Wet: Part 1 (3 page)

“Um . . . everyone’s been telling me I have to eat at Ray’s tonight.” She was grateful to have what sounded like a good excuse.

“Oh. Yeah. Wednesday.” He looked out over the ocean again. He seemed disappointed. He turned back and his right eye did the almost-wink thing. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to get you wet later then.” 

“Yeah, that would be good. That’s why I’m here.” She tried to sound convincing, to herself as well as Paul.

His eyes grew wide with amusement, and he grinned. He winked for sure with his left eye.

“I’d hate to think I spent the last of my dad’s—
my
money—on a dream I chickened out on.”

He got up and left, but Regina didn’t waste time getting to her. “What are you doing?” She glanced around the deck like a secret agent, making sure no one could tell what they were talking about. “You act like an idiot every time Paul gets close to you. Someone is going to start wondering why—the way you tense up just speaking to that man?”

“I can’t help it. I didn’t know what to do.” Rhees leaned into Regina and whispered, “He offered to take me on a Discovery Dive. He’s trying to get me alone.”

Regina stared at her blankly. “He wants to jump them bones of yours, but that doesn’t make him a rapist. You need to chill. He is going to try to charm you into that bed of his, not knock you out and hop on!”

Rhees blushed, absorbing the shame her roommate dished out. It wasn’t just Paul. Rhees always got nervous around touchy men. “So how should I act, then?”

“Grow up, and stop acting like a stupid thirteen-year-old schoolgirl.” Regina marched off. “Act normal!”

“Normal. Somehow I missed that subject in school,” Rhees said under her breath. She sighed. She’d thought things were complicated in Utah. She’d always imagined growing up in Utah was similar to living on an alien planet. She’d dreamed of getting away from it, but the island was turning out to be more complicated than anything she’d ever experienced.
I’m not Utahan enough for Utah, but I’m too Utahan for the rest of the world.

Chapter 3

R
hees followed Tracy and Regina to Ray’s for dinner, where they met up with most of the dive shop crew. According to everyone, Ray served the best food on the island, but he only opened on Wednesday and Saturday nights. The students at the shop never entertained any thought of eating anyplace else on Wednesdays.

She stood back from the counter in the outdoor restaurant and looked over the menu while the others stepped up to place their orders. There were only three options scribbled on a chalkboard, and the cost was higher than she expected. She wondered why everyone thought this was the must-eat place.

Here twenty-four hours and I’ve already blown my budget. At this rate, I’ll be going home in a week.
She laughed at herself for worrying about spending literally pennies more than she’d anticipated, but it would still become a problem in the end if she didn’t find a way to be more careful.

She ordered the chicken and followed her new friends to a table.

“We’re lucky to find seats together,” Tracy said. “This place fills up fast.”

Rhees couldn’t see many empty chairs. The three of them were seated at a large table with others from the dive shop crowd.

Krista, one of the girls at the table, gasped. “Paul cut his hair, and he’s clean-shaven!”

Rhees looked to see for herself as the other girls chattered on about Paul’s new look. The guys at the table seemed to tolerate the discussion as though discussing Paul happened often, and they were used to it.

When Rhees’ gaze found him, their eyes met. One of the corners of his mouth hitched up slightly, timidly, until she smiled back to be friendly. His smile grew to mammoth proportions, making his eyes sparkle, but then he looked away when he stepped up to the counter to place his order. 

She thought the haircut a definite improvement, even if some of the other girls disagreed. The hair over his ears, now gone to a more businessman style, but the hair on top still had enough length to allow his waves to do their thing. He appeared to be a wash-and-towel-dry guy, no styling, but it worked on him. With longer hair, she hadn’t noticed his cowlick. The hair on his forehead on the right side of his face swept up naturally. She’d known one kid in elementary with a cow-lick and it made him look goofy. Paul’s cowlick didn’t look goofy at all. It was—she rolled her eyes that she would think it—endearing.

She’d never seen him in clothes. He wore jeans and brown leather flip-flops with a white button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled up. His shark tooth necklace lay against the base of his throat, where his shirt opened to his chest. His shirttails hung over his waist, accentuating his broad shoulders and long torso.

She tried, but didn’t do a very good job of not looking his way as he ordered his food. He turned and headed toward their table with, not just one beer, but one in each hand. She felt him staring at her again. Back home, under normal circumstances, she would be flattered to have a man as good-looking as Paul paying attention to her.

At home, it wouldn’t mean what everyone here had adequately convinced her it meant. Knowing the reality of here
made her
want to get up and run out. People crowded around the table, leaving no empty chairs. Paul would have to sit somewhere else, and she felt relieved to know she wouldn’t have to worry about what he would say to her all through dinner, waiting for him to ask her to . . . 

