Mike goes to the beach, the summer he turns 21. Spends days (they turn into weeks, that turn into months) lying on his back in the sand, and sometimes he goes to a bar.
Her name is Charlotte. She's a blonde, with dark eyes (hazel, brown—he doesn't remember, his memory is hazy). She's sultry—flirty, fun, and sexy—goes by Charlie, and she's a dancer.
He can tell by the way she moves—her legs are long, muscular—graceful—she twirls across the beach in a teeny-tiny bikini, smirking, long blonde hair like a halo around her face.
She's not what he expected, when he introduced himself.
"Hi, I'm Mike," he says and she smiles at him brightly (she reminds him of sunshine—or maybe flowers, something happy, like daisies or sunflowers—not something you'd see at a funeral—she's bright, happy, alive. Mike could use some "alive" right now.)
"Charlie," she replies, shaking his hand, hazelbrown eyes sparkling. "Nice to meet you, Mikey."
She buys him a drink, and then he buys her one, and then another, and before long they're drunk. And he'd like to say that the first time wasn't intentional, that it was one of those perfect little relationships that just kind of happened, but it wasn't. It was intentional. Rough, and hard and fast, a mess of arms and legs and hair and it was deliberate in a way that the beach wasn't, and somehow it still fit.
They fit, in a way. Not perfectly, not romantically, but they fit, like this:
Mike rolls over, onto his stomach, and pushes himself off the bed and reaches for his shorts.
"Where're you going?" she slurs sleepily, rolling over and he smiles.
"Food," he says and she stretches, smiling.
"I'll be your breakfast," she says, all sex kitten and sultry love, crawling across the scratchy sheets to smirk at him. "Come back to bed, Mikey," she says. "Come back to bed."
Mike smiles and goes back to bed.
She calls him Mikey, always. He doesn't mind it so much, not really.
She has a boyfriend.
She tells him so one time, lying on her back and looking up at the ceiling of a motel room—there are water spots there and she giggles. She's a little drunk and a little high and she rolls over, resting her chin on her stomach, eyes foggy and dreamy and hair a mess.
"His name's Grant," she whispers, like it's a secret. "And he plays soccer and I think I probably love him."
Mike doesn't have to ask who Grant is. He can pretend he's a friend, a brother—perhaps an uncle, but Charlie says love like she means it, and he knows Grant's someone she'll probably marry and he'll be nothing more than a pleasant summer memory.
He's okay with this, because Charlie's nice and wonderful and she smells like the ocean, but it's not a relationship built for the ages—she's not someone he takes home to his mother, not someone he'd like to spend the rest of his life with. She's a summer fling to him, same as he is to her, and Mike's okay with this.
She leaves on a Friday morning—it's the first time he's seen her not smiling. She's dressed in jeans and a tank top, a sweater clutched in her first and "it's time for me to go home," she says. "Thanks for everything, Mikey."
Mike, he's still wearing his swim trunks and he smiles at her. "You too. Take care of yourself."
Charlie smiles and kisses his cheek, before leaving. She doesn't look back.
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