It Was Only Ever Erin

Chapter 12 - Barbecuing

Jason’s P.O.V

We finally made it to the lakes just before 11am and there were already cars and people everywhere. As we got out of the car and stretched, a voice suddenly called out, “Erin!” I looked up to see a tall, muscular guy waving and jogging towards Erin, smiling widely. He looked like a walking advert for fake tan, teeth whitening and male grooming products.

“Oh, shit.” Erin mumbled next to me, looking wide eyed at the man, as if she was thinking hard about how to escape.

“Oh, excellent,” Max laughed next to me with a smile of pure vindictive pleasure.

“And who is that?” I asked her.

“The third reason I didn’t want to come today.”

“That’s Bryce. He’s a grade A douche bag who’s had a thing for Erin since our first day. He keeps trying to make a move on her and keeps getting spectacularly shot down. Oh, I’m sure he’s gonna love meeting you.” Max said to me, both of us now exchanging mischievous grins.

“Maybe that’ll help him take the hint.” Erin mumbled as he made it to us, arms wide.

“Hey, I’m stoked you all could make it!” he beamed, showing every single one of his pearly white teeth and standing chest out with his hands on his hips. He was wearing tight, salmon colored shorts, an even tighter white and navy striped polo shirt and boat shoes. He had piercing blue eyes and his light brown hair was swept back in a quiff that was supposed to look interestingly wind swept. I was half expecting him to give us his presidential candidate speech outlining his vision for a better and brighter tomorrow.

“Hey… Bryce,” Erin said, as enthusiastically as possible – it did not work.

“Hey Bryce,” beamed Max like a kid at Christmas “this is my new best friend, Jason.”

“Hey bro, good to meet you,” Bryce said, stepping forwards, shaking my hand vigorously and very nearly clapping me on the shoulder before I twisted it away at the last second with a “woah” and Erin jumped out of her skin.

“Aa! No, Bryce um… Jason has a… bad shoulder.” Bryce held his hands up and took a couple of steps back.

“Good to meet you too… bro,” I replied with a tight-lipped smile. Bryce, after eyeing me intently for a moment, then spotted the food and drinks in the girls’ arms.

“Ladies, why don’t you come with me? I’ll show you where to dump all that stuff- here Erin lemme help you with that,” he added taking one, but not both of the packs of beer from her hands.

“Oh, okay, thanks?” she muttered then turned to me quickly with a look that said, ‘ready to give him a show?’; I gave her an enticing grin in return. “I’ll be back in a minute babe” she said to me, loud enough for Bryce to hear.

“Don’t stay away too long,” I said as I stepped into her, grabbing her around the waist and kissing her more passionately than I would normally have done for a simple ‘see you in a minute’ kiss. Erin returned the kiss with equal vigour, wrapping her arms around my neck and sliding her tongue into my mouth – that was a nice surprise. After several long moments she eventually pulled away with a wink and walked off, past a stunned and slightly open-mouthed Bryce who seemed temporarily frozen where he stood and towards the refreshments table, the other two girls in tow. Bryce eventually turned and trotted after them as Max stepped up next to me.

“That… was… everything,” he sighed, looking as though he could now go to his grave a happy man.

***************

Erin’s P.O.V

Lizzie, Max, June, Bryce, Jace and I were all sat on a collection of picnic blankets, finishing off our selection of… ‘significantly charred’ meat and vegetable skewers. Bryce was being his usual show-off self, constantly bragging and boasting about himself and failing to pass them off as casual, off-hand comments. Any time he made one of these he’d glance at Jase to see if he was impressed – he may not like him for dating me but that is clearly overshadowed by his desire to have another member added to his fan club.

“My family are a big deal in the hospitality industry, which means we’re frequently going all over the world. You know I dislocated my shoulder last October while skiing in St Mauritz. We have a chalet there my parents drag me to every year – it’s beautiful but after a while it just becomes repetitive, you know? If you guys ever wanna use it though we can go, any time! I’d just need to book the jet.” He looked around the circle and after seeing that no one was looking particularly amazed, he cleared his throat and carried on, “What did you do to your shoulder Jason?”

“I got shot,” he said bluntly. If it hadn’t been for Bryce’s constant attention seeking, I don’t think Jase would have told them this. I was pretty sure he’d done it just to shut Bryce up – it had worked. Everyone looked up from their food, wide eyed and completely taken aback.

“What?!” exclaimed June.

“How the hell did that happen?” asked Max, clearly unsure whether to be amused, impressed or outraged. In his haste to shut Bryce’s mouth, Jase had clearly not thought about the questions that may follow his revelation and how he would explain it.

After a short pause that could have passed for him struggling to recall a painful memory he said, “I um… got mugged.” By the concerned looks and ‘oh my God’s it seemed everyone had bought it; though actually, it wasn’t too far from the truth. Jase was just a little less innocent than the story made him out to be. “That’s actually how Erin and I got reunited. She saw me on the floor and came over in full doctor mode to help and since the assholes had taken my car she gave me a ride.”

“Holy crap, what are the odds of running into each other like that?” said Lizzie as she shook her head in disbelief.

