The Trouble with Flirting

  “And the other one wasn’t bad either. I don’t know what it is about glasses, but they always make guys look cute.”

  “Adam already has a girlfriend, and Luke is so shy he basically doesn’t talk to girls at all. So good luck with that.”

  Allegra giggles. “I bet I can help him with his shyness.”

  I groan, then remind myself that Allegra’s reaction is a good thing. Her liking my hot/cute housemates means she’s less likely to drop me as a friend if I happen to do something embarrassingly uncool.

  With a heave and a groan, I slide the rusted, old gate closed across the driveway. The motor stopped working, but the landlord doesn’t seem interested in getting it fixed. Dusting my hands off, I ask, “Which beach are we going to?” I follow Allegra to her to her car. “I haven’t been to any beaches here yet.”

  “You haven’t?” Allegra gives me the kind of shocked look that suggests I may have committed social suicide by admitting that. Then she smiles. “Wow, Livi, you are going to love it. Clifton 4th Beach is gorgeous. And guess who’s going to be there.” She wiggles her eyebrows at me as she unlocks her car. “Jackson.”

  Clifton is buzzing with activity, making it almost impossible to find a parking spot. After doing a three hundred-point manoeuvre—Allegra doesn’t seem to be able to parallel park, and I’m not about to try it in someone else’s car—we manage to get into a gap on the sidewalk. We grab our bags, run across roads, climb down narrow staircases, and eventually the beach comes into sight.

  Bronzed bodies in tiny bikinis line the sugar-white sand, guys with rippling abs and gleaming skin toss a volleyball over a net, and several small yachts bob in the gentle waves close to shore.

  “Wow.” I pause at the foot of the staircase. “So this is where all the beautiful people hang out, huh?”

  “Totally,” Allegra says, flicking her hair back and sauntering onto the powdery sand.

  “I’m not sure I belong here,” I say with a giggle, hurrying after her. “These people are too perfect. Like, not a wobbly bit in sight.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly. You’re a total stick. I wish I had your figure.”

  “Um …” I’m not sure what to say to that, because I’ve tried on some of Allegra’s clothes, and after not being able to get the zips up on any of her jeans, it’s clear to me she’s the only stick around here. Well, aside from all the glamorous sticks already lounging on their towels, their perfect wobble-free skin glistening beneath the sun. “And where are we gonna sit, anyway? This place is packed.”

  “Yeah, we shoulda been here hours ago, but someone decided to sleep in this morning and not answer her phone.”

  “Well, you know, it is Saturday, so I—”

  “But Charlotte and the girls got here a while ago, so they’re keeping a spot with a good view for us.” She looks over at me. “And you know what I mean by a good view.”

  I’m pretty sure she means the hot guys and not the clear blue sea spread out before us or the mountains rising behind us. “How do you know where they are?” I squint and shield my face from the sun as I search the tanning bodies for three I recognise.

  “Oh, we came here a few times during res orientation, so we’ve kinda decided on a favourite spot. See? Over there.” She points to a cluster of rocks, then jogs towards the three girls lying in a row and the two empty towels beside them. “Hey, ladies.”

  Courtney and Amber raise themselves up on their elbows to greet us. Charlotte simply waves, not moving from her perfect tanning position. “Hello, dears,” she says. Her eyes squint at us from behind the brown lenses of her retro sunglasses before closing again.

  “Where are the guys?” Allegra asks, glancing at the two empty towels before looking around.

  “They dared each other to go for a swim,” Courtney says as she lies down and drapes her arm over her eyes.

  “Insanity.” Allegra shakes her head, but I can see from her small smile she’s impressed. “There’s no way you’d get me into that water. Way too cold.”

  “Tell me about it,” Charlotte murmurs.

  Allegra and I lay our towels down on the empty sand beside Charlotte. I kick my shoes off and drop my bag onto the towel just as a male voice shouts, “Hey! Allegra and Livi!” Jackson and his friend Rob jog across the sand towards us, dripping wet from their dip in the waves.

