My Fake Summer Boyfriend (6 page)

But after supper my mood perked up when
Alex arrived with Hailey, who was going to play with Jason. Jason had already set up cards for a game of Concentration.

"Let
's walk farther down the beach tonight," Alex said. "I'd like to explore a little."

"Sure." I kept an eye out for the giggling girls. I hoped they
'd appear so I'd have an excuse to do more than hold hands with Alex. "Hold it, Alex. I think it's starting to rain."

Alex
held out his hand. "It's just sprinkling."

"All right," I said.

But the farther we walked, the harder it rained. Finally I had to speak up. "I'm getting wet and cold." I shivered. "M-maybe we should go back."

"I guess you
're right—" Alex stopped. He stared at me.

I waved my hand in front of
Alex's face. "Hey. What's wrong?"

"Your hair. It
's ... it's ...." Alex shook his head.

"What
's so unusual? It's just wet. You've seen me with wet hair before." I ran my fingers through my bangs. I looked at my hands. "Oh, no!" They were all red!

"What is it?"

"I-I put a red ... rinse on hair and now it's, um, washing out."

"Maybe that
's why you looked different today." Alex grinned. "It was your hair." Tenderly, he wiped the drips away from my bangs.

"Guess so," I said sheepishly.

There was a crash of thunder. Alex grabbed my hand, and we started running for the cottage.

"We
'd better get inside fast," he yelled through the now-pouring rain.

Just outside the cottage door,
Alex stopped and pulled me into his arms. "Maybe one of these days," he whispered, "I'll be able to spend an entire evening alone with my favorite redhead."

"I hope so." I smiled
as I savored the warmth of his arms around me. "For now we'll have to settle for a rousing game of cards with Jason and Hailey."

Chapter Six

I ran to the mailbox as soon as the mail truck passed by. It was Saturday, it was rainin
g, and I was bored. The Stedmans had gone to Newport, Rhode Island, for the weekend and wouldn't be back until Sunday afternoon.

I pulled the mail out of the box, feeling around to make sure I didn
't miss anything. Tucked in with two bills and an ad was a postcard. It was for me, from Samantha. I dashed into the cottage, tossed the rest of the mail onto the kitchen counter and ran upstairs to my room to read the postcard in privacy. Jason and my folks had gone into town but were due home any moment. I stretched out on my bed to read the postcard.

Hi, Katie!

Love my job at McDonald
's. Meeting lots of cute guys! How's Chatfield? Saw Nicole Kendall with a blond hunk (turned out he's her brother, Logan)! Well, how's your love life???

Write soon.

Love,

Samantha

I wasted no time. I dug out my writing paper, sat cross-legged on my bed and wrote right back.

Dear Samantha,

My "love life" is interesting to say the least. I guess you haven't heard. The Stedmans are spending the summer in Chatfield—just a few doors down from us! So I really am having my trial run with a summer romance, only with Alex himself. Unfortunately, it's not as exciting as it might sound.

Actually, we are pretending to have a romance. (He
's pretending, I should say, and I'm acting as though I'm pretending) in order to keep a determined group of ten-year-old girls out of his hair. They're not easy to discourage (luckily!). Anyway, the romance may be a fake (on his part), but the kisses are for real! Alex takes my breath away. Literally! However, I think I'm just a poor substitute for Nicole Kendall. He keeps her picture and letters on his dresser (I baby-sit for his sister and Jason, so I kind of know what’s happening at the Stedmans' cottage).

The phony romance was at my suggestion, of course, but sometimes I feel that I
'm just a summer replacement for Nicole Kendall and that in the fall he'll simply drop me and renew his option with her. But I can't just turn off my feelings for him. I'm going to hang in there and see if I can turn all of this into the real thing. I'll show him I'm just as much of a woman as Nicole is!

Stay tuned for further adventures.

Love,

Katie

I wanted to mail my letter to Samantha right away. I thought I remembered seeing a mailbox in front of Bob
's Beach Store and decided to go there. The exercise would be good for me and it would give me something to do.

