2 Deja Blue (19 page)

Nick smiled, “How about two? And I’ll walk you to the door.”

Chapter 19

The next evening
I walked to the lake to meet Anya and Brennan for my “swimming drills” as they liked to call them.
After talking to Nick on the phone in the morning and making plans to see him on my birthday,
I had worked all day and
had to help with dinner.
I was
feeling pretty wiped out, especially after my late night with Nick.
I wasn’t really feeling to
o
energized to work out this evening. I hoped they would go easy on me tonight.
I walked up to our driftwood meeting spot on the beach and saw Anya sitting on the log, patiently waiting for me.

“Where’s Brennan?” I asked as I dropped my towel.

“He’s not coming tonight,” she answered simply.

“Why not?
I thought he was the one all for these drills.”
He practically had a coronary when I ditched them last night, I thought to myself.

Anya shrugged, “He said he didn’t want to come tonight. I think he was going to catch a movie or something with Leo.”

Huh. That wasn’t like Brennan. Especially after the big deal he made out of me not practicing last night. Oh well.
I shook my head.
I was never going to figure him out. He’s just too
irritating
to me sometimes.

“Come on,” Anya said pulling me out of my revelry. “Let’s get to work.” She grabbed my hand and
tugged
me towards the
lake.
Just as we neared the water, Anya’s cell phone went off. She
pulled it out of her pocket
and shook her head as she read the message. She let out a big sigh, “It’s for you,” she said as she held out the phone to me. Puzzled, I took the phone out of her hand and smiled
as soon as I read the message:

“
anya
i
know
ur
w rube.

on
ho
t
date
w
michael
.

pss
it on
so in luv
grrrl
!
”

Well, at least someone was having a good time tonight.
I quickly texted him back,

“
gr8!
smooches
!
hve
fun
ttyl
,
r
.
”

I
handed the phone back to Anya. “Thanks,” I said. “You know how Jeremy is. He’s just so giddy right now. He’s never had a boyfriend before.”

Anya smiled and nodded, “Yeah. I know.  But we’ve got to get to work.” She tucked the phone into
her
pocket
and sent me out into the water to put
me through my swimming drills.
I swam
laps,
practiced
diving off the docks and sw
am
underwater. As I came up for a breather and sat next to Anya on the docks, her phone rang again. She looked at the message, rolled her eyes and handed it over to me, “It’s Jeremy again. Some sort of crisis.”

I looked at his text.

“
OMG
!OMG
!OMG!
red
slushee
al
l
ovr
my
white
p
a
nz
!
M @
icecream
counter
stll
.
f
re
e
kN
out
!
”

I giggled and quickly texted him back,

“
use
cold water
bthr
m
now!
& y the
hell r u wearing white
?
!
”
 

Before I could even hand the phone back to Anya, another text came through from Jeremy,

“
how
do I get my
panz
under the faucet
???!!!
Strip?!?!
”

I couldn’t help it, I giggled when I read it and quickly texted bac
k, with Anya peeking over to see what I was typing.

“LOL!
dont
take
ur
panz
off!
use
papertowl
dumass
!”

I handed
the phone back to Anya’s warnin
g glare. “What?” I innocently said, “Come on! It’s Jeremy! It’s not like I can control when he needs me.”

“Yes, but Ruby, you need to be focused on what we’re doing here. These interruptions are just distracting you,” she scolded me. Here I
was
working my butt off, and then
Brennan blows me off, and now Anya’s getting cranky with me? No way was I going to let this slide.

“Oh Anya, you
gotta
gimme
a break on this one. You know I’ve been doing everything you’ve asked me to do. Besides, you and Brennan have that whole
Fairy
telepathy thing going on…Jeremy and I need to stay connected too. It’s your job, as my friend, to help out with that. You know I don’t have a cell. And
come on…It’s Jeremy!”
I said with a sly smile, wiggling my eyebrows at her. 
Anya’s face softened a little.
She let out a big sigh.
“
Ohhhh
.
Alright.
But we still have a lot to do tonight. So
,
if he keeps texting, just be warned that you’re going to have to stay that much later.”

“No problem,” I agreed
, “But I can’t leave a man down…especially a man with his pants down!
” I joked and Anya giggled.

