I LIVED PRACTICALLY MY WHOLE life with the boy I would fall in love with right under my nose, both of us blissfully unaware of what magic—and horror—would occur as a result of our union. When we were in kindergarten together, we fought like hell over whose turn it was to take the class hamster home over the summer. When we were fifteen he and his idiot friends crashed Evie’s birthday party, stole all of our carefully stashed beer and smashed her front window. And in sophomore year, I took great delight in defacing his yearbook photo in the library’s only copy.
Was it love, even then? I’m not so sure. But I do know that the summer before senior year, Evie and I took jobs at a local kids’ Summer Camp to earn some cash. We were saving for the amazing condo we were going to rent together when we both got accepted into the same college—me into photography, Evie into print journalism. After college, Evie was going to move to Paris and write for Vogue, and I was going to travel the world, take a whole bunch of photos, become the next famous photographer, and then live in a warehouse loft conversion in New York. Plus, we were both going to use our athletic talents to our advantage, using track and swimming scholarships to help us make the big time. Jared was poised for great things, too; he was going to study medicine and become a surgeon. His parents weren’t rich so he was working as a lifeguard at the local summer camp, trying to earn a few bucks to bankroll his medical degree.
The three of us had always ended up at the same school—first grade school, then junior high, and finally Blair Academy. But the academy was a big place, and after sophomore year we never really hung out in the same circles as Jared. Jared studied, swam and played football, I ran track and went to too many parties, and Evie studied too much, partied too much, was on the swim team and still managed to top every class she was in.
So, back to our cushy little summer jobs. Evie and I were both on the swim staff for the summer. We had to teach swim classes in the mornings, supervise the kids at lunch, and then do lifeguard duty in the afternoons. On the Saturday after our classes had finished for the year, Evie and I drove to the camp to take our lifeguard and swim instructor tests and get our first aid cards updated.
I sat in the passenger seat while Evie drove my car, a pretty common scenario for us. Her ancient VW was about to fall apart and I swear the only thing keeping it together was sticky brown rust, while I was still driving the car my dad had bought for me a month before he died. A black Honda Element that nobody would ever be able to convince me to sell.
Evie was at the wheel while I frantically read through the first aid guide in case we got tested. “Do you remember any of this?” I looked up in time to see a familiar pink donut reaching into the sky. “Stop, stop!”
She slammed the brakes on, just making the turn into the Dunkin’ Donuts across from Jefferson Lake. She parked and we got out, the cool morning air forming goose bumps on my bare legs. I tugged at my frayed denim shorts, trying to make them cover as much skin as possible. I detested the cold, even when it was only moderately cool on a summer’s day that would probably reach the nineties before sundown.
We ordered flavored coffees—French vanilla for me, caramel for Evie—and sat in a plastic pink booth while we waited.
“I hope there are at least some hot guys there,” I remarked. My last relationship had ended three months before, and apart from a few mediocre make–out sessions at parties, I was starting to get a little bored. It was time to move on and find a new boy. Our coffees were called and we grabbed them, wandering across the road to the lake.
Since Jefferson Lake was fifty acres across, all the smaller neighboring camps sent their new swim staff to testing day at our larger camp. All up there were probably a hundred or so new swim staff milling around, dressed in bathing suits, goggles perched on foreheads, and the smell of sunscreen and coffee draped across the chilly morning. Evie and I dropped our stuff at the bleachers and wandered over to the lake in just our bathing suits, towels wrapped around our waists and coffee cups warming our palms.
A girl dressed in a lifeguard uniform with SUPERVISOR emblazoned on the breast pocket was calling out names in alphabetical order.
“Cheryl Anderson.”
“Miles Barker.”
“Mia Blake.”
I handed my coffee and towel to Evie, whose last name—Montgomery—meant that she wouldn’t be called for a while. I was familiar with the drill from the year before—eight people called up at a time to swim their twenty laps before diving for the weighted buoy at the bottom of the lake.
Taking my place at the third lane, I turned to my right to see the other five swimmers in my round wander up to their lanes. The guy next to me was facing the other way, but I was sure I wanted to do a lot more looking at him regardless of what his face looked like. His body was magnificent—tanned and firm in all the right places.
I absent–mindedly dipped my right foot into the water and squealed. “THAT’S FU—THAT’S FREEZING!” I yelped, yanking my leg away. “How are we supposed to swim in there?”
The supervisor didn’t look impressed. “You’ll be saving children from drowning in there come Monday. You’ll get used to it.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. I wanted to tell her to jump in the water, but I bit my tongue and focused on the task at hand. Pretty soon we were being told to stay next to the water and wait until time was called. Somebody had thought to cordon off eight lanes with rope, which was handy. I sat down at the edge and waited. I looked to my right again and hot guy in lane four flashed me a dazzling smile that made me forget all about swimming tests and cold water. Holy mother of all things sexy, he was fine. The body sure did match the face, with big eyes the colour of bamboo, a mess of sandy blond hair, and dimples on both cheeks. Oh, and a V that started at his torso and disappeared into a pair of swimming shorts that left little to the imagination. I realized my eyes were lingering a little too long on his lower half and slid my gaze back up to his face. Recognition sparked inside the cotton-wool of my early-morning brain. I know him!
