A Simple Love Story. Not!

Shockingly, the girls all passed out as soon as their heads hit their pillow. Unlike me, who was biting my lip and squeezing my knees to keep myself from emitting any type of noise or bouncing around. But that was all due to Joe and being able to spend some quality time with him.

But my increasing happiness upon slipping out of the room undetected started slipping away when 12:30 came and went and Joe’s door wasn’t opening the slightest bit.

My enthusiasm quickly changed to frustration to disappointment and in order to keep myself from crying, I reasoned with myself that I would only wait another 5 minutes until I called it quits for the night, no matter how bad I wanted to spend time with Joe. But when 5 minutes came, I let out a sigh of disappointment and said I’d wait another 5 more minutes before I really went inside and went to bed.

Right as the 5 minutes mark was about to come up, my phone started to vibrate and my heart leapt from knowing that it would be Joe letting me know what was taking him an extra 20 minutes for our midnight rendezvous.

‘Sorry. Frankie was so wound up after the fireworks and the guys were trying to get him to sleep. Give me at least another 10 minutes to make sure they’re asleep.’

I nodded my head and bit my lip while texting him, ‘Ok.’ as my response, but something else was looming in the back of my head now.

I wanted more than anything to spend some quality time with Joe, but I didn’t want to at the risk of getting caught by his parents and then getting put on a leash the whole rest of the vacation. So I did what my heart was fighting like crazy for me not to do.

‘We don’t have to go swimming tonight.’ I typed, fighting back tears. ‘We can do it a different night.’

And with that, I hit send and watched the little envelope dance on my screen with little sending bubbles behind it come in and out of focus while I got up from my seat on the ground.

My phone came to life not even a few seconds later with a response from Joe saying, ‘NO!!’ and that one word, my enthusiasm was re-instated.

It actually made me happier knowing how persistent he was with this plan of sneaking out. I adored it…and him.

And just like he asked for 10 minutes, 10 minutes later his door moved slightly and I jumped up from my seat that I took back upon waiting for him, a smile coming over my face when I saw a sliver of his tan face peeking out of the door.

I couldn’t help myself, and thank God Joe was concentrating on trying to shut the door as quiet as possible that he didn’t hear me, letting out a sigh of happiness upon seeing his body emerge fully and we were that much closer to our midnight dip in the pool.

“Sorry.” he whispered to me as we made our way, silently, towards the elevators.

“No problem.” was all I could say at this point. I was reveling in mine and Joe’s quality time officially starting and how yummy he looked with his hair disheveled, like he had his hands raking through it while waiting to leave, along with his white t-shirt and swimming trunks and the way he smelled. He must’ve sprayed some cologne before he left…which I thought was a little weird.

Why spray cologne when you’re going swimming?

Not that I was complaining or anything. I was doing everything in my power not to grab him and shove him up against the hallway.

While waiting for the elevator to take us to our destined floor, I let out a yawn while saying that this music really does make you sleepy. But Joe was quick to say, “You’re not going to sleep missy. After what I had to go through to get out of that room, no way!”

I just gave him a smile and a light shove as the doors opened and I went to exit it, only realizing that I didn’t really know where to go and I stopped a few feet from the elevator, only to get thrown down to the floor from Joe walking into me.

“Why’d you stop?” he asked into my back before he rolled off of me. I rolled over on my back and let out a gasp of air for my laugh before asking, “Why didn’t you go around me?”

“I was distracted. That’s why.” he stated while getting up and extending a hand towards me to help me up.

“With what?”

“Noth-nothing.” He stuttered and then quickly shot his head over his shoulder and started walking towards a pair of side doors. But he got me intrigued, and I wanted to know why I was just plowed down by him.

“Tell Me!” I whined while jogging after him to catch up.

“That would be a no!”

“Please?” I asked and tried giving him the puppy face as we reached the doors and he held one open for me to pass through.

“Nope.” he stated and then gave me a small smile while waving me through the door, but I didn’t budge from my spot next to the doorframe. I wasn’t going swimming with him until he told me.

“I’m not swimming until you tell me.” I stated and crossed my arms over my chest while looking at him with a, hopefully, prying glare.

He let out a sigh and lifted his other hand up to his hair to ruffle it around, bringing his shirt up just enough to let me catch a glimpse of how low his swimming trunks really were.

Ok, I’m totally going swimming with him.

“Just go!” he finally said while shoving me through the door and following after me.

