The Boy Next Door

Moonlight Swimming (Part 1)

Jared pulls away and looks past me towards the house.

"Hey Payton!" He calls. I slowly turn around to see a very young looking girl with bleach blonde hair. She's wearing skinny jeans and a white tank top that says "Bite Me". I smile. I think I'm gonna like her.

"Who's this?" She says sweetly, smiling at me.

"Her name is Malia," Jared answers for me.

"Oh, nice to meet you. I'm Payton." She holds out her hand to me.

I reach to shake it, but she then sideway high-fives my hand. She brings the back of her hand against mine and I realize she's doing a hand shake. Then she forms a fist and we fist pump.

"Haha. Your pretty cool," she says." But I am wondering why your wearing such a pretty dress all the way out here," she looks me up and down.

"Oh, I just came from a choir concert," I reply.

"Cool, so you sing?" She inquires.

"Yeah," I answer. I peek around her shoulder to the inside of the cabin. A yellow glow lights up the room.

"You wanna come in," she offers and moves so I can see better inside. Inside I see a beautiful handcrafted table with matching chairs. On the left side I can see a stair case leading to a second story. I nod my head and Jared ushers me foreword.

The walls are painted a light tan color and pictures of family members drape all around. I quickly take my heels off my swollen feet and set them by the door in the entry way. Taking a few steps, I see a door on my right that leads to small office space. Another few steps and my aching feet find the light carpet.

I look around the corner on my left to see a dark living room. Since the lights are off I can't quite see what color the furniture is. I turn my head back to the table, where I'm guessing the kitchen must be. A couple feet from the table is a granite counter top with a nice looking sink. Above the table is a sparkling chandelier. This house must be a million dollars.

"Wow," I breath out. Jared has now come up beside me and Payton stays a little to my left.

"Yeah, I know," Payton smirks. I laugh and look around once more.

Jared takes my hand and I follow him to the stairs with Payton on my heels. Once we're at the top, I see that the second story is just a hall with rooms on each side. As we walk down the short hall I see that there are about 3 full side bedrooms. We enter the last one and Jared turns on the light.

"This is the guest bed room where we will be staying," Jared states. On one side of the room there's a two door closet with a shelf right next to it. On the shelves are family photos and sea shells.

Strait ahead of me is a window and a dark wooden dresser. Across the room there is a queen size bed with teal and white colored comforters. Next to that is two night stands with lamps on them.

Jared walks over and sits on the bed. I move a little farther into the room so Payton can come in.

"I'll let you two get settled," Payton states and walks out the door, softly closing it behind her. I walk over to the window and look out over the trees. From here I can see a moonlit lake not to far from the house. I smile as memories come flooding into my mind.

"What is it?" Jared asks softly.

"Just some old memories," I reply, keeping my eyes on the lake." My grandpa and grandma would take us out to a lake everyday of the summer when I was a kid. We would have so much fun, me and my older brother, Toby. I loved it there. But when he had to move to college I didn't want to go back without him."

For a minute Jared stays silent and I run the old memories through my mind. My smile fades as I think about how much I still miss Toby.

"Well, that's what we'll do then," Jared pipes up. I look back at him in confusion.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"We'll go swimming," he smiles.

"What! How will we do that? I don't even have normal cloths, let alone a swimming suit," I say to him, gesturing to the dress I'm still wearing.

"Payton has tons of pairs. I'm sure you'll fit one of them," he argues. I think it over for a minute.

"Okay," I finally decide. It'll be nice to go swimming again, to let loose one more time.

"Great! I'll be right back." And with that he jumps up and walks out of the room. I walk over to the shelves that hold the pictures and sea shells. There's a picture of Jared's mom and dad, one of his aunt, and a couple of him and Payton as kids.

I soon hear the sound of foot steps, but don't turn around, still studying the pictures. A warm hand finds it's way to the small of my back and shivers run visibly through me.

"This is you and Payton?" I ask, pointing at a picture of Jared dumping a bucket of water over Payton's head. I smile at the thought of it.

"Yeah," he chuckles. "Payton will be up here in a couple minutes with a couple swimming suits you can try on," he says. And sure enough, Payton soon comes with about 3 pairs.

"Here you go. They're not the best, but they should do," she explains.

"They look fine," I assure her. She smiles then walks out of the room. I look at the colorful selection of bikinis I can choose from. I pick out an electric blue one with a V shaped drape on the top part.

"Ooo. You'll look sexy in that," Jared says, biting his lip. My cheeks turn pink from such a compliment.

"Shut up," I sneer at him. He just smirks at me. "Now turn around, so I can change," I tell him.

"Why should I turn around?"he asks. My cheeks burn even more. Curse him.

"Because I'm not wearing a bra," I mumble. His eyes widen and grin gets even bigger.

"Then I definitely don't want to turn around," he says.

"Well too bad, because you're going to have to," I order him.

"Fine, fine. I'll turn around," he says, turning around.

"And close your eyes," I add.

"But-" he starts.

"Close them!" I say louder. He closes his eyes and I quickly strip of my cloths and slip on my suit.

"Okay, you can turn around," I tell him. He turns around and I walk over to the door leaving him to get changed. I stroll down the stairs and almost run into Payton.

"Sorry," I apologize.

"Oh, it's fine. So are you two headed out?" He asks. I nod.

"Cool. Sorry I can't come with, but maybe when you get back we can hang," she suggests.

"Yeah, that'd be sweet." By now Jared has come down the stairs in swim trunks.

"You ready to go?" He asks.

"Yep," I answer. With that, he takes my hand and leads me out the door.