Adults and kids alike scrambled in a frenzy around a clustered countertop—it's breakfast time at the beach house in Playa Linda.
Derrick watches with widened eyes as Johnny scoops cookies and cream ice cream into his bowl of frosted flakes.
"He cannot have ice cream for breakfast!" Nikki obviously disapproves.
"It's the closest thing we've got to milk." Johnny replies as he avoids Nikki's glare.
"I'm sorry Nikki, I promise by 8 o' clock tonight, the fridge will be restocked with nothing but pure nutrition." Ava looks at the haphazard crowd in the sunny kitchen, as she tacks groceries onto her long mental to- do list.
"Aunt Ava?" Derrick had abandoned his ice-cream cereal and now appeared in the kitchen with a handful of books. "I need to go to the library."
Susannah and Johnny exchange glances—they knew what each other was thinking. This kid acts way too old for his own good—he's got a soul mate, he wants to go to the library during the summer... isn't he supposed to be nine?
"The library?" Jay repeats as though it was a mythical sea monster that he hasn't heard of yet.
"Yeah, you know, library? Where there are, like, books?" Nikki speaks slowly to make sure Jay can understand.
"I've finished my quota for the week!" Derrick announces proudly. The local library had a summer reading program, where kids could collect prizes each week for reading a certain number of books.
"Oh honey..." Ava's day is already jammed-pack. Her pieces need to be fitted to the models today, she needs to speak with her fabric supplier; and she also was planning to sit down to brainstorm for her winter line...
Susannah knows that Ava really needed to work today and went to her rescue—hey, when in doubt, delegate responsibilities, first rule of good parenting.
"Nikki," Susannah turns to the girl, all the while noticing that one of these days she really needed to teach her about the correct methods of cosmetic application, "why don't you take Derrick?"
"Sorry," Nikki immediately declines, "I've got to be at the surf shop today. The display windows need polishing, right Jay?"
Cameron is working at the Smoothie Planet today and Nikki doesn't want pass up her chance at a reenactment of "Fatal Attraction."
"Uh... sure." Jay is too engrossed in the sports pages to really hear the conversation.
Susannah raises an eyebrow, "Well then, Bradin! You don't have anywhere to go today!"
"I..." Bradin looks at Jay, hoping that he could use the surf shop as an excuse as well, but Jay is not meeting his pleading eye. For Christ's sake, the shop is a business, not a day care—one orphan a day!
Ava skates over to her nephew, and quietly says, "Bradin, I'd really appreciate it if you'd take Derrick to the library. You know, I never see you two spend any time together anymore. And I think Derrick would really like it if you took him."
Bradin doesn't attempt to suppress the sigh that escaped his mouth.
"Ten bucks," Ava bargains, hectic times call for desperate measures.
"Derrick, let's go." Bradin pops up from the couch that he was slumped against.
Bradin trudges behind his younger brother and his "soul-mate", Martha, a skinny girl with untamed frizzy brown hair as they prance down the sidewalk towards the library on the boardwalk.
As they enter the contemporary building through glass double doors, a wave of cold air strikes Bradin in the face, at the temperature difference, he shoves his hands into the pockets of his board shorts as he follows the two ankle-biters into the children's section.
He isn't really sure where he is going—it was his first time at the Playa Linda library since he had been spent most of his time with Sarah, who is not a big reader.
But apparently, Derrick is a regular here. Without hesitating, he prances towards the information desk, where a sign made of construction paper indicated "Summer Reading Program Check-in"
In fact, the young pair is even greeted on a first name basis, "Hey Derrick! Martha!"
Bradin glances at the girl behind the information desk, he had never seen her around before, but it took him only one glimpse to notice that she is beautiful.
As he stands behind his younger brother, Bradin is silenced by the girl's exotic features. One of the reasons that he doesn't mind being in Playa Linda so much is the town's supply of good-looking people. But this girl has something different about her beyond the standard pretty blonde beach town babe.
Her long straight hair is on the darker side of maple with sandy highlights, and her eyes are an almond shape that indicated some sort of Asian background, but the pools within are a rare shade of hazel tinged with green-grey. The girl also dons the trademark tan of the residents of the seaside town.
The girl notices Bradin's stare, and she meets it undauntedly. Rather, she looks at him as though he is somewhat strange, "Yes?"
Bradin was lost in the extraordinary light of her eyes, before he realized how idiotic he must look—a 16 year old standing in the children's section of the library surrounded by murals of Alice in Wonderland, James and the Giant Peach, and Clifford the Big Red Dog.