“I know, talk about meant to be, right guys?” pushed Max, glancing pointedly at Bryce; he’d been taking every opportunity to wind him up about Jase and me all day. Max had never liked Bryce – his arrogance grated on him more than it did for others and he therefore never passed up a chance to knock Bryce down a peg.

“How’s it healing?” asked June.

“Pretty good, helps that I’ve been getting regular check-ups,” Jase smirked, winking at me. Everyone else laughed – except Bryce who rolled his eyes almost imperceptibly.

“We’d be f****d if we found ourselves down an arm. Has it interfered with your work much? What is it you do?” asked Max, not realising just how complicated this question really was.

Unlike before though, Jase answered almost instantly, “Pharmaceutical Sales.” Cute Jason… real cute. He must be used to telling this particular white lie – probably not to a group of doctors however.

“Oh cool – what are your company’s thoughts on the whole free insulin debate? I have to write an extra credit paper on it and could do with a Pharma standpoint,” enthused Lizzie.

“Guys, come on, no shop talk on our day off,” I cut in quickly. My pulse had picked up; God I hated lying, I was never any good at it.

“So, what do you guys usually do on your days off?” Jase asked with genuine interest.

“Sleep,” everyone said all together before bursting into laughter.

***************

As dusk started to fall someone cranked up the music and everyone started dancing around the large bonfire in the middle of the clearing. After dancing with/on Jason for a good long while he eventually breathed in my ear, “Let’s get out of here for a bit.” I nodded and he took my hand, leading me towards the water’s edge.

“You know for a woman in a bikini you didn’t spend much time in the water,” he said, looking at me challengingly. I had shed the rest of my outfit earlier in the mid-day heat. After a moment his eyes flitted suggestively from my body to the lake behind me.

“…No”

“Come ooon, I’ll get in there with you… keep you warm.”

“Never in a million years will you get me willingly into that lake.” He gave a resigned nod.

“I guess I can settle for unwillingly.” In the split second it took me to realise what he was about to do he’d hoisted me over his shoulder and was striding towards the lake.

“Jase, put me down!”

“Okay, if you insist,” and with a scream he threw me into the water. I resurface spluttering and yelling a wide variety of swear words at him as he laughed hysterically. As much as I hated to admit it, the water wasn’t actually too bad having spent all day warming up in the bright sunlight. Jason stripped himself of his jeans and started to make his way in deeper towards me.

“Wait wait wait! You can’t get your bandage wet!” I suddenly reminded him.

“Okay, then I’ll go… yea deep and no deeper,” and he stopped with the water just below the start of his bandages. Dipping underwater, I made my way towards him like a scene out of Jaws and popped up again just in front of where he stood. Picking me up with his arm under my butt, I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck and we floated there peacefully; faces only a few inches away from each other.

“You know we’ve spent all day with my friends, talking about doctor stuff and what we all do with our spare time and yet I still feel like I know nothing about what you do when you’re not with me. It’s been like that since we were at high school, you’d always ask me things about myself and just deflect whenever I asked you something about yourself.”

“I know. I know how girls hate it when you show and express an interest in their lives and the things they say. It’s a curse of mine.”

“You just did it again!” I yelled/chuckled as he smiled broadly at me. God he could be infuriating.

“Okay then, what do you wanna know?”

“Okay, um… tell me about your friends.”

“Pretty much the same group I hung around with in high school. I’ve known Ollie since we were little and it was through him that I met Mikey, Jack and Dean. We eventually all started working together for my Dad and still do, so spend most of our down time together as well.”

“What kind of things do you do together during down time?”

“Pizza and PlayStation mainly. Sometimes one of us will throw a party or we’ll go out somewhere.”

“Dare I ask what usually goes on at these parties?”

“Pretty sure you already have a good idea from the disapproving look on your face.”

“Booze? Drugs? Girls?”

“Amongst other things, but like I said, I don’t do the drugs”

“Yeah, why is that?”

“A few years back Jack had a bad trip and got himself into a pretty nasty wreck; wrapped his car round a tree. After that the guys all agreed it wasn’t worth it and decided to give them up” he shrugged.

“Huh… so you don’t do the drugs… do you do the girls?” Jason squinted his eyes at me.

“Are we having the talk, Erin?”

“What talk?”

“The ‘are you sleeping with other people’ talk”

“…no?”

“Erin.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, since Saturday when you came tumbling back into my life-”

“I think you’ll find it was you who actually did most of the tumbling.”

“-I haven’t exactly had the opportunity.” I looked down nodding slowly, trying to ponder how I felt about this rather ambiguous answer. “Nor have I had the inclination.” My eyes flitted back up to his. “Ever since high school, the only girl who has ever meant anything to me, is you. The only girl I have ever truly wanted and wanted to be with, is you. I’ve spent the last 6 years of my life having meaningless flings whilst the subject of my every fantasy has been you. And now I have you here, in my arms where you belong, I never wanna let you go again and there is no one else in the world I would ever want to be in your place. So in answer to your question, no Erin, I’m not sleeping with anyone else, I don’t wanna sleep with anyone else and for as long as you wanna be with me, I will never sleep with anyone else.”

Silence fell around us and after a few moments, a tear I didn’t know was there rolled down my cheek. He didn’t wipe it away, he just smiled and pulled me in closer so that my face tucked into the dip where his neck met his shoulder… and we floated.