“Are we even allowed out here? I thought I read something where the pool closes at 10.”

“I’m special. It’s fine.” he simply stated while leading me towards where the pool of his choice was located and then let go of my arm to take his shirt off.

Wow, I’m dumb. Why didn’t I realize that? He’s famous, he probably gets celebrity privileges all the time!

But my train of thought was put to an end when he lifted his shirt over his head while stepping out of his flip flops he wore down here.

I know they say staring is rude, but you can’t not stare at something so beautiful.

The soft light from inside the pool was reflecting off his perfectly tanned and toned back, his hair getting a small bit more messed up from the lifting of his shirt and my eyes were permanently glued to his butt as he walked his way towards the deep end of the pool.

I wished I was that water right now, slowly creeping over his body and forming to every curve and dip.

I was completely breathless at this point in time just staring at him. That is until he turned around and saw me staring while asking if I was going to join him or not.

I nodded my head like a bobble head while he chuckled at me as I stripped off my clothes and getting rid of any thoughts of him and I pressed up against the pool edge, making out.

I walked into the pool slowly, letting my body get used to the cold water since there wasn’t any sun to shine down on me and keep me warm, while pulling my hair up into a ponytail. But when I glanced quickly over to Joe’s direction, I noticed him just standing there in the middle of the pool, water a little bit lower than his shoulders, staring at me with a small smile on his face.

Now normally, I’m not really self-conscious and I don’t really care when people look at me in a bathing suit, but all of a sudden I got a weird urge to cover myself up.

“What?” I asked while splashing him to get him to stop looking at me, although my finger barely skimmed across the top of the water, only have a few drops land on his face.

I watched him gulp, and if we were closer to each other, I’m sure I would’ve heard it, before he wiped his face and shook his head while saying, “Nothing. So, what do you want to do first?”

And with that, we started a water fight, him winning since he grabbed me and pulled me into him while splashing me like crazy with his other hand, and then we moved onto seeing who could make a bigger splash with various different jumps, which led to me trying to dunk Joe since he beat me every time.

“Get over here Jonas!” I yelled at him from across the pool since he swam to the shallow end to get away from me.

“You’ll have to catch me first!” he yelled and started to exit the pool as fast as possible, so I swam to the side and got out before he could get out and ran to where he was. But he seemed to notice me getting out and he made his way back towards the deep end while I followed him around the edge.

I made a lurch forward to see which direction he would go in, and when he dove under the water to swim farther into the deep end, I jumped towards his target and hoped that I would at least get close enough to grab his arm or leg. Fortunately, as I resurfaced, I saw him swimming directly towards me so I grabbed his arm and jumped on his back while he surfaced for air.

“I got you.” I yelled triumphantly when he resurfaced while he yelled, “Holy Crap! How did you…not for long!” and then he dove back underwater, while I wrapped my legs around his torso and wrapped my arms around his shoulders to keep from falling off.

“That normally always works!” he proclaimed as we broke the surface of the water a few seconds later, and I couldn’t help but let out laugh.

He shook his head, having water land right on my face and I let go with one arm to shield it while moving my other one around his neck and letting my forearm rest on his chest. But he dipped down a little bit and spun around in the water so we were face to face while I wiped the water off my face to prevent getting chlorine in my eyes.

“Hi there.” he said in a low macho voice while wrapping his arms around my waist, me letting out another laugh at how dorky he sounded before putting my other arm around his neck to keep myself on him.

But the smile that was on his face from when he said it, slowly started to disappear from while I tried moving my hair away from my face since it started to fall out of my ponytail, and I asked him a quick, “What?”

“Nothing.” he said, without stuttering it for once, and gave me a quick soft smile before bringing one of his hands out from under the water and off my back, to tuck a strand of wet hair behind my ear and then putting it back around my waist again under the water, pulling me up against his chest.

And just like that, the atmosphere seemed to change from laughing and joking around with my best friend to a lot of tension between us and me wanting to attack him with my lips. The rush of his skin directly on mine, with only the thought of my bathing suit top keeping us from completely touching, was insane and yet completely enticing. I felt like my whole body was on fire, even though the water was chilly without the sun’s rays to warm it up.

We stood there, just him and I, in the pool, gazes locked on each other’s eyes and that was the first time I realized that he had small little gold flecks in them to make them even more alluring at the moment.

