By The Beach ✔

Part 15. Volleyball Anyone?

BEING A COLLEGE STUDENT, I HAVE FOCUSED on my studies a lot for the last four years, possibly so much that it annoyed everyone I hung around, but I don't think focusing on my studies means that I am less of an entertaining person. It just means that I take wanting to be a teacher seriously.

And Sawyer was, surprisingly, very comfortable with that.

It amazed me how he wanted to talk about me instead of himself. If this had been Will the subject would have been all about him, not about the both of us. Sawyer was funny, nice, and a little cocky, but men were supposed to be that way, right?

As I sat on the blanket on the beach watching him explain his band to me using hand movements, I felt comfortable. It wasn't awkward when it got silent, it wasn't annoying.

It was comfortable.

"What were you like growing up?" I questioned him as I took my final sip of wine and smirked over at him "Surely, you weren't a jock."

He chuckled "Basketball. But, I was damn good at math so my nickname was 'wannabe-nerd' for a while." that made me smile as I watched him pick at a loose string on his pants "My dad is a retired lawyer, and currently a garbage man for the town, my mom has always been a stay at home mom. Life was simple for me and my sister for a while, she got married out of high school and now lives with her batshit crazy husband" he said, making this weird face that made me laugh at him.

He smirked at me "What about you? What was your life like?"

Ugh. Why did he have to ask?

I shrugged, "My mom was a waitress at a bar when I was a kid and my dad was busy trying to become a police officer. He is now chief of police for our town. My mother is ... well, she tries to act like a big shot since he got the job, it bugs me and my dad both because she drags him everywhere. Meanwhile, in school, I was the class dork and clown because of my best friend, Hank. He, uh, was always by my side when we would pull stupid crap on the principal or students" I said, my mind drifting off to my once good friend.

"What happened to him? Your acting like he died."

I paused for a moment and then I shook my head "He didn't die. He just became a different person, when he and his family moved away I haven't heard from him since" I told Sawyer and looked at him, frowning.

He looked over my face and gave a slight smile "Hey, don't get sad about it. People change, Lily" he told me and looked around the beach before looking back at me "Do you wanna take a walk?" I nodded my head yes as he started putting stuff away.

I put up my wine glass in the basket as we started to put things away to take a walk down the beach, I smiled as I folded up the blanket and handed it over to him to put on top of the basket. We left it there and started to take a walk down the beach. I wrung my hands around the crossbody strap of my purse.

Sawyer looked at me then at the sand "This may seem stupid" he started to say which caught my attention as he stopped and held his hand out with a shy smile "Can I hold your hand? Usually, I don't ask but ..." he trailed off as I put my hand in his and tugged him to walk on.

"Never ask."

He grinned as we walked along the beach line, the water moving up near us, he looked out at the water and sighed "So, are you going to enter that surfing thing Doug was talking about?" he asked which only made me roll my eyes. "He asked me to talk you into it. I lied and told him I would."

I laughed as I looked at him and shrugged "I don't know. I haven't been to a competition since I was in eleventh grade. Doug and I always surfed, Dini would but it wasn't her favorite thing to do on the beach" I said, giving a shake of my head.