Chance Encounters

I can’t do this.” I turned and looked to Luke. Waves hit my toes and I felt my heart thumping in my chest.

“Ellie, you can do it.” Luke said firmly looking at me. I looked back and opened my mouth about to express my panic. The look in his eyes told me it wasn’t as amazing an idea I thought it was. I took his hand and we both stepped farther into the water.

“GEEZ!”I shrieked. A shiver ran up my spine. “That’s freezing.” I whined, though the shiver probably couldn’t be blamed solely on the waters temperature.

“You’re doing it. Let’s keep going.” Luke said pulling me farther into the crashing surf. It was up to my calves now and I wanted out.

“Lu-“

“No.” Luke interrupted me. “You’re doing this.” He said and there was that edge to his voice. That edge that told me not to push it. I stopped walking on my own volition. Though Luke pulled me to make up for that. I looked down at the waves and took in a shake breath. I felt dizzy. I couldn’t breathe right. I looked up, then closed my eyes. Anything was better than looking at the water. I walked. I hated every second of it but I walked.

The water just kept getting higher and higher up my body and I wished I hadn’t decided to wear jeans today. We stopped walking for a little bit and just stood there. My eyes were still closed tight and I just concentrated on myself. The thing was nothing was happening to me. I was just standing, with Luke, in my jeans, in the ocean. And I was fine. I laughed. This wasn’t the river, and I wasn’t a little kid anymore. I had been so terrified of anything to do with water for so long. Right after the accident it took me days to be convinced the shower was a safe place. I had psyched myself out.

“What?” Luke asked, and I opened my eyes.

“I dunno, I just thought it would be so much harder.” I said honestly, I squeezed his hand and he stepped closer. “Thank you,” I said.

Luke leaned down and wrapped his arms around me, and with his lips a few breaths away muttered “Your welcome before kissing me. He pressed ourselves against each other and stayed that way. It was warmer now. Then mother nature being the evil witch she is decided to crash into us with a hug wave. Luke and I both tumbled into the water. At first that sense of fear kicked in again. I couldn’t move and the only thing I could think to do was hold my breath. It was scary and I wanted to go back home with my nice warm dry bed. My lungs started to ache and I heard Luke’s voice faintly through the water. He was calling my name. For that brief second I didn’t think about my fear and I just pushed off the ground and got my head above water. I went over to him and hugged him.

“you’re not scared?” I shook my head and smiled at him

“No, I have you.”

***

The picture I had taken was amazing. Not that I was trying to toot my own horn or anything. But as Luke was cooking his marshmallow over the fire I couldn’t help looking at it. Only the backlight of my camera and the fire illuminated the pictures since the sun was nearly gone. Putting my Camera back in its case I grabbed a stick and marshmallow and held it over the fire.

“Thank you.” I said to Luke, he had scooted right next to me, I’m not sure when, but it felt comfortable and natural. “I know I already aid it, but thank you for today.”

“I wanted to do something special with you.” I looked up at Luke and saw how he was trying to kill his marshmallow. I had already taken mine off the fire, it was golden brown and gooey the way I loved it.

“Helping me face my feels is special?” I asked chuckling slightly.

“Yes.” He replied seriously.

“Why?”

“I want you to know you don’t have to be afraid of anything. That, I’m here to protect you, even if I have some fears of my own.” The last few words had drifted off as if Luke hadn’t really meant to say them. Then he attempted to take his marshmallow off the fire. I assumed to change the subject. But I wasn’t going to let that one go.

“Luke, what are you afraid of?” I asked only 5 percent plotting some kind of payback for earlier.

“Do you mean in General?” Luke asked. He seemed to be stalling .

“sure.” I said scooting closer.

“Well,” Luke said pausing, “For starters I’m afraid of losing you.” I elbowed him slightly and glared.

“No, come on Luke, Really I want to know. Tell me. Please?” I begged batting my eyelashes to the greatest extent I could without it looking stupid. Luke sighed eating the marshmallow in his hands and chewing painfully slow. I wanted to shake him, but I sat there calmly.

“My father.” He said suddenly. I didn’t say anything at first. Maybe because I was terrified of his father too. The man had thrown a bottle at my head, when I pissed him off. I mean he could have just kicked me out, but instead he took the violent and oh so painful method. Luke had mentioned once that his dad hadn’t always been horrible. That it just got really bad after his mother died. I remembered also that when Luke mentioned his mother to his father the man grew angry.

“Luke,” I started, I knew this was a sensitive topic, but wasn’t today supposed to be for sharing? “um, how did your mom-“ But before I could say the last words, Luke’s voice broke in.

“Car Crash.” He said abruptly in that voice of his that always made me scared.

“I’m sorry to bring it up.” I said quickly, and I shrunk away from him scooting over slightly on the blanket. “I just… wanted to know.”

“It’s okay I just don’t like thinking about it. I don’t like thinking about anything that happened around the time my mom died.” Again, Luke’s voice drifted off and against my better judgment I pounced on it.