I slipped on my old blue parka and walked to Bob
's. Just as I was dropping my letter in the mailbox, I saw a familiar face peering out of a red parka.

"Hi,
Katie." It was Jake.

"Hi." My gaze was drawn to
Jake's dimpled smile. "Are you going to work?"

"I just got off."
Jake looked down at the ground and scuffed his foot in the dirt. "Would you like to go for a walk or something?"

"A walk? I, uh, my parents aren
't home, and I didn't leave them a note and I have to get back." What a crummy excuse! I wasn't handling it right at all. But it was so unexpected. I felt I should be true to Alex. But Jake was awfully cute and he seemed so nice.

"Oh, well."
Jake shrugged. "I'll see you around."

"Yes. Sure." As
Jake walked away I fought an impulse to run after him. What could I say to him, after all? That I really liked Alex, that we were pretending to go together, but Alex really liked Nicole, but I hoped I could make Alex like me, but I thought Jake was nice, but I would probably never see him again after the summer? At best, he'd think I was crazy.

It started to rain harder than ever. I trotted back to the cottage with torrents of rain pouring off the hood of my parka.

By the next morning it had stopped raining. I looked out my bedroom window to see the sun sparkling on the water. It was going to be a beautiful day.

In the bathroom mirror I could see that I was getting a good, even tan. I had to be careful in the sun and I knew I would never have a really dark tan like
Alex, but compared to my white breasts and body, my face, arms and legs looked pretty brown. Being out in the sun had also brought out golden highlights in my hair. I thought I had a healthy, attractive glow—it must have been from all the fresh air and exercise.

When
Alex popped by at four-thirty to see if I wanted to go swimming with him after supper, I knew I was radiating confidence. By the time he arrived to pick me up for our swim, I was feeling really good.

He was wearing black bathing trunks that were smaller and tighter than his red ones, and I was acutely aware of his body.

"Let's go for that walk down the beach. We really haven't seen much of it yet," he suggested.

"Sounds good to me."

The farther down the beach we walked, the more the terrain changed. We had to scramble over jetties and pick our way around large rocks. The cottages gave way to the houses with yards and trees, and soon we reached a spot where a twenty-foot-high cliff rose above the sand. At that point the house with the turret loomed over us. A wooden staircase led up to its yard. The beach there became a small cove strewn with boulders.

"Let
's stop here," said Alex. "We'd either have to climb a lot of rocks or wait for low tide to make it around to the next part of the beach."

"Fine," I said. "We
've walked pretty far. I could use a rest."

Alex
spread his beach towel on the sand. "Sit down and catch your breath."

I settled back, enjoying the feel of
Alex's arm around me, and listened to the waves gently slapping the shore. A sea gull cried out just before it swooped toward the water to catch a fish. I leaned closer to Alex. "Listen," I whispered. "What's that?"

Alex
listened for a moment. "I don't hear anything."

"It
's the sound of ten-year-old girls giggling. We'd better go into our act."

"It sounds like a whole herd of them. We
'd better be convincing." He pushed me down on his towel, using my towel as a pillow for my head, then lay down beside me, propping himself up on one elbow.

I slid my arms around his neck. His lips were warm on mine, and I could feel his heart beating. Or was it mine?
The pit of my stomach whooshed into a wild swirl.

That kiss was more exciting than any I could
've imagined.

Then
Alex rolled on top of me, kissing me harder. His weight cut off my circulation, not to mention my air supply. His lips were more persuasive than I cared to admit—but I need to breathe!

I couldn
't move. I struggled for air. What had I gotten myself into? "Mmmmff." I tried to tell Alex to stop, but I couldn't as long as he kept kissing me. I tried to shout. "MMMMFF!"

Alex
stopped kissing me. "What?" he gasped.

"You
're crushing me!"

"Oh. Sorry."
Alex slid off me. Then he started kissing me again.

For a moment I savored the velvet war
mth of his kiss. My heart raced with a crazy mixture of pleasure and fear. "I-I think we'd better stop."