My heart skipped a beat when he started to slowly walk, and when I felt the stone of the pool against my back, I knew I was pinned up against the pool and Joe, which I had no problem with. I would love to be pinned between Joe and anything if it meant that I was going to be able to kiss him. Which is what it looked like he was about to do from the look in his eyes.

But did he really want it? Or was he just wrapped up, literally in me and the moment of two teenagers on vacation, alone in a pool? Was it me, or was it the situation?

I closed my eyes when he started leaning in towards me, the thoughts running through my head a mile a minute, screaming at me. And when I could feel him hovering right above my lips, his breath hitting my lips softly, I whispered his name. But he didn’t ask me, “What?” or stop what he was doing. He simply let out a quiet, “Shh.” before leaning in towards me even more.

The tip of his nose hit mine softly before he tilted his head to the side slightly, while the butterflies in my stomach finally were able to catch up with the gravity of the situation of what was about to happen.

Joe and I were finally going to be able to have our ‘kiss’. The kiss that would change everything between us. The kiss that would take us from the best friends stage to being a couple stage.

It seemed like time slowed down, or maybe he did, to let everything hit me at that moment and to let me feel everything that was going on.

His chest pressed right up against mine. His eyelashes brushing up against my cheek, indicating just how close he really was to me. The outermost part of his lips coming into contact with mine. His fingers digging into my hips slightly from anticipation.

“HEY!”

And the random voice yelling which put everything that was going on come to a stop.

“You’re not supposed to be in there!”

I heard Joe let out a sigh of frustration before looking over his right shoulder to see a security guard making his way towards us and just like that, he let me go and jumped out of the pool so fast, I was completely confused.

“JOE!” I called to him, not because I wanted to finish what he started, well, maybe a little bit to finish what he started, but to explain to me why he was currently throwing his shirt on and trying to slip his flip flops on.

“HURRY UP!” he yelled at me while grabbing my clothes and starting to take off towards the hotel.

“I thought you said it was ok?!” I yelled at him while getting out of the pool and running after him, trying to slip my flip flops on even though my feet were still wet and sliding around in them.

“Well, I lied!”

“What?!” I yelled, stopping my running and anger evident in my voice at his lie that could get us into major trouble not only with our parents, but with the hotel itself.

He turned around, probably from hearing how upset I was with him at the moment and noticed me not running behind him and the security guard getting closer to us.

“Do you want to get caught or not?” he asked me while eyeing back and forth between me and the guard that was making his way closer to us.

He was a little heavy-set so it would take him a while to get to us but still, he was close enough where Joe was pumping his feet back and forth from heel to toe like a track star waiting for the gun.

“Get over here you damn kids!” I heard the guard say and when I looked back to see where he was, I turned back to Joe and finally started running again, him turning and leading the way to wherever we were going to hide from this guy.

“He cant’ know which room we’re in otherwise we’ll be screwed over big time. We have to lose him first.” he stated while I ignored him.

Well, I didn’t ignore him completely, I heard what he said and processed it, but I didn’t indicate to him that I did hear him. I was too pissed right now at him to do anything but to keep running.

Stupid Joe for lying to me and telling me that it was ok for us to be there. Stupid security guy who interrupted mine and Joe's kiss...wait! That's a good thing right? Yes, No! Yes, No! Doesn't matter, I'll never know!

Joe’s voice cut me off by him saying that we were going to hide ‘here’ wherever ‘here’ was, and then pulled on my arm to round the corner and hide among the bushes along the hotel. We crept along the wall as quickly and as quietly as we could, although it wasn’t very comfortable with only a swimsuit and flip flops on crouching around in bushes. But once we heard the footsteps, Joe’s head snapped back to mine and we both crouched down as close to the ground as possible to hide from the security guy.

The bushes weren’t insanely small, but they weren’t huge either. If I were to stand up, they’d probably come to the middle of my thigh, so we had to stay hunched over.

I watched as Joe brought one of his hands up to his mouth to put his index finger over his lips to silently tell me to be quiet.

Like I’m going to be loud at this point in time.

I simply just rolled my eyes and grabbed my clothes from him to stick under my butt that was getting picked at by woodchips.

The security guy brought his flashlight up towards the hotel wall and skimmed above the bushes slowly while Joe and I both laid down on the ground in order to keep our shadows from giving us away. But right as the light was 2 feet away from me, the light disappeared and I heard the guy mumble something before his footsteps started to fade away.

I heard Joe let out a sigh of relief before saying that we should wait a couple of minutes to make sure he was gone before we left our hiding spot.