"Uh... um... I..." Damn! Who knew that a month's venture in juvenile misdemeanors could corrode his brain so much that he can't even piece together a sentence.
In a polite voice, the girl speaks again, "The young adult's section is on the other side of the lobby. Or were you looking for the search engine computers?"
Derrick examines his older brother mildly before coming to his rescue, "That's my other older sibling, Bradin." He informs the girl matter-of- factly. Lea was used to seeing Derrick with Nikki, the known bibliophile of the family. "He walked me here today because no one else had time."
The girl smiles kindly at Derrick, "Oh." Bradin notices that her smile was the kind that showed off the top row of her front teeth, a smile the exuded warmth, and lit up her face.
She maintains her smile as she graciously greets him, "Hi, Bradin." His name rolls off her tongue with the smoothest inflection.
"Lea," Martha refers to the girl behind the desk, then drops her voice two notches, "gives us extra leftover prizes sometimes," explaining their insistence on the precise timing of their library visit.
Lea seizes Martha and Derrick's record sheets, and they scurry off towards the shelves to search for new titles.
Bradin hangs around behind them near the information desk awkwardly.
Lea swiftly counts up their reading record sheets by stamping it with a Winnie-the-Pooh rubber stamp.
"The other side of the lobby. The young adults' section?" She repeats again, giving Bradin a "You're-just-going-to-stand-there?" look through her dark eyelashes. "The magazines are there too." She adds after a pause in a dry manner.
"Oh... I..." Bradin chides himself silently—though he wasn't a prodigy like his younger siblings, he doesn't like the idea of being belittled either, "was just trying to think of the title of the book I wanted to read. Uh, is there anything you suggest?"
Lea raises one perfectly groomed eyebrow.
Bradin peers at the title which laid towards the side on the desk in front of Lea, A Midsummer's Night Dream, "A Shakespeare tragedy, maybe?" He grasps at withering strands of knowledge in his memory.
"I actually find the Shakespeare comedies to be overrated. Humor in old English escapes me. This is assigned summer reading for advanced 11th grade English." Lea knew she sounded like a nerdy know-it-all, but in which universe are fairy Queens and donkeys tragic?
"You're going to be a junior?" Bradin is entering the 11th grade himself.
"Mm hm, at Playa Linda High?" Lea answers as she stuffed some goody bags for Derrick and Martha, seemingly in contemplation.
"Me too."
"Oh," Lea finally looks up from the ballooned goody bags. "And you're looking for some summer reading... Do you like Dickens?"
Bradin's expression must have been pretty blank, because Lea answers her own question, with a soft chuckle, "apparently not!"
Bradin can feel a blush creep towards his face.
"Charles does tend to be a bit verbose," Lea reassures him breezily.
"First name basis?" Bradin can't repress the smirk.
Lea smiles wryly, "a shameless exhibition of insolent self-importance."
"Do you always use big words like that?" Bradin catches himself searching for a dictionary.
"Only in the library," Lea's light eyes flashes as she grinned at Bradin. "Well if you prefer lighter reading, how about Tom Sawyer? Mark is a bit less prolific compared to Charles, but a classic gentleman none the less."
By now it is obvious to Bradin that Lea is incredibly smart. He has never met anyone their age who refers to classic authors by their first names. In the past, he had always tried to keep a healthy distance from the brainy kids because they always seemed so severe about their intellect, but something about Lea told Bradin that she knows not to take herself too seriously.
And she proves it by saying, after a slight pause, her grin turning impish, "Or there's always Harry Potter..."
The frown on Bradin's face elicits a laugh from Lea. "You're not a big reader are you?"
With a slight shake of the head, Bradin changes the subject before Lea introduced him to another one of her literary acquaintances. "So...you've lived around here long?"
"All my life!" Lea answers in a sing-song voice.
"But I haven't seen you around much," Bradin gestures towards the library windows that reveal the beach and the water that was right outside the building.
"Yeah, if you don't spend every minute of your waking hour at the beach you shall be a social pariah—rule #18 in Proper Conduct of Playa Linda Citizens." Lea vaguely skirts the question.
Bradin laughs, "What, you prefer to spend most of your time hanging out with uh... Charles and Mark?"
Lea crooks her neck in contemplation before answering, "not exactly,"
Bradin grins at her roundabout admission.
