Guardian Chapter 1

Chapter 1

 
The relentless Georgia sun beat down on the pavement around them, creating a haze in the afternoon air. Trin pulled at the faded straps of her regulation black Speedo where they bit into her reddened shoulders. In another hour, the sun would dip low enough in the sky to ease her burn, but the stillness of the late summer humidity was sometimes even worse than the scorch.

  “Hot is an understatement.”

  Trin turned from her life guard stand overlooking the Olympic size pool at the Pinewood Swim and Racket Club, to Isa, hanging off the back of her chair. Isa’s deep brown eyes were set on the new kid, swimming butterfly in the far left swim lane. Water sheeted off his muscular arms as they breached the water in unison, sending pebbles of clear liquid airborne to rain down over his bobbing head.

  “He’s alright.” She tilted her Ray-bans down for a second, giving the new guy a good glance before turning back to the group of middle-schoolers playing Shark in the deep end.  She’d just watched Donald Southerland scarf down a Big Mac and fries in this heat and now one of the older kids had tagged him it. This game wasn’t going to have a happy ending and she didn’t plan on being the one cleaning Donald’s puke off the pavement this time.

  Isa huffed in her ear. She’d been hanging on the back of her lifeguard stand for the better part of the last half hour watching the new guy swim. “Alright? Trin, you’re blind.”

    Her robust voice floated over to a group of young girls sunning themselves at the edge of the pool and no doubt watching the same show Isa was.  “He’s a damn god! You can’t be blasé about a guy who looks like Eros and swims like Michael Phelps.”

  Isa was overdramatic as usual. “Michael Phelps is a stretch, and who the heck is Eros?”

  Trin didn’t have to look to know Isa was rolling her eyes. She didn’t miss her shaking her head in disbelief either. If they’d been any more attuned with each other they’d pass as twins, except for Trin’s two-foot height advantage and Isa too-strong southern accent.

  “God of Love. . . “

  “Who?” When she thought Isa wasn’t looking, Trin stole another glance at the stranger in lane three. She wasn’t blind. He was hot, way hot from what she could see above the water line. His hair was a dark brown now that it was wet, with flecks of a warm honey-blond, cut in that short way that maked it look neat and kept, but still long enough to show a natural wave around the frame of his face.

    His nose was slightly off center and flattened were it bridged just under his pale blue eyes as if it had been broken, and a tattoo cuffed the upper part of his bicep though she couldn’t make out the exact design.  He pulled his torso up from the water, one muscular stroke after another, and Trin felt Isa’s hot breath on her neck as she watched, mouth gaped in amazement. Damn, Isa. He’s just another guy. Another guy who would end up breaking every heart in his wake. The kind of guy Trin had learned the hard way to stay away from.

    “He looks more like a demigod then the real thing.” Trin couldn’t help baiting Isa. Her fascination with Greek Mythology was a product of her summer school crush on Mr. Hastings, the World Lit teacher at Coastal High. Trin didn’t see the fascination with graying temples and deepening laugh lines, but Isa had been smitten all summer. Until now anyway.

  “Ha Ha. Very funny.” She smacked her gum in Trin’s ear, and huffed again. “I’m only looking out for you. Swim team starts in two short weeks and last I heard you’re still short an anchor.” She cut her eyes at Trin in her mortally wounded way.

  Trin glanced at Nick across the pool from behind her Ray-bans. He was too busy watching Donald Southerland flounder around to notice. Then she turned just enough for Isa to see her eyes roll. Isa’s reddish brown hair looked attractive in a French braid down her back and she had on peach color blush and a pale lip gloss. Trin wished for her hair, so full of life and bounce. Hers looked more like bone straight stalks of hay, and after weeks spent sitting in a lifeguard chair had bleached to the color of ash-white. If it weren’t for her tan she’d pass for the walking dead.

  Isa did have a point. Matt McCormick had graduated and that left the anchor position on the Coastal High swim team open.  Trin looked across the pool to where Nick sat opposite her on his stand. Behind dark sunglasses she could tell he watched her. His lips curled with the slightest hint of a smile and his body relaxed against the hard plastic of the chair. His ebony hair spiked up around his face from his recent dip in the pool and water glistened off his arms and chest. You want to see a god, Isa?    Her eyes tensed and he noticed, pulling his glasses down and frowning. He should have been their anchor swimmer, but he’d refused.

  Trin looked away, back to the pool full of kids. She tried to focus on what Isa had just said. “What makes you think he’s a student at Coastal High?” She’d never seen him around.

  “He’s hanging out at the Pinewood Swim Club. Who else could afford a membership here?”

    Isa had another point. If it hadn’t been for a scholarship, Trin wouldn’t be there either.

    “Why don’t you ask him?”

    Isa straightened up again and her gaze went right back to lane three as if being pulled by magnetic force. “I wouldn’t want Nick to get in the way of your last chance for a summer romance.”

    “What’s Nick got to do with summer romance?” She tried to keep her voice steady. His eyes were on her, she could feel them, but she didn’t dare look.  He’d had his chance and he’d pushed her away. She wouldn’t be the lost little puppy, begging to be taken in again. He had enough of those following him around already.

  “Come on.” Isa smacked her gum again. “Like you haven’t been staring at him all afternoon.”