  “Hey, you want a hug?” Rob asks, advancing on Allegra. He opens his arms and shakes his head, flinging droplets of water in every direction. I jump out of the way as Allegra squeals and runs past me.

  “Stop being an idiot,” Charlotte says, sitting up and smacking Rob’s legs with a rolled-up magazine.

  I look over at Jackson, wondering if he might be about to try the same thing with me. We don’t know each other all that well, though, so instead we just stare at each other awkwardly. He seems to remember himself suddenly, and breaks the awkwardness with a smile. He runs a hand over his wet hair.

  His muscles flex.

  Water glistens on his skin.

  I try to remember how to breathe.

  Sweet hammer of Thor. He’s like a sexy Norse god who just rose up out of the ocean, then slow-motion ran across the sand towards me, because we’re clearly soul mates, and his heart cries out for—

  Allegra ducks behind me, and Rob, still chasing her, trips over my sandals and rams into me, knocking me face-first onto my towel. Charlotte gasps, and Allegra cries out, “Livi! Are you okay?”

  “Yes, fine, totally fine.” I sit up hastily, patting my hair and making sure my dress isn’t somewhere up around my neck.

  “Cool, sorry, Liv.” Rob drops onto his towel next to Amber and reaches for a bag of chips from under a bunched up T-shirt.

  Allegra seats herself daintily upon her towel beside me. I stretch one leg out, bend the other at the knee, and lean back on my hands, attempting to arrange myself into a sexy goddess pose. When I look up, though, Jackson is heading back to his towel on the other side of Rob.

  Great. Sexy goddess pose wasted.

  I watch Allegra as she slowly and seductively pulls her dress off over her head. I wonder if it’s for Rob’s benefit—which would be pointless, since he’s currently tipping barbecue flavoured chips down his throat, his eyes closed against the glare of the sun—or simply for all guys in the vicinity. Either way, it makes me want to laugh. And try it out for myself, of course.

  I wiggle around until I’m no longer sitting on my dress. I cross my arms, take hold of the bottom of the dress, and pull up. It all goes smoothly until the last step of the manoeuvre, where the dress is now over my head and my arms are up in the air. Something catches on something else, the dress stops moving, and suddenly I can’t remember if I shaved under my arms or not.

  The dress is stuck.

  I can’t see anything through the fabric.

  And I may or may not be flashing hairy armpits to the whole of Clifton 4th Beach.

  Panicking, I give the dress a good tug. Something loosens at the back of my neck. The fabric rushes past my face, and the beach comes into view again. I lower my arms and twist to the side—and find myself face-to-face with Allegra’s horrified expression. A horrified expression pointed directly at my chest.

  I look down—“Whoa!”—and clap both hands over my half-exposed left boob. My traitorous bikini strap dangles over my stomach, which is obviously what led to the triangle of fabric flopping down and causing my indecency.

  “Livi! This isn’t a nude beach!” Allegra’s stage whisper catches the attention of Rob and Jackson, who abandon the barbecue chips and lean across their towels to look past Allegra.

  I duck down, using Allegra as a shield as best I can while my hands hastily reposition my bikini. An inferno erupts across my face. Holy smoking embarrassment. I need to leave. IMMEDIATELY. I can NEVER look any of these people in the eye again. Goodbye, Clifton 4th Beach. Goodbye, potential boyfriend Jackson. Goodbye, friends who are cooler than any I’ve had before. I’ll spend the remainder of my varsity career closed in my be
droom, wrapped in many layers of clothing, working hard like a—

  “Can you help me with my sunscreen, Livi?” Allegra asks. She hands over a bottle of spray-on sunscreen before twisting around so her back is facing me. “I guess our plan didn’t work,” she whispers—a proper whisper this time, not one meant for half the beach to hear. “The guys are far more interested in their beach snacks than in rubbing sunscreen over us.”

  Right. So … the boob-flashing incident is forgotten? Just like that? Maybe I didn’t expose as much skin as I thought. I spray sunscreen across Allegra’s shoulders, neck and back. I rub it in, then swivel on my towel so she can do the same for me. Our plan was to sit close enough to the guys that they’d end up offering to help us out with our sunscreen, but it’s now a bit awkward with Charlotte, Amber and Courtney lying between us and our sexy Norse gods.