She would have missed it had she not been watching at the right moment, but Paul looked the guy sitting next to her in the eye. She tried to remember his name.
Eddie.
Some kind of unspoken communication passed between the two of them.

“I just remembered I have a question for Dobbs. I think I’ll go eat with him and Claire,” Eddie said, jumping up. He grabbed his drink and left, leaving the chair next to Rhees vacant. Paul sat down and guzzled half of his first beer.

Rhees blushed as she noticed a few raised eyebrows around the table. She squirmed and fidgeted with her drink. Surely the socializing thing came so naturally to everyone except her. Being the new girl was hard enough without adding the fact that everyone acted like a pack of wolves, waiting for Paul to go in for the kill. His arrival became excruciatingly awkward—given what he apparently wanted to do to her.

And she still didn’t know how everyone knew his intentions. He’d been nothing but kind. Her nerves grew increasingly raw, not knowing what to expect.

oOo

Dinner on the island lasted hours. All the restaurants notoriously took their time, and everyone just grew to accept it as the norm, using the time to socialize and drink.

Rhees quietly listened to the conversation, trying to learn more about everyone.

Paul picked up her drink and studied it, trying to recognize her choice. “What are you drinking?” he asked, louder than necessary, drawing everyone’s attention.

“Lemonade,” Rhees answered, wondering why he seemed so concerned about it.

“Lemonade?” Paul didn’t even try to hide what he thought of her choice. “Are you a recovering alcoholic?”

“No.” Rhees looked around the table. Everyone else had some form of alcohol as their choice of beverage.

“Good.” Paul caught the waitress’ attention on her way to take food to another table. He asked for a shot of vodka and two more beers. Paul teased and refused to give Rhees her glass back when she tried to grab it. Everyone laughed.

The waitress brought the drinks he ordered and Paul gulped her lemonade down until her glass was half empty. He winced, stuck out his tongue, and rattled his head like shaking off something nasty.

“Lemonade.”  He tilted his head sideways and glanced at her from the corner of his eye, letting her and everyone else know how disappointed he was with her choice. With a smile on his face, he poured the shot of vodka into her glass before she could snatch it from him.

“What are you doing? I’m not a big drin . . . ker!” Too late. Her overactive imagination got the best of her. Her limbs felt weak, and she worried she might start trembling any second, sure he was trying to get her drunk so he could have his way with her.

Paul then poured one of the beers into the lemonade, filling the glass to the top again, and he stirred it with her straw. He took a sip and smacked his lips deliberately, judging the results of his concoction. He gulped down a little more and replaced it again with more beer. He tasted it once more and finally handed it back to her.

“Now you have a
real
drink.”

She forgot all about his nasty intentions toward her, as suddenly, more than anything else, there was one thing on her mind—
His slobber is all over my drink!

Everyone snickered. She realized he was just having a little fun at her expense—testing the new girl—and she knew how uptight it would make her look if she didn’t play along, but . . . she had real issues with germs.

He raised her glass to her again, an expectant grin on his face, emphasizing he wanted her to taste his creation. He looked too cute to be the devil.

“Drink. Drink. Drink,” everyone started chanting, making Rhees feel the need to be a good sport.

“You have to drink if you want to fit in on this island,” Krista said. “It’s the national pastime.”

“Yah. Drinking and diving,” Peder said, which elicited more laughter. “Don’t try this at home.”

“Maybe I should get my money back. The travel brochure said nothing about that.” Rhees forced a smile. She didn’t want to appear to be lacking a sense of humor. She’d only been on the island two days—first impressions and all. She glanced around to see everyone watching expectantly, laughing, and speculating amongst themselves.

She timidly took the glass from Paul’s hand. She stared at it, working hard to ignore all the germs she imagined swimming around in her drink. She swirled the straw again, hoping to spread them around and dilute them a little more. She used the opportunity to wipe as much of the straw with her fingers as possible.

She took a deep breath and forced herself to take a sip. It took a few seconds to actually swallow—maybe that made it worse, but too late now. The look on her face must have given her away.

“You look sick,” Tracy said.

“I’m fine,” Rhees said, stretching her lips into another tight smile. She closed her eyes, wondering how to get out of this. She had to banter back. She racked her brain to think of a clever comeback—nothing—until she saw the look on Regina’s face and the other girls’ expressions, too. They all stared, envious of her as if they would give anything to be in her place, having Paul showering his attention on them.

“Well?” He waited for her verdict.

“Hmm.” She creased her brow and made herself appear to be having a hard time deciding something. “I’m not sure.”

“Oh?” Now Paul looked confused. That helped.