“I’m sorry.” Joe stated a few minutes later as I pulled my shirt on over my head, followed by my sweatshirt and I rolled my eyes and let out a frustrated sigh.

“I just wanted to spend some time with you and…well, you had fun didn’t you?” he continued after I didn’t say anything to him.

Sure, I was mad, but I couldn’t be too mad since we didn’t get caught and it was actually a little fun running from that guy. If anything, it would be fun to look back on and think that Joe and I ran from a cop…well, if you could really call him one.

Hotel Security and Cops are two different things. But running from a Cop sounds so much more badass than running from Hotel Security.

Joe and I would agree that it was a Cop we were running from when we told people about this.

“Yes I had fun. But next time, let me know when we’re actually doing something wrong. If you would’ve told me from the beginning, we wouldn’t have had to hide in these damn bushes.” I scolded him and then shoved his shoulder to let him know my anger was gone.

“Deal.” he stated and sent me a small smile before clapping his hands and saying that it would be ok for us to leave our hiding spot.

He fought his way through the bushes while I walked along the side of the building and then made my way towards him before pulling my shorts back on, thankful that throughout all that running, my key card was still firmly in my back pocket.

After we finally found a clock upon entering the hotel, we realized how late it was. Or technically, early it was.

“Holy cow! I can’t believe it’s 3:30 already.” Joe stated while grabbing my hand and making his way towards the stairs instead of the elevators since we apparently still needed to work on our cardio for the night.

Swimming, then almost kissing, then running from a cop and now stairs, I swear, this boy was going to kill me.

“Well, I’m exhausted right now so I guess thanks for an amazing night.” I stated to him as we reached our floor and we awkwardly let go of each other’s hands.

“Good, I’m glad you had fun. I had a great time too.” he stated with a sleepy smile towards me. “And you have woodchips in your hair. Here.” He pulled me closer to him and started pulling woodchips out of my hair and letting them fall around our feet instead of keeping them in one hand to throw out in his room. Normally, I would reprimand him for that, but all this action was finally catching up with me and I just didn’t have the energy to make a fuss about it.

“You’re all good now.” he stated while taking a step back from me after smoothing my hair down again so I didn’t look like a crazy hair woman of some sort.

“Thanks Joe. Goodnight.” I stepped forward to give him a quick hug and when I turned around and reached for my keycard in my back pocket, I heard him let out sigh and then say, “Your butt.”

“My butt?” I asked while turning around and I noticed a small smile on his face while looking down to where my butt would be before snapping his head up to me and asking if he really said that out loud.

“Yes….” I drug out while leaning up against the wall next to my door and folding my arms over my chest and smirking at him. “Now explain.”

I’m not gonna lie, having Joe checking me out and voicing it to bring it to my attention did wonders for my ego and self-esteem. It was nice to know that he didn’t always see me as his best friend but to actually see me as a girl.

He let out a sigh, I’m sure an upset one for getting caught, before letting his hands rake through his hair a couple of times before saying, “You know how I ran into you earlier on the way down to the pool?”

“Yeah…”

“And remember how I said I was distracted?” he asked me and then averted his eyes down to the ground while rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yeah…” I pressed.

“Well…” he drug out and right as I slammed my foot down to get him to say it, his hands shot up into the air while saying, “Your butt had me distracted! There! I said it!”

I noticed how quickly his demeanor changed though when his cheeks turned a light shade of pink from blushing about his confession and I bit back my giggle of excitement that he was checking me out earlier.

It’s not like it matters Steph! You’re getting over him after vacation. O-VER HIM!

“Well, thanks Joe.” I said and sent him a smile.

We stood there for a couple of awkward seconds before he came towards me and said, “Ok. Good night.” and gave me another hug while I let out a small laugh and said good night back to him before we both turned and quietly opened our doors.

Upon changing out of my cold and wet swimsuit, realization hit me that he seemed to be, very shy upon talking about that. Normally he’s so…blunt when talking about girls and everything.

So instead of getting my hopes up on the situation, I decided that he was just embarrassed to say it because I am one of his best friends and it would be weird to tell them they have a nice butt. Especially if you’re the opposite sex and you’ve never really done it before.

I shook my reasons from my head while sneaking into bed and laying down and falling asleep within seconds of my head hitting the pillow, all thoughts of Joe talking about my butt, running from the Cop, and my almost kiss with Joe, floating out of my head as I sank into a much needed sleep.