The Beach: Part One [Rated G]

Anne was sitting on the balcony of the condo she had rented for $200 a day in Destin, Florida. She had saved for her vacation all year. She had wanted it to be the best week of the year. The rain that hadn't stopped in the three days since she had arrived there made it difficult for her wish to come true. She was happy she at least got to look at the waves.

There was a bag on the floor just inside the door. It contained all of the stuff she was going to be taking down to the beach every day, where she was going to be working on her tan. There was sunscreen to keep her from soaking up harmful UV rays. She had sun glasses so guys couldn't tell she was scoping them out. There were binoculars so she could check out guys that were far away. There was a great big towel, a copy of a Dark Hunter book by Sherrilyn Kenyon and a giant sippy water cup with a no spill lid. In fact, all she was missing was a beach and some sunlight.

Anne didn't like bars. In her mind there was nobody in bars but drunks. Drunk people reminded her of one of her creepy uncles who was drinking every time she ever saw him. She never liked the way he looked at her. Since she didn't go to bars and there was no beach, there she was on the balcony.

Anne wondered how much blood would splatter if she jumped. She wasn't suicidal, but she did have a macabre sense of humor at times. For about the millionth time since she got there she wished someone was with her. Her friend Catherine wanted to go, but couldn't get away from work the week Anne had reserved long in advance. There was nothing that could be done about it by the time the loneliness of the vacation became a reality.

Anne went inside, but left the sliding glass door to the balcony open. The wind coming in from the Gulf felt like the perfect temperature, a spectacular thing to feel on her body. From the seventh floor she could see fishing boats on the water what looked like miles away. She didn't get her binoculars to look at them because she had gotten so sick of that already she wanted to fling them out the door. The only thing really stopping her was the possibility she could kill someone below if they were hit by the falling object.

She went into the bedroom. Originally she had unpacked her suitcase neatly into the chest of drawers and closet. Somewhere around hour 40 of her vacation she began taking every single item out and trying it on. There were now jeans, shirts, a couple of dresses, lingerie, underwear, socks and some shoes, scattered all over the room. She gathered everything up to take down to the laundry on the second floor. That was going to be her fun activity that early afternoon.

Everything that didn't need refreshing was put up. Everything that did was bundled up in a hemp laundry sack. Anne left the condo carrying the sack and locked the door behind her. "Her" condo was at the eastern end of a long line of other condos. It was one condo from the bigger, more expensive condos on the corners of the building. The elevators were locate in the dead center of the two sides.

Anne took the elevator down to the second floor and stepped out looking for a sign pointing to the laundry room. She didn't find one. She walked to the end of the balcony and condos on both the eastern and western sides of the building. She couldn't find a sign anywhere. She got back in the elevator and went down to ground level.

There were even fewer places for her to look on the bottom floor. Anne walked around with the laundry sack until she was sure she not only looked stupid but would also not find the laundry room. She distinctly remembered the the lady on the phone telling her that there as a laundry on the second floor of the building. Since she had decided to vacation there based on word of mouth she didn't have any sort of brochure to look at. She was rapidly becoming disgusted with everything about the trip.

Anne decided to try one more place before giving up, the third floor. She was already plotting her next move if the laundry room wasn't there. The next step would be going to the manager's office and smashing everything she could get her hands on. Then she was going to go up to her room and throw everything in it off the balcony. Anne was not in a good mood.

She got back in the elevator and pressed the button for the third floor. When the doors opened up there was a beautiful young guy standing in front of her, evidently waiting for the elevator. He had a laundry sack in his hands. Anne found her mouth had come open, and she was blocking the entrance to the elevator. She wanted to say something, but nothing came out.

The guy who left her speechless was around six feet tall. He had dark skin and curly dark brown hair. It was the longer kind of curls though, not the short frizzy kind of curls that somebody could get from a perm. His eyes looked out of place. Their greenish blue color clashed slightly with his skin. That served to draw more attention to his eyes, which Anne was finding herself lost in.

"Do you mind if I share the elevator?" he asked Anne. "I realize you're going up, which is not the direction of the laundry, but I left some clothes in a friend's condo up on the fifth floor that I need back."

Anne gathered her wits, stepped out of the way and said, "Sure. It's not my elevator anyway." Her words echoed around in her head, and she started thinking, "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Focus, Anne. Focus."

"I'm looking for the laundry too. I mean, I need to wash clothes. Where is the laundry?" she asked. As the doors closed she realized she had intended to get off there on the third floor, until the doors opened and she saw the man.

