Was I The Only One?

Joe drove us to the beach in my car with the top down. The conversation in the car flowed easily between us, probably because it always felt so natural to be around him. I was annoyed with myself for letting myself be around him and letting down the walls that I’d built up to purposefully keep him out of my life. But I couldn’t help it. He was irresistible to me. I was finally giving into my instincts and it felt like I was cheating on myself oddly enough. I didn’t want it to show though, I wanted Joe to feel comfortable around me.

When we arrived at Santa Monica pier Joe parked the car up and groaned when paparazzi appeared from random cars in the parking lot. There wasn’t too many but we both knew the numbers would grow rapidly.

“Hungry?” He asked as we sat in the car.

“Yep, corndog?” I suggested placing some aviators on my face.

“Corndog.” Joe agreed, putting on his wayfarers.

We both climbed out of the car and slammed our doors. I went to the boot and pulled out my guitar and strapped that around me then pushed it to my back. The difference being that I smiled brightly to the cameras where as Joe looked quite sullen as I walked to his side of the car. Once I was at his side we both began walking towards the pier.

“Joe, how are you today?” One of the paparazzi shouted in a foreign accent. Joe gave no reply so he obvious thought he’d give me a try. “How was your casting this morning, Julia?”

“You were there, awesome. It went fine thanks.” I answered politely.

I soon came to realise that I didn’t really know which direction I was going in so I was comforted when Joe placed his hand on the small of my back and guided me in the correct direction.

“You two are a cute couple.” Another commented.

“How’d you tap that Joe?”

I cringed, “Come on man, be a bit more respectful.” Joe snapped at him, I smiled at his still protective nature over me.

Finally, we reached the small food stand and joined the small queue. Luckily for us also, a few security guards and policemen came over and moved the paparazzi at a safe distance away from us and one policeman said that he would stay with us. We headed down to the beach where the shutterbugs were forced to keep it at a distance and the policeman also strolled at a distance away from us, which was nice because we could have a proper conversation without fears of it being exposed.

We stood next to each other looking out onto the shining sea. “I love the ocean.”

Joe looked down at me as I took off the guitar and placed it in the sand, but I continued to watch the waves crashed down on top of the body of water. “Why?”

I shrugged, “It’s just, beautiful. It’s very relaxing.”

“Relaxing?” Joe repeated, “Well, we can’t have that. Relaxing is for old people. We’re too young.”

I looked to Joe who moved his arms only slightly, “No!” I warned him, backing up slowly.

Joe had that look in his eyes, the one look that he had always had from being a small child; the mischief look, and it was present and in full force. I tried to run but his long arms gripped my waist and pulled me back. I attempted to get loose as he took out my legs and carried me into the shallow water, my face getting closer and closer to the sea.

“Joseph! I will cut your balls off while you sleep and but them in a jar for you to keep beside your bed if you don’t put me back on that beach!” I threatened loudly, punching his back.

“Okay, let me see if I can lift you over my head.” He announced randomly, I could tell he wanted to laugh at my weak attempts to break free.

“What?” I asked breathlessly.

“Keep your body stiff.”

I did as he told me and kept my body stiff, he moved me around so that I was in his arms bridal style then so that I was horizontal. With a heave he lifted me over his head, I let out a squeak at his insane antics.

“Put me down!” I screeched.

My eyes widened as I realised what my words meant. Without a second thought he launched me into the sea in front of him. My clothes were weighing me down but I didn’t even get time to surface as Joe grabbed onto my arm and pulled me back to my feet.

And of course, he was laughing uncontrollably at my soaking state.

“Come on.” He chuckled, “Laugh it off.”

I did want to laugh, I was dying to laugh, but my stubborn nature was telling me not to. Instead, while he was having his laughing fit I dived onto his chest tackling him unexpectedly into the water. Once I was sure that he had been successfully and thoroughly soaked just as I was. I took my hands from his chest and let him come back up.

He burst through the water like a dolphin and shook his hair from his forehead, I laughed just as he had done to me as he pushed his hair back against his head and wiped the water from his face.

“Even!” I shouted, sensing he might try for revenge.

“Okay, come on.”

The both of us trudge through the water, our clothes making it harder to walk. Instead of a beautiful beach with happy people running around there was a long line of paparazzi that were stood behind another line of paparazzi. Now, there were not only paparazzi but normal people wanted to see what was going on, I didn’t blame them. I’d be nosey if this was happening somewhere I was but I wanted to spend time with Joe, in public, freely.

“They’re starting to annoy me.” I told Joe.

“They always annoy me.” Joe retorted.

We stood in the sand, it stuck to our feet annoyingly. I hated when sand did that. We both knew that staying here would no longer be practical, it was all close to getting too out of control so we picked up our shoes and I put my guitar back over me. I was upset that we didn’t get to play and sing on the beach, it was something we always did whenever we both went to the beach.

I jumped over my car door and into the passenger’s seat of my convertible. Joe did the same thing and started up my car. Carefully, he reversed from the spot and tried to avoid hitting or running over anyone.

“What are you doing tonight?” Joe asked, cutting the silence that we sat in.

“Urm, I think I’m hitting the gym.” I answered.

He nodded, “I’m going to this gift lounge thing, wanna come?”

I bit my lip and cringed, I’d spent the day with him and he was beginning to get ahead of himself. “I don’t think that’s really my scene. Plus—”

I was cut off by the sound of my cell phone ringing, I pulled it out of my bag and looked to Joe, “You can answer.” He chuckled.

I smiled slightly then answered the call, “Hello.”

“Hey, it’s Nathan. I’m calling off my mom’s phone.”

“Oh, that explains the random number. What happened to your phone?” I giggled.

“Well… it fell.” I rolled my eyes, “Anyways, do you have time to hang out?”

My instinct reaction was to say yes to him but I couldn’t answer him with yes when I’d just said to Joe I couldn’t spend the night with him, “Not tonight, sorry, but tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow is great, I’ve got to go now because my mom is yelling at me.”

I laughed, “Yeah, I can hear her.”

“Embarrassing.” He mumbled, “Anyways, I’ll call you later?”

“Sure, bye.”

I ended the call and dropped my cell back into my bag. “So…” I could tell Joe was going to try and nose into what was happening, “Who was that?”

I smirked, “You remember Nathan?” He nodded, “It was him, we’ve been hanging out.”

Joe nodded his head slightly. “Oh… awesome.”