food chain judging by their table placement. I knew they were cheerleaders so that already clued me in but based on the others sitting at the table this was the popular crowd.

I noticed Vance from the other day at the beach who just happened to have the only empty sit next to him and he patted the spot with his hand.

“Over here Wynn.”

I slowly weaved my way through the crowd of people, protectively wrapping my arms around my chest. I really wasn’t good with big crowds of people since the ‘incident’. My therapist back home said it was because I was attacked by someone I knew and loved so now I would probably have to deal with some trust issues.

“Hey,” I said, nervously tucking a piece of my hair behind my ear and pulling my brown paper bag out of my bag. Collins and I had matching lunches. Apparently Grams liked to prepare those for us daily too, I was really going to be gaining some weight living with her.

“So you obviously remember me, who wouldn’t?” Vance shot me a cocky grin and I followed his finger as he pointed out each person.

“That theres Dylan,” who was situated with Tessa sitting on his lap and gave me a quick nod.

“Mark, Brody, Miranda, and Lexie. And of course you already met that loser over there.” He motioned to Grier who hadn’t moved his eyes from the blonde with the big pageant looking hair named Lexie since I sat down.

“So nice to meet you Wynn,” Lexie said standing up and sticking a perfectly red manicured hand out to me before sitting back down and straightening her blonde curls while Grier wrapped a hand around her waist again. She had on a red paisley sundress with a wide black belt cinched at her narrow waist, black heels that were at least four inches high and expertly applied makeup. She had an air about her that said
I’m better than everyone else here
and I could tell she was the Queen Bee of this group.

“Collins honey don’t you have anything from your wardrobe that you could loan Wynn here? Obviously she’s not used to our climate yet,” she stated with an upturn of her pert nose.

 I looked down at my white skinny jeans that I had paired with a pair of ankle boots and my long sleeved oversized striped shirt. I knew I was overdressed but I liked to show as little skin as possible since dealing with my step dad from hell. No one was getting a show from me.

Collins did an eyeroll behind Lexies head and picked through her bag pulling out a sandwich and baggie of homemade chips.

“Wynn knows she can borrow whatever she wants Lexie but I’m pretty sure she can dress herself.”

Lexie ignored Collins sarcastic tone and moved back to interrogate me.“So Wynn why did you move here from Michigan, I know you have family here obviously. What about your dad?”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, already knowing that this line of questioning would come. It was a small town, people were nosey and I could tell this girl was the nosiest but they didn’t need to know my business.

“Well my dad died when I was younger and my mom just divorced my stepdad, so we moved back here to live with my Grams.”

Lexie nodded her head like she was paying attention to me but I could already see her eyes flitting around the lunchroom, doing her pageant wave to someone over my head apparently finding someone more interesting than me.