Night Marchers Read online

CHAPTER 8 (ITTY BITTY BIKINI)

  After talking to Kaylee and then spending an hour hanging out with my dad, I ended up taking a nap. I don’t remember having taken so many naps before. I guess moving to another state takes it out of you.

  My phone alarm goes off at 6:45p.m. and I slide the action button on my IPhone to silence it. I get out of bed groggily and start looking through my bag for something to wear to dinner. I really need to fully unpack all of my things.

  As I head to my bathroom to freshen up something waving in the wind on my patio grabs my attention. My eyes are still a little blurry from sleep so I can’t tell what it is. I head over to my patio to investigate. The cooling night air greets me as I open the sliding glass door. I walk over to the object that had grabbed my attention. I gasp and think to myself, “Is that what I think it is?” I pick it up and in my hands I hold my forest green bikini bottoms. “What in the world?” I slowly say out loud to myself. I look off into the distance and scan the area around my porch.

  How did these get here? I figured that with the rough undertow they would have been washed out to sea. I guess they washed ashore instead. That still didn’t explain who put them here on my patio. I guess the most logical explanation would be that Tristan found them.

  My cheeks start to heat when I’m reminded of my embarrassing charade this morning. I was utterly mortified! I make a mental note to thank Tristan again when I see him.

  I turn to head back inside and notice again in the distant forest the flickering light I saw last night. It looks like a fireball suspended in the air. When I strain my eyes to look closer I see two new balls of fire, each the exact distance behind the other. The wind picks up and whips my hair into my face. When I push my hair out of my eyes and look back into the forest they are gone. Looking up into the sky I notice the full moon, which is eerily large tonight, casting shadows around the gardens

  Weird, I think to myself as I head inside and off to dinner.

  Dinner tonight was another Hawaiian feast prepared by Alani. If she keeps feeding me like this I’m going to need to go shopping in a few weeks for larger pants.

  Our conversation at the dinner table was light hearted. Tristan made me laugh several times. I was really impressed that he didn’t bring up this morning’s mishap. Which really shows to his good character.

  After dinner my dad retires to his room and Alani starts putting away the dishes. Since they are preoccupied Tristan decides to scoop me away.

  He leads me down the hall from the kitchen and into the fitness center. “Take off your shoes,” he says.

  I raise one eyebrow at him but still comply. He pulls his off as well. I follow him over to the indoor trampoline. Both of us step onto the large trampoline that’s built into the rubber flooring of the gym. I haven’t been on a trampoline since I was ten so I’m a little hesitant to start out. Tristan jumps right in landing a high jump that sends me sprawling a few feet into the air. I raise my eyebrows at him in surprise and say, “Oh, it’s on!” He laughs at that.

  I get to jumping and after a few jumps I gain a good height that makes me feel like my stomach detached from my body. This time I manage to land just right to send Tristan rocketing towards the ceiling. I laughed so hard when I saw Tristan whirling his arms around trying to remain upright. He lands purposefully on his butt and says full of laughter, “Nice one Emma!” I don’t realize that he’s scooting closer to me till it’s too late and he’s pulled my feet out from beneath me bringing me down, not so gracefully, on my butt next to him. I give him a playful push on the shoulders while we laugh in unison. It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed so hard that my side hurts.

  We continue to bounce up and down for another half an hour, each taking turns trying out different flips and moves. We continued giggling the whole time... Well, I giggled and he laughed.

  I remember Kaylee telling me once that laughing burns a ton of calories. I bet between the trampoline jumping and our hysterical laughing fits that I worked off my entire meal.

  Once we both were out of breath and drenched in a layer of sweat we hopped off the trampoline and lay down on our backs on the cool gym floor.

  I roll over to my side and prop my head up with my hand. “I almost forgot to thank you for finding my swimsuit bottoms.”

  Tristan rolled to his side as well and faced me. His brows began to furrow together in a look of confusion. “I didn’t find them, Emma.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Well, I found them on my patio this evening, I just figured you found them.”

  “Nope. Maybe one of the other workers found it.” Tristan replies. “Hey, you should totally keep those as a souvenir.”

  “Yeah, like I need a souvenir to remind me of today’s episode. It’s scorched into my brain forever!” I laugh.

  “Next time we will both wear body suits. Those don’t come off that easily in the surf.” Tristan says with a toothy grin.

  “Oh no, you’re not getting me back out there! We had an agreement; you surf, I watch.”

  We continue talking for another fifteen minutes until I yawn and we decide to call it a night.

  Back in my room I think of what Tristan said about another worker finding my bottoms. If there were other workers out near the beach, I sure hope none of them were a witness to this morning’s surfing catastrophe.

  Deciding not to worry too much about it I hop in the bed. My mind is racing with thoughts of Tristan. I just hope sweet dreams would follow.