Chapter One
The sun was sweltering, or maybe I'd become so used to the cold that the heat was a surprise. I was sitting on the back porch, wondering what I was going to do with the day. I could go to the mall. Then I remembered something; I hated shopping. My phone started singing "Mood Rings." I looked down. Rosalie was calling me. I quickly answered the phone.
"Hey, what's up?"
"I know you're out there on the back porch trying to decide what to do for the rest of the day. Well, Ali and I have an idea."
"Wait. You two had an honest to goodness idea? I'm going to get my paper and pen and write this down for posterity."
"Hardy-har-har, Bella. Anyway, Ali and I are going to the pool in Port Angeles. You wanna come?"
I was about to say yes, when I realized the reason it hadn't occurred to me before.
"I don't have a swimsuit."
"That's okay, you can borrow one of mine."
"Okay, but nothing too skimpy."
I'm almost 100% positive that Alice and Rosalie are having a competition to see who can get me into a skimpier outfit.
"I have the perfect thing."
Rose and Ali always had the perfect thing, but it's hard for something to not be perfect on them.
"Thanks, Rose. I'll be there in five minutes."
"See ya."
"Love ya. Bye."
"Ditto." And she hung up.
I jumped into my truck and raced over, which was hard to do, since my truck barely went over sixty miles per hour. I pulled into her driveway. It's always amazing, looking at Rose's home and how beautiful it is.
I jumped out and didn't bother knocking, I just let myself in.
When I got to Rose's room, Alice was already in there. I threw myself into her arms very dramatically.
"Oh, Alice! I missed you so much! I haven't talked to you in," I glanced at my watch, "nine hours."
"Stop fooling around, and put it on," she said.
It looked as if she had a smug expression on her face, but it was quickly gone so I wasn't sure. Until I saw what she pulled out. It was a one piece, but it might as well have been a string bikini. It was two shades of blue; one a deep turquoise where the top and bottoms would have been, had it been a two piece. There was light blue connecting the two pieces. It was basically the suit that looked amazing on the mannequin, and of course girls like Rose and Alice, but when put on girls who look like me, well, let's just say the picture doesn't connect.
"Do you have a different one?" I asked hopefully.
"Well, I'll gladly switch with you," she said, motioning to the tiny yellow polka dot bikini on the wall.
I knew that if I walked into the pool wearing that, I'd be the butt of so many jokes, it doesn't bear thinking.
"I'll go change," I said.
A few moments later, we all met in the front foyer. To cover up their swimsuits, they wore miniskirts and tank tops matching the color of their swimsuits. I was in a pair of Bermuda shorts. Thank goodness they were 'in' in Alice's fashion book (she literally has a book, it's in her dresser *shudder*). I was in a tank top as well. I wanted to wear a t-shirt, but Alice said something about "unattractive farmer's tan", and quickly threw the tank top at me.
"Let's go!" Alice shouted.
We were almost there, when a car cut us off.
"DIP SNUCKLE!" Alice shouted at the passing car.
We'd made it our New Year's Resolution, last year, not to swear at all, not even in traffic.
We pulled into the parking lot. We entered and paid our money. Alice quickly stripped, Rose and I followed her example. Alice jumped in immediately from the side, Rose followed suit and I jumped and did a cannon ball. The current moved Alice around three feet away. I splashed water at her.
"Very mature, Bells."
"Well, well," Rosalie said," Look who we have here. Hottie lifeguard at 7 o'clock," she said, using our none-too-secret code.
"Yes, I do believe you are right," Alice said.
I quickly turned to look. Oh, my Carlizzle. He was, well…perfect was the first word that came to my mind, and beautiful followed as a close second. The slight breeze in the stifling air ruffled his bronze hair, and his face, well, what wasn't covered by sunglasses was, again, perfect. His nose was perfectly in line, and his mouth was totally kissable…wait. WHOA! Hold the phone. I never think things like that. I left that to Lauren, our school's princess airhead.
"Hello, Earth to Bella."
"Huh? What?" I asked.
"If you'd get off of Crush Cloud Nine, you'd know what we were talking about," Rosalie teased. "Anyway, do you wanna go down the slide?"
"Sure," I said.
We quickly ran up what felt like 500 concrete steps.
As we got there, the lifeguards were switching posts. There was a gorgeous blonde lifeguard. He looked as though he should be a Calvin Klein underwear model, but somehow he just didn't hold a candle to the bronze-haired lifeguard for me.
He walked in front of us, winked at Alice, and said, "Excuse me, ma'am," in an extremely cute southern accent. I swear, if he'd had a cowboy hat, he'd have tipped it in her direction. He slid down the slide with the ease of a professional. I turned to Rose to giggle, when I realized that the bronze-haired lifeguard was the one on shift. He looked at me with a weird look on his face. I looked over myself, checking my entire swimsuit to see if anything was out of place or stained, but nothing was. I was humming one of my favorite songs under my breath, trying to boost my confidence, when all of a sudden, he took off his sunglasses and looked at me with his piercing green eyes, and asked with his melodious voice, "So you're a Relient K fan?"
"Yeah," I said, unsure of what to say.
"Well, let's hope you're not an emotional girl."
He put his sunglasses back on and turned away, looking as though he was beating himself up for talking to me. I walked up to the slide, and he motioned for me to go, not even looking at me. Now that stung my feminine pride, but he shook his hair and started flexing his muscles, like that guy in Aquamarine.
I propelled myself off and made myself go as fast as possible. I quickly splashed out at the bottom, coming up and gasping for breath. Alice and Rose were waiting for me at the bottom.
"Whoo! That was fun!" Alice shouted overenthusiastically. "Let's do it again!"
"Let's not," I said, not wanting to face him again.
"Okay, what do you want to do?"
"Let's get some food. I'm starved."
Which was true, but it was also the farthest thing to do away from the green-eyed lifeguard.
Thirty minutes later, after we'd finished all our food, Alice was bubbly and jumpy again.
"Let's go off the diving board!"
I couldn't see the harm in that, so I agreed. We speed walked (running wasn't allowed) to the diving board. I was excited when I saw who was guarding that particular area. He still gave me a peculiar look. Rose, Alice, and I lined up behind the diving board. I was last in line. We all knew to wait until the other person came up before jumping. Alice and Rose both did back flips off the diving board, so I decided to round it out by actually diving.
I jumped, but something went wrong. I was three-fourths of the way down to the bottom, when I heard a noise above me. I looked up, but not soon enough to avoid the large man who'd jumped on top of me. The force of his weight sent me crashing to the bottom at full speed. The last thing I thought was Oh, no, I'm going to die in this watery grave.
A/N: VERY GOOD FRIEND AND WRITER + THE MOST ANNOYING PERSON IN THE WORLD WHO CAN'T TYPE WORTH A FLIP SO GETS ME TO DO IT FOR HER = NICOLE
-Katie
