Days of Summer

“It is so nice today!” Tina squealed with delight as she ran towards Kevin’s car that was parked in the driveway and hopping into the front seat.

I watched as Frankie followed after her, along with Kevin and he hurriedly threw everything into the trunk of his vehicle before getting inside.

“You coming with us? I think it would do you good. Get out and enjoy the fresh air.” Nick offered out to me.

I stared up at the sky, looking at the sparseness of the clouds and few birds flittering around before taking in a deep breath and closing my eyes.

Flashes of her auburn hair flew before my eyes, making me snap them open and look over at Nick’s hopeful face.

I let out a sigh and nodded my head before saying, “I’ll come. Just let me change quick.” and turned around in the doorway and made my way upstairs, catching a glance of Nick’s smile before my departure.

They were going to the beach today because it was so nice out and I knew that Frankie would be upset with me because all morning he tried talking me into going and me refusing his requests, but then Nick asks me and I cave in.

For some reason, I could never say no to Nick. Maybe it was because I knew how much he looked up to me and I wanted to be a better role model for him because I knew that Frankie looked up him, not me.

It was like a generation thing.

Frankie looked up to Nick, who looked up to me, who looked up to Kevin, who looked up to Dad.

In the end, we all did the things we knew were right, even though it would mean torture for us in doing so, in order to set a good example for a younger generation.

I had to suck it up and be a man and prove to Nick that because of some girl, your life doesn’t end.

Well, at least it was time for me to suck it up. I’d been a horrible role model for the last year…but at least I’m starting now. Or, at least attempting to.

“Ya know…” Nick trailed off as I searched for my swimming trunks. “Talking about it can help you too. And you know I’m open ears for you talking about whatever happened to you last summer.”

I nodded my head once and let out a quiet thanks before spotting my trunks and throwing them onto my shoulder.

* * * * *

“Hey Joe…?” Tina trailed off as she watched Kevin, Nick and Frankie crash into the waves and started splashing each other.

“Hmm?”

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. And if I could’ve done anything I would’ve. And I also wa-” but she stopped when I put my hand up.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s all in the past now. I’m over it.” I said with as much nonchalance as I could, but I knew that it didn’t work.

Even a girl that I never met would be able to look at me and see that something was wrong.

“No you’re not Joe. And I just thought that you should know….” she trailed off and sucked in a deep breath.

Clearly whatever she was gonna say was either hard for her to actually say or she was afraid of my reaction.

“TINA HELP!” Frankie’s little voice called over to us with a little bit of a laugh, causing both of us to snap our heads towards the water and see Kevin holding him over his shoulder while Nick splashed his face.

I could tell she wanted to go, seeing as how a huge smile came across her face and the fact that her body twitched forward slightly.

Plus, it was an easy way out of whatever she clearly wasn’t ready to tell me.

“Go. It’s fine.” I said as I laid my head down onto my towel and closed my eyes to signify the end of our conversation.

I heard her let out a sigh before she got up from her towel and yelled, “Don’t worry Frank! I’m coming!” and then her little squeal that I was guessing Nick either grabbed her or splashed her with water.

I squinted my eyes as I turned them to the left and grabbed my sunglasses and placed them on my face.

Ok. It’s summer. Just enjoy the nice weather and the time off for once.

I took in a deep breath, smelling a combination of sun tan lotion, hotdogs, cotton candy and smoke from people cooking out on the beach.

I strained my ears a little more as her laughter echoed through my mind and heard my party that I came with laughing and splashing water at each other while Paramore’s ‘Misery Business’ was playing out of the speakers of the little snack shack that was a few yards away from me.

And then I could’ve sworn I heard her laugh somewhere to my right. Not in my head, but actually somewhere around me.

Snapping my eyes open under my sunglasses and whipping my head towards the direction I saw a girl around my age, playing with what looked like a small child about the age of 2 or 3 and I knew it couldn’t have been her, even though she shared the same hair color as her. But this mystery girl had darker skin from the last time that I saw her.

So I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes before redirecting my head back towards the ocean and opened my eyes.

