“So…now what?” I eventually ask. “Now that I’m standing in the fucking ocean in my suit, soaking wet, what do we do?”
“We swim,” she says on a giggle, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. She presses a surprising smack of a kiss to my unsuspecting lips and grins back at me.
“And then what?” I question, and she tilts her head to the side.
“What do you mean?’
“Well, for one, we have no towels.”
“Hmmm…I guess I didn’t really think that part through, huh?” she retorts, and a mischievous smile crests her lips.
“Which is such a Carly thing to say,” I toss back, and she giggles.
“We’re each other’s opposites, aren’t we? I’m wild and impulsive, and you’re uptight and neurotic.”
“I’m not that uptight.”
Her responding smile calls bullshit.
“So, I like things planned out.” I shrug one shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I never said there was,” she responds and flashes a wink at me. “If anything, in my opinion, it’s kind of sexy. It makes me incredibly curious what you’re like in other kinds of situations.”
Other kinds of situations? Like sex?
My chin jerks back into my chest, and I smile. “Are you hitting on me, Carly?”
“Maybe.” She shrugs one bare shoulder. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and find out.”
“Ah,” I hum. “Maybe that information is stored with the towels.”
She grins and splashes her hand in the water, urging a few rogue droplets to hit me in the chest. “Don’t worry,” she instructs, smoothing the furrow in my brow with a water-wrinkled fingertip. “I have a solution for towels.”
“Oh, really? What’s that? And before you suggest it, I’m not shaking myself dry like a big dog.”
She grins and answers my question by pointing toward something behind me. I glance over my shoulder to see the neon lights of a small convenience store off in the distance, where the main road leads to the beach.
“See, Ryan?” she states and playfully taps my stomach. “Sometimes, you don’t need to plan everything. Sometimes, you just need to let life lead you because, eventually, it will all work itself out.”
And then she’s off again, diving back into the water until her whole body is completely submerged.
Let life lead me?
As I stand here in the ocean, watching the sexiest woman on the planet swim around in her bra and lacy underwear, I can’t help but wonder, Has life led me to Carly for some strange, cosmic reason?
“Do you think everyone is still at the clubhouse?” Carly asks as I pull the Land Rover into my dad’s driveway.
After one quick glance around our parents’ houses, and then to the rest of the houses on their street, I nod. “Yeah, even though it’s almost ten, it seems like it. Everyone’s lights are still out.”
“That is fan-fucking-tastic.” A devilish grin covers her lips, and as I put the car in park and cut the engine, Carly is unbuckling her seat belt and hopping out of her seat. She yanks open the back passenger door and snags the big package of toilet paper that she bought at the store across from the beach.
Seeing as we were both soaking wet when we got out of the ocean, we did, in fact, make a pit stop for towels before heading back to Sunny Creek.
I hop out of the driver’s seat, shove the keys in my still-damp pocket, and shut the door.
But to my surprise, as I round the hood, she’s already heading off in a direction that leads the opposite way of her mom’s house.
“What are you doing?” I question, and she stops in the middle of my dad’s lawn to flash a cheeky grin at me.
“I’m letting karma handle a few things.”
“Huh?” I ask, and it takes me five strides to close the distance between us. “Karma? What are you talking about?”
Carly raises the toilet paper in her hands a little and nods her head. “I’m talking about giving Betty a taste of her own medicine.”
“You’re going to give her toilet paper?”
“No.” She snorts. “I’m going to TP Nan’s house.”
“What?” My eyebrows hit my forehead.
“Ryan,” Carly responds, dropping her voice and leaning toward me. “Think about it. Tomorrow is trash day. And Betty will be whipping around on her demon cart, making the rounds and giving out as many citations as she can.”
“Okay…”
“So, I’m going to TP her bestie Nan’s house, knowing that it will make Betty lose her fucking shit.”
I laugh at the absurdity, but when I realize she is completely serious, my jaw damn near hits my Italian leather shoes.
“Wait…you’re actually serious about this?” I question. “You’re going to toilet paper an old lady’s house just so you can piss off another old lady whom you were tempted to fight over a bingo game tonight?”
“Because she fucking cheated,” Carly retorts. “And don’t forget this old lady is the same old lady who called my mom a slut and bitched me out over freaking trash cans, Ryan. Not to mention, Nan isn’t innocent. She’s unbelievably nasty to my mom all the time. It’s high time justice is served to both of them.”