"Oh?"
Alex looked deep into my eyes. "I thought this meant you really liked—" He cleared his throat. "Sorry I got the wrong idea. Guess you don’t really … you're not … as experienced as I thought."

"Uh
... guess not." I could feel myself turning crimson. I hated admitting that Alex was right, but what else could I say—that I had been making mad, passionate love for years and just wasn't in the mood now? Confusion paralyzed me. I liked the dizzying currents that raced through me when I kissed Alex. But it scared me, too.
I
was more than satisfied by hugging and kissing. But what about him? He seemed to want ... more.

I sat up and stared out at the water. I could just picture the good laugh at this
Alex and his friends would have when he got back to Hartford. Against my will a tear slid down my cheek.

Alex
wiped it away. "Hey, I'm not the kind of guy who would force himself on anyone." He paused, then put out his hand. "Still friends?"

I hesitated. There was a faint twinkle in
Alex's eyes that I couldn't figure out, but his smile was open and friendly. I took Alex's hand and shook it. "Still friends," I said. I hoped it was true.

Chapter Seven

After our torrid evening on the beach, I limited
Alex's and my kisses to friendly pecks strictly for the benefit of the giggling girls, who continued to lurk around Little's. I'd half expected that Alex would avoid me, but evidently he'd been sincere when he'd said that he wanted to still be friends. I enjoyed his company, and he seemed to enjoy mine. But then, who else was there for him to hang around?

I was surprised at how pleasantly the weeks rolled by. I was saving enough of my babysitting money to be able to buy myself some clothes in the fall and still have plenty left to put in my savings account for college, which was good, but it was more than that which made the summer so, well, gratifying.

Hailey and Jason, different as they were, at least got along, and babysitting was not the boring chore it usually had been for me. I was surprised to learn that, at times, I could enjoy a seven- and eight-year-old. In fact, I found myself planning their activities with enthusiasm and discovered that Hailey and Jason were receptive to my ideas. Jason worked at his swimming and was mastering the backstroke, while Hailey had started decorating a picture frame we had made out of cardboard with shells we had collected from the beach.

According to
Alex that was not the sort of thing that usually interested Hailey. She'd never wanted to work on any sort of arts or crafts before. But every rainy day Hailey would sort through the shells, coat the chosen few with some of my clear nail polish and glue them onto the frame. She was quite particular about choosing her shells and arranging them on the frame, so I was sure it would take her the rest of the summer to finish, unless there was a prolonged rainy spell.

Hailey
had the desired calming effect on Jason that I'd hoped she'd have. Oh, he didn't turn into a Mr. Cool, but he didn't flip out every time he got a little cut or scratch, and he learned to take turns, to let Hailey go first sometimes. Hailey picked up a few clues from Jason, too. She'd had a tendency to be stoic and unemotional, which is fine, but at times I think she carried it to extremes. For a while I'd been wondering if she ever did anything so brash as to shout with glee. But continual exposure to Jason's exuberance loosened her up a bit.

When I wasn
't babysitting I saw a lot of Alex. I wanted to have a relationship with him that was somewhere between our red-hot night on the beach and the platonic state of affairs for which we seemed to be headed. But the camaraderie that was developing was a good base for the more romantic situation I still hoped to promote, as soon as I figured out a way to do it without blowing everything. However, the lazy, sunny summer days made it easy to postpone any plans to upgrade our easy-going friendship.

I forgot about trying to appear older to
Alex. I relaxed and had fun and didn't worry about the kind of impression I was making. It was better, I decided, to keep things on a friendly basis, rather than risk getting carried away and having Alex think I was inviting him into a more intense physical relationship than I was ready for at the moment.

Alex
and I went swimming and took long walks, often including Jason and Hailey in our plans. Once we rented a rowboat and spent an hour circling in the water, unable to coordinate any two people on the oars long enough to forge a straight line. Jason and Hailey refused to consider allowing any one person to attempt rowing, so laughing nonstop, we spun around hopelessly until Jason eventually complained of seasickness.