A small smile, a real smile, flickered across my face when I noticed two girls walking along the beach, sharing headphones that were attached to an Ipod and they were slightly rocking out, although not as crazy as they probably would’ve gotten if they hadn’t had to keep the headphones in, bringing up a small flashback for me.

The small breeze that made it’s way across the four of us cooled us while the hot sun beat down and gave you that tingly feeling after you laid in it for a while and I smirked to myself.

I loved that feeling.

I also loved the feeling of having Allie’s hand interlaced with mine.

No, we weren’t an official couple, even though we were inseparable for what was now going on to 3 weeks.

But I didn’t really care. She was with me everyday for those last three weeks and I knew there wasn’t anyone else. There couldn’t be anyone else with how much time was spent together.

And it didn’t bother me one bit that we didn’t have a title. And it didn’t seem to bother her either.

Well, maybe it bothered me a little bit. As much as I wanted to call her mine, I knew that we had a good thing going, whatever it might have been, so I kept my mouth shut.

I figured I’d talk to her about it a couple days before she left. Which would be, sadly, in a week.

But I tried to think positive when I was with her and soak up as much time as I could with her while she was still here in California.

Yeah, I learned that she was only here for a month and then would be going to Massachusetts for school.

College actually. It was the summer before her college year. And they always say that this summer is the one you never forgot. And for me, I knew now why they always said that.

She was also staying with her dad and step mother and Tina was too.

See, we did more than make out. We actually did talk and I did learn stuff about her. And vise versa.

We were just enjoying an uneventful day at the beach, listening to Tina’s Ipod that was plugged into the little speakers we brought with us. An uneventful day it was for us, for once, since Allie and Tina always had crazy things planned for us to do during the day. Like the other day they made us go down to Hollywood Walk of Fame and made us count all the stars and then try and get the people who dressed up in costumes to let them try them on and take pictures with them on.

And surprisingly, Spongebob Squarepants let them put his costume on. But then the cops almost got called when Tina took off running in the costume and made a little boy cry cuz he thought Spongebob was attacking him.

“Oh! Oh!” Tina screamed out excitedly while Allie let go of my hand the two girls jumped up from their towels, leaving me and Kevin dumbfounded and looking at them with confusion written all over our faces.

“HERE WE GOOOOOO!” they yelled together and then busted out into random dance moves while singing “Here We Go.” by N*Sync, causing Kevin and I to crack up into laughter from all the scared looks we were getting from surrounding people.

But Allie and Tina seemed to be in their own little world, while we just laughed at them.

I swear. These two should always have a video crew following them.

“Yo Bro! What’s up?” Nick panted out and then flopped onto his towel that was laid on the other side of me.

I quickly snapped out of my memory and looked over at him and smiled at him.

“Is that a smile I see on your face?” he asked with mock astonishment.

“Shut up.” I laughed out at him, shoving him lightly in the shoulder.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s got you all smiley B.B.?”

“Do you want to see something really funny?” I asked him, not bothering to answer his question.

Well…I technically was. He just didn’t know yet.

“Uh…sure…?” he stuttered out and jumped slightly when I grabbed the beach bag that was behind Tina’s towel and started rummaging through it.

I pulled out my tools that I would need and quickly plugged everything in. Then searched for the song and hit play while turning it up as high as it would let me and then looked over at Tina who was still splashing around with Frankie and Kevin.

Nick sat there, stunned and completely lost next to me while I smiled widely at Tina and waited for the music to hit her ears.

“BACK TO THE STREET WHERE WE BEGAN, FEELING AS GOOD AS LOVERS CAN, YOU KNOW!”

Her head snapped over to me and a smile slowly came across her face and I noticed a small smile come across Kevin’s as well and then Tina ran towards me while I got up from my towel and started dancing our stupid little dance we made up last year.

Yes, it was a Tina and I thing.

But Kevin and Allie started it first when….

“Oh my gosh I’m so hungry!” Allie and Tina sighed out from fatigue as they planted themselves in a booth inside the little Café that we found to have lunch at.