Anya started throwing
brightly colored stones
out into the water and told me I had to go fetch them. She was going to keep track of how quickly I could retrieve them. What am I, a dog?
She kept telling
me to work on my body alignment
and improve my gliding. She
was
shouting
stupid things
like, “No, n
o! Place your arms out in front like a swordfish’s sword!” I’ve never even seen a sword fish, other than in pictures
.
Besides, I was kind of picturing myself as a dog.
Now I’m supposed to be a sword
fish
?

Her advice droned on and on.
“Swim more on your side, you’ll stay more streamlined
,
create
less resistance
,
and  move
even faster through the water. Think of yourself as a fish. Fish don’t swim straight and flat,” Oh
my gosh
! If I heard that one more time, I was going to scream! I. Hate. Fish!

After a few stone gathering swims, I was now headed back to the docks for a short rest,
and thankfully, I was saved by the bell.
Literally.
I
heard Anya’s cell ringing again and
saw her waving the
phone frantically
.
I
hoisted myself onto the dock to see what was up now.
She handed me the phone
,
and I looked at Jeremy’s text,

“
strtn
nu trend w
white.
d
dnt
wrk
2 well.
soooo
pissed!
m
tote flirting w
sum
dude
whn
i
got
bck
frm
rstrm
.
gonna
kill the loser!
grr
rr
!
”

I shook my head and blew out a sigh.
That Jeremy.
He is
sooo
overreacting. Michael’s probably just making conversation with somebody
,
and Jeremy’s going all
psycho
“
Fatal Attraction.
”
Anya looked over my shoulder at Jeremy’s text.

“
Here.
I got this one,” she said.
Ahhh
.
Leave it to Anya
,
the
“
mother
”
of our group, to settle
down
the situation. Anya
quickly grabbed the phone out of my
hand and texted with light
ning speed as I watched,

“
calm
down.
put
u
r
arm around
hm

& introduce
urs
lf
2
nwguy

join
the
convo
& smile
”

“There,” she smiled as she slid the phone back into her pocket.
“
Crisi
s hopefully
a
verted. Come on
,
you.
Back to work.”
We walked back up the beach and headed over to another area where she had huge rocks waiting
on the beach
for me. Oh joy. What
torture did she have planned for me now?

She had
me carry 40-pound
rocks under water, and run along the bottom of the lake, letting me drop the rock only when I needed to come up for air.
Which, unfortunately for me, was only
every
seventeen
minutes or so.
Yeah, I could go at least
seventeen
minutes under water before I needed to take a breath. Pretty cool, huh?

When I surfaced for air and
walked back
to shore, Anya was impatiently holding the phone out for me again.

“
lovelovelove
ths
man.
a
ll
bttr
now! @movies
”

I texted back,
“
:
)
”
a
nd handed the phone back to Anya. She slipped the phone back into her pocket and looked annoyed.
Apparently,
my seventeen minutes under water wasn’t cool enough for Anya
. She insisted that I could go much longer and shouldn’t need to drop the rock that soon.

“Come ON Ruby! You’re not concentrating hard enough,” she scolded me. “You should be able to stay under water much, much longer than this. Try
harder
.”

I was panting heavily and feeling exhausted. “I
am
trying harder. I’m just tired Anya.”

She shook her head at me like a school teacher scolding a student, “No. You aren’t. You need to
focus
.
Jeremy’s practically had an entire relationship tonight and you’ve barely begun to really push yourself.
The
Challenge
is just two days away. There may very well be an underwater scavenge part of the course
during the
Challenge
. If you have to keep coming up for air as often as you’ve been, you will lose for sure.”

Great.
Like I needed to hear that.
I wasn’t a dragon or a
Mermaid
! I was
human
. I needed air when I needed air,
d
ragon magic or not. I blew out a sigh of frustration
.
“Look Anya, I’m doing my best. I’m tir
ed. I don’t know what to tell you
.” It felt weird to be arguing with Anya, because it was something I never usually did. But she just didn’t understand! I
was
tired. I was really trying.
I didn’t need her making me feel even
guiltier
than I already would feel if I lose. I was worrying about this competition more than anyone else.

She sighed, sounding a litt
le more relaxed,
“Okay. Let’s just do it again
.
Just please,
please
try to stay under as long as you can, okay?”

I nodded, but
was still annoyed. Of course I’m staying under as long as I can. Did she think I was slacking off? I was
not
slacking off.
Stripping o
ff
her shorts and leaving her cell on the beach, Anya followed me out into the water this time.