I raised my eyebrows, confused. “Jared?”
He smiled again, looking extremely devilish. It had been at least two years since I had had an actual conversation with him, and it was probably about something really immature like tee–peeing the teachers’ cars.
“Mia. What camp are you working?” Oh, boy. His voice had gotten deeper. Damn.
“J–Jefferson day camp” I stuttered. “You?”
Before he could answer, the whistle blew and seven bodies dove into the lake.
“Crap,” I muttered, standing up and executing one of the worst dives ever. I ended up in a half–dive, half–belly flop, and I could just imagine the peals of laughter above me in the bleachers. As I hit the water, the icy temperature knocked my breath from my lungs and time stood still while I floated, motionless, and tried to remember how to swim.
As my head broke the surface, I gasped in a breath and saw that most of the other swimmers were at least half a lap ahead of me already. I groaned inwardly and started swimming, mentally counting each lap in my head. Front crawl seemed to be the best way for me to avoid freezing to death and also offered the fastest path, meaning I could finish and get back to my French Vanilla Latte as soon as possible.
Pretty soon I stopped worrying about the cold, pushed on, and wondered when it had been that Jared Cohen had started looking less like an underdeveloped twelve–year–old and more like Ryan Kwanten. It was enough to make my cheeks burn, which was great, since the rest of me was dragging along like a brick of ice.
I got to the last few laps when a cramp started to squeeze at my lower left calf muscle. It was pretty minor at first. Sixteen laps down, four to go. Then, the cramp spread to my foot and I wanted to squeal. I did those last few laps messily, with terrible technique, and started to moan as I hoisted myself out of the pool and onto the slightly warmer pine decking. I ripped my goggles off and threw them to the side, frantically massaging my frozen muscles with my fingers.
“Cramp?”
I looked up from my spot on the ground to see Jared standing above me, his tanned chest covered in hundreds of drops of water that glistened in the morning sun.
I bit my lip and forced myself to look at his face. “Yeah,” I groaned. Thanks for the distraction, though.
“Here,” he said, kneeling down beside me. He pushed my hands away and started massaging my clenched calf muscle with big, smooth fingers. I bit back an involuntary sigh and felt my cheeks redden at the thought of where else I’d like those fingers. Of course, I didn’t tell him to stop. I snuck a glance at Evie, who was oblivious to the world and listening to her iPod in the bleachers. I kind of wished she would bring my coffee down to the pool deck. Then again, I kind of hoped she wouldn’t interrupt this highly-arousing massage I was getting in the middle of about two hundred of my fellow employees.
“You’re not cold,” I remarked as Jared’s warm fingers worked their magic. “What’d you do, down a quart of scotch before you went in?” I imagined kissing him, finding the taste of whisky on his lips. I’m not going to lie—I didn’t even try to distract myself. I was experiencing the female equivalent of a raging hard-on over this guy.
Jared laughed, even though I thought my attempt at a joke was pretty pathetic and definitely not up to my usual smart–ass standards.
And his smile was amazing.
And I fell just a little bit in love with the kid who had stuck craft glue in my hair in first grade.
“I’m used to it,” he said. “Swim team and all. Evie and I swim outdoors almost every morning during swim season.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that,” I replied. From now on, I thought, I’m going to be coffee–bitch for the swim team every morning. And I’ll sit in the nice warm bleachers and sip my latte while I watch those abs of steel and that cute –
“All better?” he asked.
“Almost,” I lied. It didn’t hurt anymore. But he didn’t know that, did he?
He smiled again and kept his hands on my perfectly uncramped leg. “You know, Daniel Mansell’s having a party tonight. You should come.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I shrugged casually. “I’ll see what Evie’s doing.”
He stood and offered me his hand. “He’s got a pool. A heated one, don’t worry.”
He flashed those incredible teeth at me once more and wandered off to do his buoy dive on the other side of the pool.
I could barely wait until Evie had finished her laps and we were back at the bleachers to ask her about her swim team partner.
“Why didn’t you tell me hair–puller had turned into such a hottie?”
She smiled knowingly. “I told you to come along to swim practice, but you didn’t listen.”
“We’re going to that party tonight,” I said, grinning from ear to ear. I made a mental note to myself to raid my mother’s alcohol stash and find some whisky so I could take full advantage of one Jared Cohen.
Where did you meet your first love? I met mine when I was five years old, on the playground, when he yanked on my hair. And when I was seventeen, I fell in love with him at a party on the first night of summer, and wondered why the universe had kept us apart for all those years.
The first time I kissed Jared Cohen, it was like little fireflies had landed all over my body, and butterflies swam in my belly. That night we didn’t do anything more than talk and land soft, gentle kisses on each other, and it was the most perfect night of my simple little life. If I had known what lay ahead, what we would become, what would happen to the world because of the virus that poisoned our love, would I still have let myself fall in love with him?
I could say no, but we would both know that it was a lie.