Moonglass

down next to him. To ask what he felt so bad about.
    Instead I offered a quick apology and walked a little faster.

CHAPTER 3
    I had just settled myself comfortably on my beach towel, sun soaking into my back, the smell of sunscreen drifting by, when the low hum of an engine got my attention. I lifted my head just enough to see a lifeguard unit approaching, a dark-haired youngish guy at the wheel. As it passed, I smiled from behind my sunglasses. The guard nodded his head, smiled back like you would at a waving toddler, and kept driving. Vaguely disappointed, I lay my head back down. He had probably been “Warned” by my dad. I wouldn’t have put it past my dad to give all the seasonal guards pictures of me and then make them sign a contract saying that they would refrain from any sort of interaction with the supervisor’s daughter. I figured that one of these days that might actually work in my favor—the whole forbidden thing. So far, though, it hadn’t really panned out. Back at home they had all been too scared of him, which struck me as funny. Of course he had to be different at work, but I couldn’t picture him being scary. Distant, yes. But not scary.
    I went back to feigning sleep but watched through my sunglasses as a pair of guys, definitely younger than me, tossed a football back and forth. Almost imperceptibly they tromped nearer and nearer with it. I knew this game and was annoyed that in a minute that football would “Accidentally” come sailing in my direction. I sat up and scanned for older, better-looking options. Problem was, not many guys went to the beach just to sit around. Not the kind I was interested in, anyway. The tourist boys who came over from the inland wearing white puka shell necklaces did, but I viewed them with a disdain that bordered on contempt. They were the football throwers. The ones I wanted sat out in the water atop surfboards. Or in lifeguard towers.
    There was one just to the north of me, too far away for me to see any detail, but the guard who stood in it looked like he was young. The fact that he stood the entire time meant he was probably in his first year. I watched as he scanned the water with his binoculars. He stopped abruptly at a point in my direction but beyond me, then set his binoculars down, grabbed his buoy, and hopped down into the pile of sand at the base of his tower.
    I turned my attention to where he was running. Two kids had picked their way out onto the rocks, just south of where I sat. I looked out to the water beyond them but didn’t see any waves coming in. The lifeguard sprinted past me, and I could see he was young, close to my age. And good-looking. And pissed off. When he got to the rocks, he put his hands to his mouth and yelled something at the boys, who didn’t notice. I couldn’t see any danger to them really, but he bounded over the rocks like he could do it in his sleep, and stopped right in front of them.
    He didn’t look like he was yelling, exactly, but he pointed out to the water, making a crashing motion with his arm and pointing to the rocks. The boys looked down at their feet, which had been outfitted in aqua socks by a concerned parent, and shrugged before making their way back over the rocks to the safety of the sand. The lifeguard jogged ahead of them, and looked back once before making his way to his tower.
    On his way back he came close enough for me to notice the waves in the back of his brown hair and the freckles that dotted his tan shoulders. I wondered what color his eyes were, but he didn’t so much as glance in my direction. So much for what I considered my two aces—blond hair and a bikini. Instant karma for being so bitchy about the football throwers.
    I watched as he climbed back up the ladder to his tower and once again stood at his post. He picked up his binoculars and again pointed them at the rocks. It was definitely possible that I fell into the magnified circles of vision somewhere, which I found unnerving and intriguing at the same time. I pulled my hair back and twisted it up on top of my head before lying back. I bent one leg and flattened out my stomach. Then I pointed my chin at the sun, stuck out my chest the slightest bit, and tried to pretend he didn’t exist.
    I let the sun warm my skin, and my mind drifted with the sound of the waves. The sound was the same as it was back home, but the air was warmer here.
    And so far, it was better than I had thought it would be. There on the sand, the