Derrick and Martha stagger back towards the information desk with an armload of books each. Lea checks the books out for them, then hands them their goody bags. From her revolving chair, she leans towards the tiny tots, "I slipped a little something extra in there." She gives the two a mischievous wink.
As Bradin, Derrick and Martha exit the children's section, Callie strolls in from an entrance on the other side, just in time to catch Bradin's fading back figure.
"Hey Callie," Lea calls out to her substitute for the afternoon shift. Apparently, lots of Playa Linda kids volunteer at the library during the summer—free air conditioning and it looked good on college applications. Two birds, one stone.
"Was that Bradin Westerly?" Callie asks in a hushed pining voice.
"Should I have alerted the National Enquirerer?" Lea muses. It suddenly hit her that the boy was the same one that Callie used to talk about.
"Lea!" Callie admonishes her friend, after their pseudo-date that ended with Bradin running to Sarah, Callie had decided that it just wasn't meant to be—but it still doesn't stop her from gawking when given the chance.
"Callie!" Lea imitates her tone as she stuffed her belongings into a sky blue cotton canvas messenger bag. "Anyways didn't you say that he's an ass?"
"Well, he's off the Dateable Boys list, but he's still cute, and he's really okay." Callie tries to explain that she and Bradin have reconciled
"That's supposed to be the panacea for his bad decisions?" Lea is unconvinced
"pana-what?"
"Callie, you should spend more time on your SAT vocabulary." Lea advises
"Don't you just feel bad for him? They lost their parents." Callie isn't about to let Lea change the subject on her.
"Oliver Twist was an orphan"
"Who's Oliver Twist? And what does that have to do with anything?"
"Didn't make him a jerk."
"So... You don't think he's hot?"
Lea is a bit exasperated. "If you like the Aaron Carter type." Lea herself prefers the Chad Michael Murray type though.
"He surfs"
"My brother surfs."
"Your brother's hot."
"I did not need to hear that."
"He is!"
"Brother! Sibling! SAME PARENTS?" Lea emphasizes.
"Lea," Callie sighs, "You just don't understand the value of good eye candy" Inwardly, Callie has always been irked by Lea's lack of interest in boys, seeing as how Lea was undoubtedly the prettiest girl amongst the Playa Linda locals.
In a nut shell, Lea was as beautiful as Lana Lang from that Smallville show and smarter than Joey Potter from Dawson's Creek, nothing short of a really well-read Superman should be good enough for her.
"Callie!" Lea imitates her exaggerated tone, "God forbid if I look for some substance underneath a good tan."
"So you'll admit Bradin's a hottie." Callie states rather than requests.
Seeing as how Callie seems to be determined not to let Lea leave unless she succumbs, Lea sighs, monotonously, Lea gives Callie what she wants. "Sure, sure, Bradin oh Bradin, he's a modern day Narcissus."
"Narcissist?" Callie is confused
"Narciss-us," Lea continues to her Cliff notes version of the myth. "He's the origin of the word. Greek pretty boy who dissed a nymph and eventually withers into a flower after staring at his own reflection for, like, an eternity."
"Bradin's not like that!" Callie defends the boy, despite the similarity the story had to her own situation—so is Lea calling her a nymph?
Lea gives a dismissing shrug and wave as she skirted past Callie's human barrier. "Have fun stuffing goody bags! I'll see you around!" She has more important things to do than a debate about the merits of Bradin Westerly.
Swinging her bag over her shoulders, Lea walks out the double doors, bracing herself for the wave of heat that's about to hit her.
She's about to head to her Freelander when suddenly, someone grabs her arm. Her heart skips a beat, and Lea whirls around to find herself face to face with the logo of a white surfing T-shirt stretched across a chest in the early developmental stages of muscles. Lea raises her eyes to find herself staring into a pair of crystal blue orbs.
She rolls her eyes and shifts the weight of her bag, "I don't know about the laws in the-land-of-where-you-came-from, but in California, stalking is illegal."
A/N: My My, I made a lot of mistakes didn't I? That's what happens when the author can't decide on a verb tense. I'd pay you to read and review, but I'm not rich. But I will give you my undying gratitude...
melodie568- [[Confetti & Hugs]] You are my first reviewer and the first receiver of my well, undying gratitude! Thank you for pointing out my mistakes, I have gone back and corrected them. Hope you keep with the story, and yes, Chad Michael Murray is a delicious combination of molecules (grin)