The only cloud on my horizon, and the one thing that dampened my notions of trying to rekindle
Alex's romantic interest, however slowly, was the steadily growing stack of letters from Nicole piling up on Alex's dresser. Nicole's picture loomed larger every time I saw it, and my stomach churned the day it occurred to me that the frame Hailey was making would be just the right size for it. I couldn't stand the thought that my efforts might someday be part of a frame for Nicole's smiling face.

But I reminded myself that I was the one who was spending the summer with
Alex, and no one could take that away from me. I felt that we could at least remain friends, and, after all, it was not only better to have loved and lost, etc., but it was better to remain on good terms after we went back to Hartford in the fall, than be too embarrassed to even speak to each other because I had led Alex into a romance that he would want to end as soon as he had a chance to be with Nicole again.

I saw
Jake almost every day, too, since I continued to take Jason and Hailey to Bob's Beach House for root beer. They acted deprived if I didn't suggest it. Jake was friendly, and I offered him encouraging smiles and chatter. But I was relieved that I didn't see him except when I was with Jason and Hailey. I wouldn't know what to do if he should ask me to go for a walk again. I wanted to spend my free time with Alex. I missed him when we weren't together and I found myself saving up things to tell him. I tried to live in a special summer world, pushing thoughts of life in Hartford and worries about Nicole and passion, desire and other symptoms of s-e-x from my mind whenever they surfaced. Maybe I wasn't exactly having a summer romance, but I was having a wonderful friendship and I didn't want it to end.

One evening after a marathon session of The Game of Life,
Alex suggested a picnic. "Tomorrow we can pack a lunch, rent a rowboat and head for that little island that's only about a half-mile out." He shook his finger at Jason and Hailey. "And Katie and I will take turns doing the rowing!"

"Great idea," I said.

"Let's bring lots of sandwiches on this picnic," Jason said.

"And
Katie's potato salad," added Hailey.

"Lemonade would be nice," I said. "And brownies."

"It all sounds great," said Alex. "Katie, why don't you take care of the lemonade and potato salad, and I'll worry about the sandwiches and brownies."

"Sure," I said. "What time do you want to go?"

"Ten tomorrow morning?"

"Fine. Meet us here?"

"Sure. Let's go, Hailey. We'll see you tomorrow."

"Good night," I called after them.

"I'm going to bed right now and rest up for tomorrow." Jason raced upstairs.

Just as I was about to go upstairs myself, Mom motioned me over to the kitchen. "
Katie, did I hear you and Alex planning a picnic out on the island tomorrow?"

"Yes. It
's okay. We'll be careful."

"Keep a close eye on Jason and
Hailey."

"Don
't worry. Alex and I will watch them carefully—and we'll all wear life preservers in the boat." I kissed Mom. "Don't worry. We'll be fine."

"I know, but I
'll still worry." Mom brushed an imaginary piece of lint off my sleeve. "What's going on between you and Alex, anyway?"

"Oh, Mom," I spoke quickly. "
Alex's really nice, and I like him. But we're just friends."

"That
's fine," said Mom. "I just don't want to see you get hurt. After all, Alex's older than you are and he might expect—"

"He
's only a year ahead of me in school."

"Yes. But he
's seventeen and you're only fifteen. I think he's a lot more ... experienced than you are."

Experienced! That word again. "Don
't worry, Mom." I tried to sound calm. "We're just friends, and I'll be fine."

"Okay." Mom kissed my cheek. "Well, I
'm going to bed now. Good night."

That night I lay awake thinking about my conversation with Mom. Of course Mom would notice that I spent a lot of time with
Alex. Who else could I spend my time with, except my own family and the Stedmans? There wasn't anyone else my age around. Well, Jake was a mile down the road, but that mile seemed to take me into a whole other world. My little section of the beach was like home, and anything outside it was like another town I wasn't part of.

But, undoubtedly, Mom had seen
Alex kiss me, and there were times when I was sure Mom could read my mind. But I hadn't lied. At that precise moment, Alex and I really were
just friends.

The next morning I could feel the heat and humidity the moment I woke up. I checked my clock. It was only seven. It was going to be one of those hot, muggy days where the best place to be was the beach. I rolled over and stretched. How nice that I could look forward to a picnic lunch on an island!

