A/N Again the disclaimer. I do not know personally anyone mentioned. This is purely a fiction exercise. Also because English is not my native language you may have to excuse some mistakes I may write. That being said I hope you enjoy it. :)
After telling Grant about the accident that killed your sister, Travis finishes showing the rest of the house to Grant and ten minutes later you all reunite in the kitchen area.
"Who's up for some frozen pizza for dinner?" Alexa says giggling. "Hope you all are, as we don't have anything else right now in the freezer! Hahaha!"
"Sounds great to me." Travis smiles as he and Grant arrive in the kitchen too.
Grant nods and he looks at you with a gentle smile. You could swear your heart was about to melt with just that one smile. You smile back at him discreetly and feeling happy that apparently he isn't upset by your almost rude refusal of showing him the house.
"Fortunately we also have ice cream..." Erin says as she goes through the freezer's content.
"And wine. Sweet European wine." You say grinning holding two bottles of wine you have brought from the cellar.
They all burst into laughter and Grant then adds, "and my sweet chocolate candy bars. Never forget that." Which only makes everyone laugh even louder.
"You guys are hilarious but tomorrow we'll have to go to town for some grocery shopping." Alexa says matter-a-factually.
"And we will. Now shall we get these frozen babies in the oven or what?" Travis jokes.
"Right away!" Erin takes care of the pizzas.
You occupy yourself by opening the bottles of wine and you don't even feel Grant approaching you. "Do you need help with that?" He asks with a smile.
You almost jump startled. "Oh." You realize he's right next to you as you can even inhale his sweet scent. "I can manage." You reply dryly without even looking at him, because of the uneasiness you're feeling, but you immediately regret it. "You can open that one." This time you smile, looking into his eyes and handing him the second bottle of wine waiting to be opened.
Grant grins accepting it. "Thanks." He stands right next to you opening the bottle.
When you open your bottle you start pouring wining into the glasses. You extend one glass to Grant and you taste the wine from yours. "Here. Try it and tell me if you like it. If you don't, then you clearly don't know anything about wine."
Grant chuckles. "I trust you. You seem quite the specialist." He tastes the wine and nods. "Yeah, it's definitely amazing."
"Told you so." You grin. Again you have an urgent will of just hugging him. His cute face, his adorable smile, his general likability make you feel that way. Not to mention the more sexual thoughts but right that's something that's not even in your head. That was something you thought you saw him on TV or some magazine. But now that you've met him, and even though he's obviously gorgeous and sexy, you just want to hug him and give him tiny little kisses all over his face.
You shake away your thoughts when you hear Alexa asking which movie you guys want to see. You all settle for a super hero movie and in less than twenty minutes you are all watching the Avengers, eating pizza and drinking wine.
Grant was sitting next to you on the couch and you two shared some ordinary talking and jokes about the movie.
When it's finished you stand up to take the glasses back to the kitchen. In no time and with everyone's help you have everything cleaned.
"Who's up for a night swim?" Travis asks excited.
"Now?" Grants asks amused.
"Told you the pool is heated." Travis smiles.
Erin and Alexa both say yes and they go change into their bikinis in a rush.
Travis shrugs and jokes, "well, guess I don't want to scare anyone with my underwear so I'll change too."
You are left alone with Grant and he speaks. "You don't want to go?"
"I already have my bikini on. You know, for the road trip, I can never know whether they want to stop by a beach and take a bath or not."
"Hahaha!" Grant laughs and you look strangely at him. What was so funny about your answer? He immediately explains. "Sorry, it's just that I thought the same. I have my swimming shorts underneath these jeans."
"Great minds think alike." You say with a chuckle.
He laughs again. "Indeed. Hey..." His touches your arm with his hand. "I..." He takes the same hand to his head like he's trying to find the best way to say something.
"What is it?" You smile at his embarrassment.
"I just wanted to apologize to you..."
"About what?" You ask confused.
"I don't even know if I should bring this up, I don't wanna upset you... Again..."
"Upset me?"
"Travis told me about your sister. Sorry I said that about you rescuing me in the ocean... I had no idea. It was unfortunate..." At this moment Grant realizes that you have tears running down your eyes. Since he said the words 'your sister', the tears were like something automatic. You stay silent and still but the tears roll down like an open tap. "Oh shit. I'm so sorry. Come here." He swiftly pulls you into his arms and hugs you tight.
For what seems like an eternity you just stay there, enjoying his embrace, your arms around his waist and your head resting on his shoulder. He keeps caressing your back softly with his chin resting on the top of your head.
When you finally look up at him your eyes are all red and puffy. "I'm sorry about this. It's been over ten years but it still feels like it happened yesterday..."
Grant keeps one arm around you and with the other hand he wipes some tears off your face. "It's ok. I can't even imagine what that feels like... To lose a sister like that..."
"Yeah." You're not sure you really want to talk to Grant about that and relive that moment again. You look at his t-shirt all wet on his shoulder because of your tears. "Sorry about this."
He smiles. "Oh, no problem. Never mind that."
You find yourself smiling back at him like a fool. His arm is still around your shoulders and your hand still resting on his waist. "Sorry I was a bitch when we arrived here and I refused to show you the house. I don't know why I said that. I was never upset at you, you couldn't obviously have guessed what happened... Sorry."
"It's ok. I'm just relieved you're not mad at me." He grins.
"How could I? You did nothing wrong."
"Sometimes I get carried away teasing and fooling around with everyone and not everybody takes it lightly..."
"Yeah, you do it a lot, I've noticed." You giggle.