"It's on the second floor," he said politely, as though nothing in the world seemed out of place to him. He evidently could not hear the jumbled confusion in her head.

"I looked on the second floor already. That's why I was about to look on the third floor, where you were," the words spilled out without Anne consciously formulating them. That was probably good, she thought, because that removed the chance of her saying something stupid in overcompensation for her nervousness.

"That's the fourth floor, the..."

Anne broke in with, "But I pushed the button for the second floor."

"... first floor is labeled LL, the second floor is labeled 1," he said with a big smile on his face.

Anne felt herself turning bright red. The man's proximity was making her feel drunk. He had on some really elusive cologne that she could barely smell, but which was out of this world. She looked down to try to hide his eyes, but wound up looking at his legs.

"Of course he has perfect legs. I wouldn't be crashing and burning if he had muscular dystrophy or something," she thought to herself. The elevator doors opened and the guy stepped out. Anne wanted to say something but there just wasn't anything there.

"I tell you what. Walk down to my friend's room with me. I'll grab my stuff, and then I'll show you where to find the laundry room. By the way, I'm Charles.

"That sounds great," Anne replied. "My name is Anne."

Charles was already walking down the hall by the time she said her name. She admired the way he looked in olive green cargo shorts and a white t-shirt. It was the sort of clothing that didn't cost a lot of money, but attractive people could make look like a million bucks. They passed a big window, and she could see that light rain was still falling.

Charles stopped in front of the door to the condo one back from the corner and knocked on it lightly. When nobody answered he put his finger to his lips. "Shhh." He then opened the door and snuck in, leaving it cracked just a little as he went inside. He was back out in just under a minute.

Charles pulled the door closed and made a signal for Anne to follow him. He picked the pace up quickly. Anne found herself jogging down the hall behind him. The elevator was sill on that floor. Just as they stepped into it Anne could hear a woman's voice yelling, "Charles! Was that you?"

"That was a friend's girlfriend," Charles explained. "I owe her money."

Anne found herself smiling conspiratorially. She got a little thrill in her stomach thinking she had just done something risky with a gorgeous guy. She was just about to ask Charles where he was from when they got to the floor labeled 1. He beat her to the punch.

"Where are you from, Anne?" he asked nicely.

"I'm from Northwest Arkansas. We have a big lake, but it doesn't have any waves." Anne wished somebody had been there to stomp on her foot before she got the whole sentence out. She also wished there was some way she could bang her head into a wall without Charles noticing. She recovered though.

"Where are you from, Charles?" she asked.

"I'm from Hawaii. My family has a fantastic place on Oahu," he glanced at her while he was talking. "And I can see you're wondering why I'm here if I could go home to Hawaii."

Actually, Anne had thought nothing of the sort. She was busy looking at him. In fact, she had to focus not to lose track of what he was saying.

"I'm listening," she said, hoping he hadn't really been waiting those few seconds for her to respond.

"And here's the laundry room," Charles announced.

The laundry room took up the amount of space two condos would have filled. There were a bunch of machines. The furthest thing from Anne's mind at that point was doing her laundry.

Charles started talking again, which helped her maintain composure. She wanted to make sure he didn't get away. At the same time she didn't really know anything about him. He could have had a girlfriend or a wife, for all she knew. She hoped she wasn't getting her hopes up just because he was being so friendly.

"I'm here because it's a quick trip from Atlanta. I'm a network security specialist for a firm there, and I can't manage to get free very often. Even when I do get a break it's not for very long. A friend of mine from Duke owns a couple of condos here, which he rents out for extra income. He lets friends stay for free, so here I am."

"I'm here because I've never been to a coast before. I wanted to swim and get tan and enjoy the weather. Instead all I've gotten is soggy," Anne said pitifully.

"Well, you can hang around with me if you want to," Charles told her.

Anne hoped hadn't just said that because he felt sorry for her. Then, almost as quickly, she decided she didn't care why he said it. She wanted to have at least one good memory of Florida. She decided she was looking at it, and she liked what she saw.

"Are you sure, Charles? I don't want to intrude on your life," she lied.

"Absolutely," he answered.

"That sounds fantastic. Really. Do you want to share a washing machine?"

As she spoke Anne decided her vacation was starting to look up. She was very glad the building's management hadn't made it easy to find the laundry room. That was the best thing that had happened to her in Florida so far.


[I promise I won't leave this hanging very long. I want to finish it as much as anyone wants to read it.]