Taylor was not quite at the point of regretting the idea of coming down to her front lawn, but she was getting dangerously close.
The first cat-call had been exhilarating. Almost empowering.
As they had set up their lawn chairs, Taylor had turned to bend over and adjust her seat. As she stood and pulled the strings on her waist up to sit on her hips, the first, "Goddamn!" shot through the formerly quiet air of her suburban neighborhood.
She rolled her eyes but noted her friend Gina's giggle.
"I don't know how you talk me into doing shit like this."
"Stop being annoying. This is fun." Gina threw her towel over her pool chair and languidly and dramatically laid stomach-down.
Fun? Gina had suggested they go and get some sun on her front lawn. "Let's take the pool chairs out front," she had said. "There is much more sun. And better people watching."
Taylor sat back and adjusted her sunglasses. People watching. She should have known. Her beautiful tan blonde friend was the eternal exhibitionist. So of course, her ideal "people watching" was done in a tiny bikini in front of a large crew of landscapers that was working in her neighbor's yard.
"I swear if one of them actually comes over here--"
"You'll say hello." Gina gave a quick smile cutting her off. "Relax and get some sun. You've spent this whole summer memorizing your organic chem books."
Memorizing was a tad bit dramatic, but yes, she had chosen to spend her time away from college preparing for the new school year. Only Gina could make being academic sound like a negative quality trait.
"And that's why you'll be a second-year freshman, and I'll be in law school."
Gina shrugged. "I'll prefer bad grades over being boring." She smiled and laid back, shimmied her bikini bottoms impossibly lower on her waist, exposing more of her stomach.
Taylor shook her head and focused her eyes on the group of men across the street.
She did have to admit that they were a shockingly attractive and young group of landscapers. From what she guessed, they were probably all just a little bit older than she and Gina. Maybe this was a summer job for some of them? They all seemed friendly with one another, and openly joked like they were familiar.
"It's like Ms. Ayala hired a frat to do her landscaping."
"It's kind of ridiculous, right?" Gina sat up and leaned forward. "I swear that one all the way to the left looks so familiar." She pointed across the lawn. "Yeah, that one over there by the garage. Where do I know him from?"
Taylor looked over to where her friend was pointing. The man she was signaling to was facing away from them, but she was certain had she ever known anyone who was built like that she would have remembered.
He was tall and muscular with a mop of long blonde hair tied back into a loose ponytail. Wearing a gray sweat soaked cut-off shirt and tight fitting mud-splattered jeans. A myriad of tattoos covered his arms from wrist to bicep-- biceps that were currently unreasonably flexing as he tried to manipulate a water hose into a sprinkler
Taylor hadn't even seen his face yet, but she was pretty sure she wanted nothing more than to be manhandled by him like he was handling that sprinkler hose.
She stared longer, admiring his back muscles going taut as he pulled the sprinkler unit across the lawn. He still had not turned around, but she was sure she had no idea who he was and had never seen anyone like him before.
Taylor opened her mouth to answer her friend but snapped it shut as the man turned around to face them.
Fuck. She knew exactly who he was.
And she really should have recognized every part of him. Especially his back, as she had spent a huge portion of her high school experience staring longingly at the back of his head.
He looked a little different now; definitely way more muscular, bearded and tattooed. But it had been almost two years since she had seen him. He had graduated a year before her and had pretty much fallen off the grid since he walked across the stage.
"Cameron Goode, Gina. It is fucking Cameron Goode."
Gina all but tore her sunglasses off. "Holy shit... it sure is."
Taylor had not been the only girl in their high school who had a crush on Cameron. He was one of those loveable quiet bad-boy types that everyone, regardless of their social circle, was intrigued by. But outside of attending a few parties, he had mostly kept to himself.
Gina was now noticeably giddy. She was standing now, with all of her attention focused across the lawn. "Cameron!"
"Gina, what the fuck!? What are you doing?"
"I'm calling him over. Duh. I haven't seen him in forever." She grinned back at Taylor. "Just saying hello."
She watched as Cameron looked over and began approaching them slowly. And just like it had in high school every time he neared her, her heart started beating rapidly. She could almost feel it in her throat as he stepped onto her lawn.
Gina had been somewhat popular back then, so, of course, she knew Cameron well enough to just casually call him over.