“So am I!” I sighed out while sliding in and taking a seat in front of Tina while Kevin slid in next to me in front of Allie.

“Can I get you four anything to drink?” the waitress asked us and we all jumped a little bit from how quick the service was.

We all said water and she nodded her head and said she’d be back in a second.

“Man, who knew that pinball could get so intense?!” I laughed out from how Allie’s head was resting against Tina’s shoulder while Tina leaned against the wall of the restaurant.

“Right? My goodness.” Allie laughed out and then we all perked up a little bit when the waitress came over and gave us our waters.

“Are you ready to order or should give you all time to che-”

“I’ll have a plain cheeseburger, she’ll have chicken tenders, he’ll have some of the breaded shrimp or whatever it is and he’ll have…” Allie cut the waitress off and listed off everyone’s orders but stopped when she looked at me and narrowed her eyes, completely clueless to the fact that the waitress was trying her hardest to remember what she said and write it down.

“A chicken sandwich with lettace, tomato, and mayo.” she finished and then shot me a smile but I smirked back at her and opened up my mouth but she cut me off before my words could even start.

“With a pickle on the side along with fries.” and then with that she sent me a “Haha. Got you!” smile and leaned her head back onto Tina’s shoulder.

I scoffed under my breath and tried to hide my smile that was fighting its way onto my face.

Yes, we were all that predicable on what we always ordered for lunch and she just happened to memorize it.

But I always switched it up every once in a while, thus her pause in deciding what I would have.

The waitress spit our orders back out to us to make sure she had everything right and then went to give the order to the cooks.

“I love it when you do that.” I stated to her from across the table and she giggled slightly from my statement.

“I had to think there for a second.” she said as she lifted her head from Tina’s shoulder and twiddled with the ends of her wavy hair. “I was gonna say cheeseburger, but then I remembered you had that yesterday. And since you went on a little chicken rant earlier, I figured you might have wanted that instead.”

“So you were paying attention?” I inquired back to her with a smile before I took a sip out of my water.

“Of course I was. I always listen to-What the heck are you doing Kevin?” she asked with a small smirk and laugh which caused me and Tina to turn our attention towards Kevin to see him stop what little movement he was doing.

“Noth-nothing.” he stuttered out and then grabbed his water and took a long sip from it, but she smiled mischievously at him and got up from her side of the booth and pulled his hand to get him to stand up.

“You were totally dancing.”

He looked at her with wide eyes for a second before a slight blush came across his face from being called out on his previous actions.

“I just really like the song. It’s gotta good beat.” he stated and went to take a seat back in the booth but she bumped her hip with his to get him to redirect his attention and then she started clapping to the beat of Rihanna’s ‘Please Don’t Stop the Music’.

“I like this song too.” she stated as we all looked at her with a look between tired and shocked.

Well, Tina’s was more of tiredness since she was so used to Allie’s behavior.

And she probably would’ve gotten up from the booth and danced with her, who was slowly getting Kevin to give in and dance it out with her, but she was too tired.

“This sucks. We’re gonna come up with a dance to a song. Just for us!” I stated at the somewhat passed out Tina.

She opened her eyes slightly as a smile came onto her face and she nodded her head while mumbling quietly, “For sure. After we eat, we’ll think of something.”

“INTO A PLACE WHERE THOUGHTS CAN BLOOM, INTO A ROOM WHERE IT’S NINE IN THE AFTERNOON.” she yelled at me while doing our little dance and letting out a small laugh, bringing me back from my memory and I quickly fell in step with where our dance was supposed to be.

We sang the song together, laughing and receiving either more laughs from everyone around us and looks of disgust for us being so loud.

But I didn’t care.

This was the first time, apart from performing on stage, that I was having fun.

And it was willing fun. Not…‘I have to do it for the fans’ fun, but ‘I want to’ fun.

Nick pulled the Flip camera out from somewhere in a bag that was brought along and started recording Tina and I, dancing and singing on the beach while he, Kevin and Frankie all laughed.

And for the first time within the last year, she didn’t cross my mind.

And that…made me ecstatic.

I was starting to move on.

Finally.