The Beach

Sawyer was so grateful to be back at the beach house and away from one of the most awkward dinners of her life that she almost forgot that she was going to have to sleep in the same bed as Jake instead of Alex when everyone finally made it to sleep. She was completely dreading that, but at the moment, she didn’t care. Sitting next to Alex and trying to hold a conversation with Jake at the same time while her lover rubbed circles with his fingers high on her thigh was more than difficult. It had almost been damn near impossible, Sawyer barely able to keep her composure. But she did.

Everyone was in the beach house, spread around the living room in various places. Sawyer was seated on Jake’s lap as he sat in the chair, although she looked sadly and longingly at Alex from across the room. She wanted to be sitting on Alex’s lap, her arms around his neck as his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her close to him.

This felt like it was just getting worse as the minutes passed. Alex and Sawyer making eye contact, both longing to be with one another.

Alex was hating this. He hated that Jake had his arms over the one girl he wanted. He wanted Sawyer to himself. She was his longer than she was Jake’s and he idiot didn’t even know how lucky he had it. Sure, he was mildly attractive if he’s what you go for, but really, for being in a medical residency, the dude was dumber than a broken brick.

For Christ’s sake, Jack insulted the guy several times to his face and he didn’t have a clue, and Jack wasn’t exactly witty or subtle.

Then, it was almost like Jake knew he wasn’t wanted.

“Hey hun” he whispered into Sawyer’s ear, causing her to pull her gaze at Alex away and turn to the boy she was supposed to love. “I’m a bit exhausted from the red eye flight. I think I’m going to go to bed if you don’t mind.”

How did Sawyer get so damn lucky all of a sudden? She felt like this was a reward for putting up with the extreme awkwardness of the entire day.

“Oh no. Go ahead. We’ll probably be up for a while. Get some rest so you can be well rested for tomorrow.” Sawyer said, trying not to get overexcited. Jake would be out in a matter of minutes. When he was tired, he was out as soon as he hit the pillow.

Sawyer got off of Jake’s lap so he could stand up, giving him a quick hug as he kissed her forehead.

“Night everyone.” He said as he left the room, a chorus of good nights following him from the group. Everyone watched as he exited the room and went up the stairs, and Sawyer turned her eyes toward Alex, only to find his eyes already on her. She let out a huge smile, because for the first time all day she felt relief. She felt like she could breathe freely because she wasn’t caught between her life and her dream.

Slowly, a smile started to spread on Alex’s face. Sawyer started to smile back.

“Gotta wait until he’s asleep” She mouthed to him, and he nodded, but his smile didn’t leave his face.

Alex was so excited because finally, Jake was not going to be attached to Sawyer like a bad tattoo. It was almost like he didn’t know what the hell personal space was. But Alex could care less at the moment, because he was gone. He was in bed, falling asleep while Sawyer was down here with him.

He almost felt bad for the guy because he didn’t know that his girlfriend wasn’t faithful. In all honestly, Alex wasn’t even sure that Sawyer loved him. Sure, she obviously cared for him, but Alex didn’t believe that Sawyer actually loved Jake. He didn’t have her words to tell him that, but he could feel it and see it in her actions. You don’t cheat on the person you love. You don’t get upset that they are coming to visit you. You don’t spend weeks away from them every summer to be with someone else.

Alex shook his head, because really, he couldn’t care less what Sawyer did with Jake as long as by the end of these horrible three days, it was him she was with all day, hanging off of and smiling at.

About 15 minutes later, after Jack had convinced everyone to watch Home Alone, which he discovered that Sawyer loved, Sawyer moved from the chair and over to the couch, sitting down on Alex’s lap, his arms automatically wrapping around her. She leaned back into him, her eyes focused on the movie, because truly, she loved this movie almost as much as Jack seemed to. Alex placed light kisses on her shoulders, her heart fluttering along with her eyes as she tried her best to ignore his flirty moves. Alex’s fingers played lightly at Sawyers hips, ghostly lightly at the minimal amount of skin that was exposed between her shirt and the shorts she had been wearing. Sawyer tried to grab Alex’s hands in her own, attempting to persuade him to stop, but regardless of her fingers wrapped around his, he kept playing lightly at the skin, moving to nip his teeth at her shoulders.

Sawyer was beginning to hate Alex almost as much as she loved him. He was teasing her while she was trying to watch one of her favorite movies, and she thought that it was possible she might kill him. Everyone was in the room, so she didn’t want to do anything that would cause anyone to be uncomfortable, especially given that she didn’t really know them incredibly well. Sure, it felt like she had, but in reality, she didn’t. She’d only known them for a matter of days and didn’t want to put them into an awkward position.

“For Christ sakes. We all know you two want to kiss, just do it already. All this fidgeting is distracting me from the movie.” Austin commented all of a sudden, causing Alex to smirk, Sawyer to blush, and the rest of the room to try not to laugh loudly, really just snickering at Austin’s brash comment.

Sawyer caved, turning her head to gaze at Alex, before meeting his lips with her own. She relaxed even more at that second, not even realizing that she was still tensed up from the day she had just experienced. She leaned into Alex more, sighing contently as the two pulled apart. It had only been about 14 hours or so and Sawyer had desperately missed kissing Alex. Nothing quite compared to it. Even the softest of kisses from Alex left her breathless and dizzy.

They broke apart, smiling at each other because it felt so right to be able to kiss after an entire day of not even touching. Being in the same place without being close was what Sawyer imagined could be a torture technique somewhere where they tortured people. She felt like she was being tortured all day not being able to even touch Alex but with him always being within arm’s distance. Being this close to him was something she didn’t think she would miss so much. Sure, it was always hard when they parted ways every summer, but that was always a clean break. There was no direct contact during the year, so when the summer was over, so were they until the next summer came around.

“I really missed this.” Sawyer whispered as she nuzzled her nose into Alex’s neck, snuggling as close to his body as she physically could.

“Me too. But we survived day one. How hard can day two and three be now?” Alex asked, and Sawyer shrugged, because truly, she had no words. One day without Alex was hard enough. Now she was going to have to make it through another two days? She really wasn’t sure how well this was going to go.

“Yea.” Was all that she could manage to get out to him, snuggling closer. Eventually she’d have to go to bed and so would Alex, and for the first night, it wouldn’t be the same bed as it normally was.