Fortunately, there happened to be enough of my potato salad left over from the previous night's supper that I didn't have to make more. All I had to do was prepare the lemonade. Once I had done that, I cleaned the two-gallon beverage cooler and the ice chest. By the time I was done, Jason was nipping at my heels.

"When are we going to go?" He jumped circles around me. "When are we going to go?"

"Half an hour." I caught Jason by the shoulders and brought him to a halt. "Now I've got to get out of this robe and into my bathing suit."

In my room I quickly changed into my bathing suit, combed my hair and pulled it back into a ponytail. I smoothed on suntan lotion, then dropped the bottle into my beach bag. I didn
't want to worry about getting a sunburn on such a glorious morning. Just then I heard Jason calling up the stairs, announcing that Alex and Hailey had arrived.

"Let
's go," Jason said as soon as I'd joined them.

"All right," I said. "Jason, you take the lemonade.
Hailey, you take that bag with the paper plates and napkins. Alex, I think it'll take both of us to carry the ice chest."

"Okay,"
Alex said. "I'm not proud. I can accept help from a woman."

"Good." My spirits rose even higher by
Alex's reference to me as a woman.

By the time we reached the dock where we rented the rowboat, I was happy to put down the ice chest. My arm ached. "Oh," I moaned. "My arm."

Alex kneaded my biceps.

"Thanks," I said. "That feels good."

"Don't thank me," Alex said. "You'll need that arm for rowing."

After we
'd piled everything in the rowboat and finalized the seating arrangements, with Jason and Hailey together on the front seat, Alex in back and me in the middle with the oars, we were ready to go. I adjusted my life jacket. I was comfortable enough with him not to worry if I looked a little silly. Not that Alex would think a life jacket was silly, and even if he did I have a feeling his mother had probably lectured him on the subject as much as mine had.

Within five minutes I wondered how I would ever make it to the island. The oars rubbed the palms of my hands raw, my arms turned to rubber, and bolts of pain shot through my chest. It didn
't help any that Alex sat comfortably with his arms folded, watching every moment of my agony with a broad smile plastered across his face.

"I love to watch you work."
Alex grinned.

I smacked an oar on the water and splashed him. "Just wait until it
's time for you to row us back!"

"Hmmm. That
's better," said Alex. "A little faster and I could water-ski. Don't look now, but we're only a couple hundred yards away."

"Thank good—"

The boat rocked wildly. Jason screamed. A red speedboat roared by only a few feet away. Its wake tossed the rowboat. My heart pounded. I was afraid we'd capsize.

"Watch it!"
Alex shook his fist at the speedboat.

It was obvious from the laughter of the two boys in the boat that they had no intention of heeding
Alex's warning.

"Jason,
Hailey, are you okay?" I pulled in the oars and waited for the rowboat to stop rocking.

"I have some saltwater in my eyes."
Hailey blinked. "But I'm fine."

"I
'm okay," Jason said. "In fact, that was kind of fun."

"It wouldn
't have been fun if you'd been thrown overboard," I said. Mom's worried face flashed across my mind.

Jason considered this. "I guess not," he replied.

"Well, everyone's all right," I said, "and the island's within easy reach. Time to get going again."

Once we were on the island the time rolled by like the tide. After we had explored every grain of sand, we settled ourselves on an inlet sheltered by thick wild rosebushes and had our picnic lunch. We quickly wiped out the sandwiches, potato salad, most of the lemonade and all but two of the brownies.

Alex stretched out on the warm sand. "No tropical paradise could top this." He sighed.

"This is the life, all right," I said. I was warm and full and happy. Lying there in the sand, I couldn
't imagine a more perfect day.

"Let
's go swimming!" Jason suggested.

"Later," I said. I didn
't feel like doing anything more strenuous than digesting my lunch. "Why don't you and Hailey play in the sand? You could make a sand castle."

"Good idea,
” Jason exclaimed. "Want to, Hailey?"

Hailey
nodded, and they went to work at the edge of the water.