“What… What did happen after your mom died?”

* * *

Luke told me his story. And even though my mind should have been focusing on other things from it the only thing that kept repeating itself was Mena, and not a virgin. This didn’t change anything. Not really at least. Luke was still amazing and what happened in his past, didn’t change that. But Mena. I was furious with her. I know that’s irrational but as we picked up all of the blankets and put out the fire I wanted nothing more than to go up and slap her. I couldn’t explain.

“So,” Luke muttered, “Are you?” He asked not looking at my face, but more in the area right above my head.

“Am I?” I asked looking up from the blanket I was folding.

“You know, a virgin?” Luke asked still not meeting my eyes directly but I flushed. It was only when my face turned bright red that he looked at it. And of course THAT would be the time he choose to look. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to!” He said quickly “I mean just becau-“

I stopped him. “Yeah…” I muttered looking down and shoving the blanket in a bag. I could see Luke looking at me from my peripheral.

“Really?” He asked sounding slightly shocked. I gasped and picked up a marshmallow he had dropped throwing it at him.

“You’re surprised?!” I asked aghast.

“No! I didn’t mean it like that.” Luke said holding up his hands in surrender. “It’s just that, that night you were umm….” He trailed off but I could hear the words he didn’t say in my head.

“I didn’t really know what I was doing.” I muttered. “I just kind of did what I’ve seen or heard on TV.”

“So you’ve never?” Luke asked again and I shook my head.

“Nah… I’ve had two or three boyfriends before but I never took it that far with them.” I said pulling the bag up on my shoulders. Out little bonfire area had been cleaned up, so we started walking towards the car. It was still a good walk away and honestly my body felt like it just wanted to sit down on the sand again and stay forever. But my body woke up pretty quickly when it started pouring. I shrieked and went to cover my Camera case. I needed to get to the car! But Luke cried out to me and I turned to see him point at a dock that was much closer. I stated running towards it only a few feet behind him and made it under the doc about a second later. I checked my Camera case first and noting that it was still dry (thank god!) I checked on the blankets. The top one had gotten wet. But the blanket at the bottom of the bag was fine I pulled out the top blanket before it could get the other one wet. I rung out a lot of the water but couldn’t do much else with it. So I put it down frustrated. We had just dried off by the fire and now we were soaked again.

“What are we going to do?” I whined. “Mary is going to kill us if we stay out here all night.” I looked out over towards the car which I could barely make out.

“We’ll tell her the truth.” Luke said calmly. “It’ll be okay.” He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me to where I was almost sitting on his lap. Not that I minded at all. We were both soaked from head to foot and shivering. We sat there like that for four minutes before I had had enough and stood up. I started first with my pants. Peeling them off and laying them flat on a boulder. Then I reached into the bag and pulled out the dry blanket and took off my shirt. Placing it on the boulder as well.

Luke looked at me wide eyed and I tried to act like I wasn’t nervous. “You should probably take off your clothes too.” I said controlling my voice to sound calm and completely rational. “It’s just getting colder and you’re going to freeze. “

“I’m not sure how no clothes will help me if there is only one dry blanket.” Luke said tugging on his shirt.

“It’s big enough for the both of us.” I said and squirmed slightly. Luke looked at me seriously for a moment. Then he took his shirt off. He walked over to the boulder and I tried not to stare. Then the pants. He went almost painfully slow with the pants and I pretended I wasn’t watching him. Because I wasn’t eager to see him half naked or anything like that.

The pants joined the shirt on the boulder eventually and Luke stood there awkwardly for a moment before walking towards me and the blanket. I opened up half of the blanket and he crawled in next to me and we sat down on the sat half naked and curled up next to each other under the blanket. His side was pressed against mine but still there was a gap in the blanket to where the fabric wouldn’t stretch far enough. It was letting in cold wind that this weird storm had produced. I bit my tongue and pressed even closer. I looked up at Luke and he looked down at me. After a second of staring Luke wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me onto his lap. I blushed but my back was turned to him so I didn’t think he saw it.

I wrapped the blanket tightly around us and I could feel his body heat on my back and his arms still wrapped around my waist. His hand brushed my neck pushing aside my hair and leaned his face into my shoulder. I shuddered slightly and Luke tensed briefly but relaxed again. I got warmer. Not just from the blanket and his body heat as well but from this situation. Never before had I let myself be put in this situation. My face was on fire and I really hoped he couldn’t tell. After a moment I felt something else brush my neck. It was soft and warm and it caused a shiver to run through my body. Luke’s lips moved down my neck and along my shoulder. I placed my hands on his, and moved my head giving him access to my neck. Seeing I wasn’t resisting Luke turned me around and we faced each other. Our lips met briefly before he went back to kissing my neck. His hands slid down my arms moving my bra strap as he went. I sucked in a breath and Luke looked back up at me quickly.

“You okay Ellie?”

“Yeah,”