  “Oh my Gabbana, Livi,” Allegra says as she replaces the cap on her sunscreen bottle. “I just thought of something.”

  “What?” I glance down hurriedly to check I’m not flashing everyone again, but my bikini is in place.

  “You would make such a hot blonde.”

  “What?” I reach up to pat the mess of hair bundled on top of my head. “No way. Really?”

  “Yes, totally. Not, like, bleach blonde. But something more natural. Like blonde and gold highlights mixed in with your red. It would be so hot. Please let’s do it the next time we go to a salon!”

  “Um, okay, I’ll think about it.” I didn’t realise hair colour could make a person so excited, but Allegra seems thrilled by her idea. She rolls onto her stomach and pulls a magazine from her bag.

  “Let’s look for an example,” she says, already flipping through the pages.

  “Uh, sure.” I lie beside her, wishing I was reading my own magazine, which features an article on the actress playing the lead role in the newest Marvel Comics movie adaptation.

  A shadow falls across the page. “Hey, Livi.” I look up and see Jackson silhouetted against the bright sun. “I thought maybe you and I could take a walk along the beach. If you want to.”

  I look at Allegra, who gives me an excited grin, then back up at Jackson.

  Be cool, Alivia, I instruct myself. Just. Be. Cool.

  “Yeah, sure, okay.” I sit up, grab my sarong from my bag—Slowly! Stop looking like you’re desperate to be at his side!—and tie it around my hips before standing.

  “Let’s walk along the shoreline,” he says. “You can feel how cold the water is. Maybe,” he adds with a cute half-smile, “you’ll be brave enough stick more than just your toes in.”

  After a glance back over my shoulder to where Allegra is giving me two thumbs up, I follow him.

  From: Alivia Howard

  Sent: Sat 1 Mar, 11:48 pm

  To: Sarah Henley

  Subject: Romantic Beach Scene

  Sarah!

  Think of every romantic beach scene you’ve ever written (I don’t know if you’ve actually written any, but just IMAGINE one if you haven’t), put them all together, and that’s what I had today! Well, aside from the accidental half-flashing of my left boob, which I hope no one EVER mentions again.

  Anyway, so you remember Jackson, right? The guy who keeps smiling at me in lectures? The guy who then sat next to me twice last week? And drew cute little doodles along the edge of my notes? (I have NO idea what happened during those two lectures.) Well he was there today. At the beach. And he asked me to go for a walk with him—just the two of us!

  We talked about where we grew up, and what our hopes are for the future, and what music we like, and tons of other stuff that’s random but seemed really AMAZING to talk about at the time. He splashed me with water (I know, I know, you’re cringing right now. Hopefully you never wrote that part in any of your Romantic Beach Scenes, because it’s such a cliché, but when it happens to you in real life, you giggle and squeal like a silly girl while your heart explodes with imaginary hearts), and in places where the sand was hot, he even picked me up and carried me so my feet wouldn’t burn! (Now that part you CAN write about because it was SERIOUSLY AWESOME!)

  We stayed there the whole day, and in the evening we all had sundowners at this place overlooking the beach and the sunset. Jackson even put his arm around me when it started getting cooler. (Swoon!) Sooooo no actual date yet, but there are definitely plenty of magical sparks flying around!

  xx Livi

  P.S. I apologise for the overuse of exclamation marks.

  P.P.S. No I don’t!!!!!!

  ___________________________________

  Three weeks into the semester, and I’ve finally run out of clean clothes. I managed to sneak some underwear into a load of laundry Adam had already started this morning—and sneak it out as soon as the washing machine started singing its ‘I’m finished!’ song—but I didn’t have time to do anything more than that.

  Allegra picked me up and we spent the morning dashing around Canal Walk, getting our nails done and each looking for a new dress to wear tonight. In their first week here, Allegra and Co. discovered a nightclub called The Banana Pearl, and they’ve been wanting to take me there ever since I became part of their group. Instead of admitting that nightclubs have never held much fascination for me, and that I’ve never actually been to one—NOTHING on this earth could force me to confess that little detail—I simply acted excited every time they spoke about it.