"I'll tone it down, I promise."
"Oh, I didn't mean that. Don't do it for me. I'm a teaser myself. Well, when I'm comfortable with people, not with someone I just met... Oh sorry, I didn't mean that. Never mind. I swear I do a better job writing than talking."
"Hahah! It's fine, really."
You try to adjust and straighten his t-shirt over his shoulder for lack of better words to say.
Grant keeps his tender smile. "Don't try too hard, I'm gonna take it off anyway when we get to the pool."
His words make you blush. Not for the words themselves but because they put an image in your head. The image of Grant bare chested in front of you. "Right." You make a shy smile and instead of pulling away you just keep standing there close to him, not moving an inch.
Grant doesn't seem to be very willing of moving either. "You sure you're ok?"
"If you mean my sister, I'll never be ok, but yeah, I know what you mean. I'm fine. Thanks."
"What about your parents?"
"What do you think? They were devastated. They say that it was a miracle that at least one of us survived and since that they've been overprotective with me. And as much as they say it was not my fault I still think it was. I mean, if I'd been more careful my sister wouldn't have even been dragged by that wave in the first place."
"It was an accident. You can't blame yourself like that. You were a child yourself back then. Not some superhero." Grant strokes you cheek tenderly.
"Right. But still... Well, after that... Well, that's when I started my obsession with sports. Especially swimming and surf at first."
"Oh really? I figured someone would be scared, even traumatized with the ocean after going through something like that."
"No, I thought I needed to be prepared if something like that happened again. It's weird I know."
"It's not. It shows great courage from you. You just need to accept that it wasn't your fault."
"She was so sweet, you know? And so smart and cute. Even at that age we got along perfectly." You take your phone out of your pocket and you search for some pictures there. It's a few old pictures of your sister alone and also you, your sister and your parents.
"Oh, so cute! You were both so adorable." Grant smiles.
"We were..." Upon looking at the photos you feel like you're about to cry again.
Grant notices it and he hugs you again. "Hey, it's ok. It's good you have so fond memories of her."
This time you completely relax in his arms. You feel like you could stay like that forever. Grant doesn't seem to be very willing of letting you go either. He keeps holding you close.
You inhale his sweet perfume deeply like you're getting some courage to finally pull away. And when you do you realize Grant has shed some tears too. "Oh Grant." Almost automatically you wipe one tear off his cheek with your thumb and you smile tenderly.
Grant giggles embarrassed. "Guess I got a little emotional with this story about your sister..."
"You're sweet." You keep smiling like a fool.
"Oh well, at least I put that beautiful smile on your face. The tears were worth it."
"Oh, stop!" You giggle embarrassed.
"Ok, I'll stop. No need to get embarrassed." This time he grins in a teasing way.
"You're unbelievable." You comment in a low voice and you immediately add, "What about I get us some towels and we go to the pool now? I suppose they are already there."
Grant nods and smiles. "Sure. Let's go."
After picking two towels, one for you and another for Grant, you two get down to the pool. There you find Travis, Erin and Alexa already inside.
"Finally you two!" Travis exclaims.
"Where the hell were you?" Alexa asks with a naughty smile.
"Oh, in the kitchen." You reply like it's no big deal.
"In the kitchen?" Erin giggles.
Grant smiles. "We were talking about how we are gonna kick all your asses in a swimming contest."
You giggle. "Right, that's it."
Alexa protests. "Oh no, Grant. I don't know whether you are a good swimmer or not but I'm not gonna compete against her. She's a pro."
Travis nods and adds. "She is and so is Grant. Forget the contests and get inside. This is wonderfully warm."
"Right." In a second Grant is taking off his clothes and getting inside the pool. You try hard not to stare at his body while you remove your own clothes.
You take a dive in splashing water all around.
"Always the big entrance!" Erin jokes.
You have only just emerged and Grant is already beside you. "Hey, nice diving style."
"Thanks. You're not so bad yourself." You smile looking into his gorgeous eyes. If he wants to tease you, you'll tease him back too. After all, it's something you usually do as your friends have already made very clear.
"Thank you. Coming from you, it's a great compliment." He grins.
Alexa throws a round float at you two. "This ain't the kitchen!"
You roll your eyes. "Message received!" And you throw the float back at her.
Without even saying anything to each other, you and Grant refrain from keeping conversations just between you two to avoid any more comments from your friends.
After an hour you all decide it's time to leave.
"There's really not a waking up time, of course, you're free to wake up at whatever time you want BUT we must go grocery shopping tomorrow." Alexa says smiling.
"We can all go." Erin replies.
"Ok, we'll see tomorrow. I'm dead, good night y'all!" Alexa runs upstairs to her bedroom.
After a quick chat, you, Grant, Erin and Travis go to your assigned bedrooms as well. When you're finally in bed you recall all of today's moments with Grant since the moment you met him. You sigh deeply while you look at some of today's pictures in your phone. 'He's so adorable, so cute... Oh, what am I saying? He's like this with everyone... Well, he was not like this with Alexa... Or Erin and Travis for that matter..." You're about to turn off your phone when you receive a text. It's from Grant. You had exchanged phone numbers earlier, 'just in case'. Your heart almost comes out of your mouth while you read it. 'Just to wish you good night again. Meeting you has already made this trip worth while. Sleep tight. Xx P.S - I wanna see you surfing tomorrow. ;) '
"Oh dear." You take a deep breath and you start typing a reply. 'Thank you, I've enjoyed meeting you too. We'll both surf then. I can teach you. ;) Good night. x'
