Hello, my loves. :) I'm so sorry this took so long…Chels is a lazy procrastinator. :slaps wrists: And the last bits of school have been pretty hectic. Yeah...and it's so weird not responding to reviews. OO Maybe I'll do them all at one time some day, but it is 2 AM right now, and I stayed up all night typing this, so I think it can wait. I hope you guys enjoy it, and that it was worth the wait.
Charlie POV-
Taylor, Alex, and I all walked into the large suit, luggage in our grips.
"This is it," I say with appreciation.
Taylor, however, makes a beeline for the bed nearest the door and throws himself on it. "I call bed!"
"There's three of us, Tay. We have to share," Alex says.
"No way – this bed it mine," Taylor says, shaking his head. "I'm sure as heck not sharing with you."
"Tay, stop being a baby. If you won't share with me, then you can share with Charlie, but you're not getting that bed to yourself."
"There is no way I'm sharing with you guys. This bed is mine; I claimed it," Taylor protests firmly.
"Three people, two beds, Taylor. Do the math," I say as I look between the two beds, wondering how long it will take to get an agreement.
"You and Alex can share."
"Why can't you two share? You're practically related now," I ask, scrunching my face.
"You don't get a choice," Taylor says with a nod.
"Why's that?" I ask.
"Because I'm older than you, so I know what's best. Getting my own bed is definitely what's best."
"Why, Taylor? Do you still wet the bed?" I ask with a grin.
Taylor glares. "Shut up. I don't wet the bed."
"Okay, I am taking charge here, being as I am the oldest," Alex interjected. "I will get one bed; Taylor, you'll get the other bed; and Charlie, you can sleep on the couch."
The room is silent for a second before we all begin to unload our things, accepting the decision - at least we all get our own bed. I'm just glad I didn't end up on the floor.
I have to admit the suite really is nice. It's a good thing Connie's step-mom is so loaded. This is going to be an incredible trip – definitely more exciting than spending my summer days cooped up with my mom and evil step-dad.
Though the fact that Connie refuses to speak to me might put a slight damper on the trip.
"Guys, I'm going to wander around a bit until dinner," Connie says, peeking her head in the door as I finish unpacking the last of my stuff. "Call my cell if you need me."
Watch as she disappears through the door, my unmade bed suddenly of no concern to me. (Not that it is ever of concern to me.) I wonder what it's going to take this time to get back on her good side.
A snapping noise jolts me out of my thoughts, suddenly leading me to realize Taylor's hand is now in my line of vision, blocking where the door had been. I glance up and see a smirk on his face.
"Welcome back."
"Shut up, Tay," I say, rolling my eyes and going back to what I was doing.
"You were staring at Connie. Are you in loooove with my sister?" he taunts with a smirk.
I busy myself with putting my clothes in the dresser drawer assigned to me – that way I can hide the sudden heat on my face. Curse you, Taylor. Curse you. Besides, she isn't even speaking to me…yet. But I plan to fix that. "You know, Tay, for Connie's cool older brother, you sure are an idiot sometimes."
"You know, Charlie, for being my sister's secret luster, you sure hide it well…something," he taunts again with a joking grin.
"Shut up!" I chunk a pillow at his head, hitting him in the face and making him laugh. "I do not lust Connie! Get off it."
"You do to."
"Do not."
"Do to."
"Do not. I think I would know if I did."
"You're just in denial," he says matter-of-factly before his face breaks into a grin again.
I shake my head and close the drawer. "You're an idiot" I stand up and close the drawer with my foot. "I'm out. See you guys at dinner."
Before Taylor has the chance to taunt my further, I'm safely out the door. Not really sure of my way around the hotel, I get on the elevator and hope I don't end up in some basement or something.
I step out into the lobby and see throngs of other tourists, but alas, no Connie. There's only so many places she could be…I'd call her, but she would either pretend she hadn't heard it and not pick up when she saw it was my number, or she would tell me to leave her alone, thus ruining any chance of "accidentally" finding her.
A head of brown hair catches my attention, and surely enough, it's Connie. She's sitting under a palm tree by the pool, sketching. (If I were a photographer, it would be one of those pictures I would take, but I can hardly work a disposable camera, so I'll settle for simply taking a mental snapshot.)
She doesn't notice me until I'm a few feet from her. "Hey," I say as I sit beside her.
She instantly pulls the sketch to her chest and looks straight forward stiffly.
"You can't hate me forever, you know. I'm afraid you are stuck with me for this entire trip, so you might as well just save yourself the trouble and forgive me now for whatever it was that I did to tick you off."
She gave me a sideways glance. "What do you mean 'for whatever you did'? You know what you did."
I blinked and shook my head. "No I don't."
She continued watching me out of the corner of her eye, and while it's probably my imagination, she appeared to turn a little pink at my staring. She turned her vision forward again and kept her expression even. "Then why should I forgive you?"