“I don’t have enough information. I need to do a little research.” She set the glass down, took another deep breath, leaned in, and placed her lips lightly on his. She meant to give him only one quick,
dry
peck, for show, but he not only accepted her kiss, he leaned into her as she pulled away, making it last longer, making it look more like a hot-blooded kiss by giving her some tongue. She pulled back, breaking contact, probably a little too abruptly considering she initiated the stunt.

Paul and Rhees stared at each other, shock on her face, a look of—
something
on his.

Someone whistled. One of the men cheered. A girl’s voice said, “Damn it. Not another one,” in a hushed tone. Others leaned forward in their seats, waiting to see what came next, but no one seemed too surprised.

Tracy and Regina watched but didn’t give Rhees anything to help.

She did what she thought necessary and shook it off, moving forward with her original joke. She deliberately licked her lips, smacking them. More germs, but she couldn’t stop now. She looked up through squinted eyes, took another sip of her drink, and licked her lips again, still thinking, thinking she was about to die, but she couldn’t let anyone know.

“Mmm . . . it’s delicious all right, but I don’t think it’s the alcohol that makes it so good.” She glanced back at Paul. “It’s definitely the backwash.”

He stared at her. His right eye twitched faintly until he finally cast his eyes down with a shy grin on his face.

“Aw, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” he said humbly, and everyone laughed. He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “You’re funny.”

“Germs are no laughing matter to me,” she whispered back.   

The look on his face registered surprise at how serious she’d turned. “Well, germs can’t live in alcohol, right? Forgive me?” A few seconds later, he ducked his head toward her to ask, “If you’re afraid of germs, how does kissing work?”

She blushed and took a moment to think of an answer.

“I’ve known you a whole day. For all I know you’re crawling with all kinds of cooties.”

He smiled timidly and glanced away.

“Do you really think the alcohol will kill the germs? I guess that does make sense—some of them anyway, right?”

Paul seemed dumbfounded as if just realizing how much she really meant it. She took another sip of her now hard lemonade.

“This really isn’t bad. I can hardly taste the alcohol.”

“Rhees. You’re from Utah? Are you Mormon?” Christian from Canada interrupted Paul and Rhees’ staring contest. 

“No.” She turned her attention to the crowd around the table. “Contrary to popular belief, not everyone in Utah is Mormon. I happen to know there are at least three of us that aren’t.” She’d used the joke many times but it never failed to get a laugh.

“Where is Utah?” Peder was Norwegian.

“Western United States, between Colorado and Nevada,” Rhees answered.

“Vegas!” Mitch said quite enthusiastically with his Irish brogue.

“Yep, I live about seven hours from there.” Oddly, the other girls at the table had become very quiet.

“Utah Jazz,” Assif from Israel added what he knew. “Karl Malone.”

“Yeah. We have that too.”

The island really did attract a variety of cultures and she liked the diversity. 

oOo

Paul sat quietly through dinner. Rhees kept catching him watch her, wanting to know why, what he was thinking. The germ episode forgotten, it drove her crazy again, wondering how and when he would make his move, and how she would handle it—afraid she wouldn’t know how to handle it.

She decided to be grateful for his gift of alcohol, even if he planned it as part of some sinister plan to get her drunk and into his bed. She didn’t think she would have made it through dinner without it.

She’d never been much of a drinker. When she turned twelve, her parents started letting her have watered down wine on special occasions, and to be a good sport, she’d learned to gag down a beer with her dad during the Super Bowl, on St. Patrick’s Day, and the Fourth of July, but that was the extent of her experience.

After dinner, the group moved to a bar called Tanked, the preferred hangout for all the dive shop people because it sat on the water and reminded everyone of the shop. The bar opened up to a large deck that was similar to the deck at Paradise Divers. 

Quaint, like everything else on the island, and like everything else on the island—it had a slightly dirty feel about it—at least in Rhees’ overly-sensitive-to-germs state of mind.

When she refused to allow herself to think about the griminess, she enjoyed the laid back and comfortable atmosphere—nice, as far as bars went—in her experience . . . which was very limited.

“You changed your mind?” Regina said, pulling Rhees aside.

“About what?” Rhees asked.

“That kiss! You trying to get Mr. Paul to jump them bones of yours now?”

“No, you know I’m not.”

“Then you, of all people, should not never be playing with fire that way.”

“But I was just trying to do what you said—trying not to act like a . . .” Rhees gave up. She would never get it.

Regina shook her head. “I don’t know what more I can do for you. I think you need a full-time babysitter, but that sure as hell is not never going to be me.”

It stung that Regina had already figured her out. She was a baby—the very reason she came to the island in the first place. She needed to do something out of her comfort zone because it was time to grow up.

As the night progressed, everyone settled in on some activity. A few eventually left and went to other bars, a couple went home, and some sat at a table with other people on the island and talked. Tracy and Regina started up their favorite late-night pastime, a game of dominoes.