  Trin’s back straightened.

  “The sad part is that while you’re making gogglie eyes at Mister High and Mightily, Mr. Hotter than Sin’s been watching you and you haven’t even noticed.”

  Isa’s breath caught at the same time her sharp, acrylic nails bit into Trin’s upper shoulder. “Look. He’s getting out. Now’s your chance.”

  Trin’s thoughts had been so intertwined with Nick, she hadn’t noticed the new guy leaving the pool.

  “You have to go talk to him before he leaves.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” Isa’s shrill gained Nick’s attention. She sunk down behind the chair again. “What if this is your last chance and you’ll never see this guy again in your life? Are you willing to live with that regret?” She cocked her head to the side and gave those wide puppy dogs eyes Trin hated.

  “I can’t just leave my stand to talk to him, Isa.” Among other reasons, like the way Nick was looking at her now, tearing her heart out. He was trying to look relaxed, slouched back in his chair, using his glasses to hide his eyes but she could see the tension in his arms hanging over the sides of the chair ending in clenched fists.

  “You’re the head life guard, Trin. You can do whatever you want.” Isa waved at Seth, A Coastal High senior and the newest life guard. “Take over for Trin for a minute will you,” Isa demanded as if she’d taken over Trin’s position as head lifeguard. “She has something important to do.”

  Nick leaned forward in his chair, dropping his glasses to the bridge of his nose as he watched her leave the stand.

*****

 

  “Nice butterfly.”

  The new guy ignored Trin, fluffing his hair with a badge towel. His bathing suit was generic, a red plaid boy-short like the ones they sell at Wal-mart for five bucks at the end of summer, and the towel now draped around his shoulders was from the club. She looked around the lounge chair for shoes, but came up with nothing more than a shirt thrown across the seat. Where the heck did this kid come from?

  “Are you on a swim team?” Trin ventured when he didn’t respond. He didn’t even look in her direction.

  She was about to cut her losses and walk away when Nick blew his whistle.

  “I’m not a swim team kind of guy.”

  “So you can talk,” Trin said, looking back to him from Nick. “I thought you might be mute or something.”

  “Something.” He smiled in a cute, shy kind of way that made her hope he was flirting. He tossed his head in Nick direction sending sparkles of water through the air like fine glitter. “Friend?”

  “Somewhat.” How could she explain the complicity of her relationship with Nick to a perfect stranger? Isa knew her better then she knew herself and she couldn’t even understand their attraction to dragging each other along. “More like distant family friend. He’s living with me for the summer and my aunt forced me to find him a job.”

  “Bummer.”

  “Tell me about it.”

    Nick stood up and folded his arms over his chest. He didn’t try to hide his building frustration.

    “So, are you . . . on a swim team I mean?”

    He set his light blue eyes on her and Trin shivered involuntarily. “Our anchor graduated this past year and our other choice is—“she bobbed her head in Nicks’ direction, trying to avoid his stare. Something about what she’d just said, or done brought a smile to the new guys face.

  “He looks pissed. You better go.” His words flirted with concern but his face was light, almost mocking.

  Trin tuned Nick out. “He’ll be fine. I’m the head lifeguard.” She could feel him trying to wiggle free from the conversation and a sudden panic took hold. “Swim team. We practice four days a week right after school and meets are Saturdays and the occasional Thursday afternoon. You’ll have to pass a timed evaluation with the couch, but you already have the captain’s approval.”

  “Sounds great but”—he pulled the towel tighter around his shoulder, pulling on the ends with his hands and flexing his arms. If Isa was watching she was melting by now. “I don’t go to your school.”

  Trin was losing him. Her mind searched for something cleaver to say. “How do you know? I hadn’t told you what school.”

  His eyes squinted from the sun and his brows frowned. “It doesn’t matter what school you go to, I don’t go there.”

    Nick yelled her name and new guys gaze cut off in his direction. “Pretty boy’s about to burst a blood vessel. You better go.”

  Trin froze, just standing there, staring at him like a kid with a school girl crush, feeling stupid, hoping something creative would come to mind to say. Anything that would make him stand there just a second longer so she could regroup and think of the perfect plea for him to reconsider the team. “I could talk to the coach. I’m on a full scholarship. Maybe I could—“

  “I don’t go to school,” he cut in. “I told you that already.”

  He bent down for his shirt thrown across the seat of a near-by deck chair and his towel dropped off his shoulder, revealing a mass of silver colored scar tissue snaking across the expanse of his back. Trin gasped. The bumpy raw skin ran from just under the nape of his neck to the break of his hips. Some of the tissue had hardened and turned an iridescent silver color while the deeper recesses were still red and looked tender to the touch.  He turned quickly, his eyes burning holes into her. He pulled his shirt down over his shoulders and straightened the hem around his hips before speaking. “It’s nothing.” irritation and a hint of anger coated his words.

  Trin took a step back, feeling his words slap her away.

  “He’s still waiting for you.” He pointed over her shoulder. Trin looked up to Nick, not because she needed to see him to know he was angry, but because she needed an excuse to look away from the new guy.

  Nicks eyes drooped at the corners. His annoyance changed to concern and without giving thought to protocol, he descended the stairs from his stand, marching straight towards her.