But Taylor was almost the polar opposite. She had fit completely into the archetype of the "nerdy friend" all throughout high school. While Gina was every bit of the tall blonde wavy-haired Tumblr model that everyone wished they were, Taylor was almost her complete opposite; with her long dark frizzy curls constantly tied up in a bun and her glasses perched at the end of her mocha-colored button nose.
Where Gina was all creamy skin, freckles, hip bones and thigh gaps, Taylor was caramel, wide hipped and curvy with a still enviable taut stomach. But no one would ever have known that. She wore a constant uniform of sweats and Mathlete t-shirts that kept any glimmer of a body well hidden.
But in her boring, white-bread town, her brand of beauty wasn't terribly marketable anyway. She didn't let it bother her, though. She had gotten a fair amount of attention when she moved to the city for college.
And the new found confidence she found there had still been intact, until this moment.
As Cameron neared them, she was reduced to a slack-jawed mute.
Cameron stood before them and smiled politely. "What's up?"
Up close, he was even more ridiculously attractive than Taylor had remembered. Even sweaty with grass clippings and soil clinging to his skin, he was unreal. The surfer-boy swagger her had embodied in high school had definitely evolved into something way more rugged and virile.
Gina smiled with more force than necessary. "You went to Lakewood High School, right?"
He crossed his arms, with an obviously skeptical look. "I did."
"So did we. I think we were a few years below you. My name is--"
"Gina." Cameron smiled. "I remember you..."
Taylor's stomach wretched, and she wanted to smack the now ridiculously large grin off of Gina's face.
"Yeah," Cameron continued. "You were that girl who passed out in the middle of the driveway at Tyler Roden's party. Nobody could back out when the police came." He laughed. "We all had to drag you out of the way."
Taylor couldn't help but giggle at his memory of her friend. Gina's smile faltered a bit, but she didn't let it phase her. "Yes, I'm that girl... I drank so much that--"
"But you said, we... right? So you both went to Lakewood?"
It took Taylor a few seconds to realize that his question was directed at her. She looked at him and was stuck. She was unprepared for his gaze. She had honestly not ever looked him directly in the eye, and the way his sage green eyes obviously danced over her body her was almost too much for her.
"Yeah, I did." She was barely audible and suddenly very aware of how much skin she was showing in her green crochet bikini.
Cameron squinted and shook his head. "Are you sure? Because I feel like I would have remembered you." He punctuated this statement with another head to toe scan. Even as he spoke, his eyes were far from hers.
Was she sure? Her secret lust for him was being quickly replaced by not-so-secret annoyance. "I'm pretty sure... in fact, I was in your English class three years in a row."
"No way... seriously?"
"Yes. Seriously."
"She never really hung out much either, or went to any parties," Gina suddenly felt the need to disclose. Attempting to refocus the attention back on herself. "She was such a bookworm, just studied all the time and never had any fun."
Taylor cut her eyes at her friend but was actually fine with her taking the attention away from her. She was more than blown that Cameron could not even remember her after three years of walking through the same halls. It's not like their town was huge, and their high school was small. And fuck him anyway-- back at school, she was sure there were plenty of guys who did remember her.
"Nothing is wrong with studying." Cameron gestured at his surroundings. "Maybe had I done a little bit more studying back then and I would hanging with you guys instead of landscaping all summer." He grinned, and Gina laughed, but Taylor rolled her eyes.
"Maybe," Taylor said sarcastically. She tilted her head and smiled sweetly. "But I'm sure you're busy. Maybe you should get back to work."
"Taylor! Don't be rude." Gina sat up on her chair, flipping her long blonde locks back. "Don't mind her. She's just upset you don't remember her." She made a face a Taylor then turned back to Cameron. "Maybe we should all get together and do something before we go back to UGA... you know, celebrate this mini Lakewood reunion... are you busy tonight?"
Taylor did not miss the fact that Cameron had not taken his eyes off of her until Gina asked him about his plans for the evening. She assumed he was still half-heartedly trying to place her in his memory. But as far as she was concerned, he could stop. Her crush, like most, was based on her idea of Cameron-- but it quickly faded when she realized like most beautiful boys, he was as deep as a kiddie pool.
"Actually, yeah... I do already have a few plans tonight." Taylor watched him look back across the street at Mrs. Ayala's yard. "And your friend is probably right, Gina... I should head back to work."
"My name is Taylor, not her friend." Her annoyance had peaked awhile ago. At this point, she was done with this entire situation.