  But now, after three weeks, they’ve made a plan to return to The Banana Pearl with a bunch of other people we sometimes hang out with. And that bunch of other people includes Jackson—a fact that makes The Banana Pearl suddenly become a whole lot more interesting. Jackson and I have sat together in lectures, we’ve doodled on each other’s notes, and I even visited his room in Smuts once with Charlotte and Amber while Allegra was busy.

  But he hasn’t asked me out yet.

  So TONIGHT could be the night where I show him just how amazing and desirable I am.

  My hair is straight and sleek, my dress is short and tight, my heels are dangerously high, my make-up is dark and sparkly, and all exposed skin is covered in shimmery powder.

  I’m ready to go.

  I’m also horrendously hungry.

  I barely ate anything all day in order to avoid the bloated stomach look tonight. I’m looking fabulous in this dress—if I do say so myself—so missing lunch was worth it, but I’m starting to think I need to eat something before I go out. I clip-clop my way to the kitchen and grab a jar of peanut butter and a spoon. I lean against the counter, remove the lid on the jar, and scoop out a spoonful of peanut butter.

  “Hey, Liv, do you want—Oh, wow. I guess you’re going out, huh?”

  “Mmm.” I remove the spoon from my mouth as Adam enters the kitchen. “Yes. What were you going to ask me?”

  “Oh, uh, I’ve got some friends coming around to play Xbox, and I wondered if you might want to join us. You haven’t played in a while, and I don’t think you’ve met any of my new friends yet.”

  “Oh, that would have been great. I’m sorry I can’t join you.” I stick a second spoonful of peanut butter into my mouth.

  Adam nods. “Yeah. You’ve, uh, got a busy diary these days. I should have known you’d already have plans.” There’s something a little bit … off in his voice. He crosses his arms and leans against the fridge. “Where are you going tonight?”

  “The Banana Pearl,” I say as I screw the lid back onto the peanut butter jar. “In Long Street. You heard of it?”

  He nods again. “Yes, I’ve heard of it. I’ve heard about … things that happen there.”

  Ah. So that’s what was off in his voice. That’s what the look is about.

  Disapproval.

  I place the jar on the counter and cross my arms. “Don’t give me that look.”

  “What look?”

  “That look that says good girls like me shouldn’t be going out to clubs like The Banana Pearl. Or shouldn’t be going to clubs at all. Or wearing
clothes like this. Or make-up like this.”

  “I don’t have a look like that.”

  “You’re giving me that look right now!”

  “Maybe you’re giving yourself that look,” he says.

  “What? That makes no sense.”

  He shrugs. “Whatever. If I was giving you a look, it would more likely have been a look that said, ‘Thanks for spending absolutely no time at all with your old friends.’” He pushes away from the fridge with a sigh. “It’s clear your new friends are more important.”

  Guilt needles my insides. Adam’s words sound awfully similar to the ones I said to Logan when I confronted him during orientation. “Hey, come on, that’s not fair. I’m trying to—”

  “Don’t worry about it, Liv,” he says. “It’s a little sad to think that soon we won’t have anything in common anymore, but that’s the way life is, right? People change.” He turns and disappears through the kitchen door.

  “Adam!” I shout after him. “Hey, don’t walk away like that.” I follow him, wobbling slightly on my heels. “This isn’t all my fault. It’s not like you’re always around. You disappear to that—that—hippy café place down the road—”

  “Which I’ve invited you to several times,” he says before turning into his room.

  “You can’t expect me to be available for everything at the last minute, Adam. I have plans. I’m a plan-making person.”

  “My point, Alivia,” he says, sticking his head out of the doorway, “is that you only ever have time to make plans with one person. That one person who is your gateway to all things Cool. Your pathway to—”

  Right on cue, Allegra’s headlights slide across the glass pane of the front door, and my cell phone starts ringing. I stomp—if it can be called stomping in impossibly high heels—into my room and grab my purse.

  “Enjoy The Purple Banana,” Adam shouts before slamming his door shut.