"Because you love me and don't want to be stuck with Taylor tomorrow as he scouts out the lady lifeguards?"
She paused a moment. "Hmph. I could always hang with Elisha as we scout out the cute surfer guys," she says with a hint of a tease in her voice. "You're disposable."
"Ooh, burn. That hurts, Connie," I say, knowing that she's forgiven me for now. It's a pretty familiar cycle for us. We've got each other down pat.
A sickly sweet and innocent smile curls on her lips. "You can come scout out cute surfer guys with us too if you want to that badly." She winks at me, and I roll my eyes with a laugh.
"You're not funny."
"Yes I am. And I'm irresistibly, to boot," she says with a giggle and another wink.
I feel my face flush, and I probably have a weird or embarrassed expression on my face because she pinches my cheek and says, "You're too cute sometimes."
My face scrunches, and I bat away her hand with my own. "Have we not discussed cheek-pinching?"
She smiles innocently. "Oops, sorry. Your face was just adorable, and you looked like a little kid, so I felt the impulse."
"Don't let it happen again," I say, poking her arm with my index finger.
"Or else what?" she says tauntingly.
A smirk curls across my lips, and I stand up, scooping her up and slinging her over my shoulder. She squeaks loudly as I stood on the edge of the pool. "Or else I will hurl you into the deep, dark depth that is the hotel swimming pool!"
"Put me down! Charles Joshua Conway, if you don't put me down, I swear I'll scream!"
"Down? Put you down?" I say, moving so she slips into my arms. "Okay," I say nonchalantly, pretending I'm going to drop her in the pool.
"No!" she squeaks, wrapping her arms tightly around my neck and burying her face in my shoulder.
I look down at her, feeling my face flush slightly again at the close contact. I shake myself out of it. "You don't like the deep, dark depth that is the hotel swimming pool?" She shakes her head, her face still buried in my shoulder. She tightens her grip around my neck.
When she peeks up at me, I turn back around to let her back down on the ground. She locks her eyes with mine and stares up at me. I stare back.
Before I even realize what's happening, she pushes me backwards into the water with a big splash. I flail my way back up to the surface and shake my head like a dog trying to dry off. When I blink my eyes open, I see her smirky Cheshire grin.
Without a word, I swiftly push myself out of the water and look at her with a mischievous smile.
She shrieks out a laugh and takes off running around to the other side of the pool.
I run after her and grab her from behind, picking her up and listening to her complaints of me getting her clothes all wet.
"Well, you should have thought of that before you pushed me in," I say with a smile before dropping her in the pool.
She bounced back to the surface of the water and splashed me, obviously trying not to grin. "You jerk! I can't believe you did that!"
"Heh, you were asking for it. I'm a vengeful guy." I hold out my hand to help her back out.
Big mistake.
Within seconds, I'm back in the water. I must admit she's strong for her size.
I was instantly splashed when I came back up, and I splashed back in retaliation.
"You will pay for your crimes!" I say, dunking her under the mid-laugh.
"Evil!" she says, sticking out her tongue and wiping water from her face. "You know I can't dunk you!"
"Not my fault you're short," I say in a teasing sing-song voice.
"Not my fault you're freakishly tall!" she retorts, making a face.
"But you love me anyway," I say with a grin.
"Dork." She flicks my forehead.
I chuckle and climb out of the pool successfully helping her out this time. "I am the King of Dorks. Bow to me."
"You wish," she says, poking my arm.
"Admit it. You're just jealous." I nod as she rings out her hair and nudges me with her elbow.
"I repeat: you wish," she says with a giggle, rolling her eyes.
"The denial is really unhealthy, you know."
"You're beginning to sound like Tay, you know," she teases as she picks up her sketch from early, surprisingly dry and still out of my line of vision.
"Ack, don't say that," I say with a laugh, nudging her as we walk back to the lobby to ask for towels.
"Jesse would be psyched it I told him he was like Tay."
I chuckle. "Yeah, well Jesse worships your brother in a god-like way."
"Yeah. I don't get why," she says with a laugh.
"I know that he's practically my brother in every non-blood sense of the word, but I wouldn't want to steal Jesse's thunder." I grin as we walk inside the building, cold air instantly removing all previous feelings of warmth from outside.
Leaving wet footprints in our wake, we go up to the front desk and ask for towels. They of course oblige.
I put one around Connie's shoulders before proceeding to dry myself off. We're getting dirty looks from the janitor – they must get a lot of wet footprints around here.
When I turn back to Connie, I see that she's already halfway to the elevator. I trot after her, and we fall into step.
"Shall we?" I say, nodding my head over to where her family is gathered, obviously deciding on where to get dinner.
"We shall," she says with a smile as we make our way in that direction.