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“Actually, can you get my back now? I just realized maybe it’ll make me look more desirable.”
“Sure.” I snatch the bottle, squirt some into my palm, then apply. As I do, Rico basks in the attention. He even gives someone nearby a little wave.
It’s like I’m not even here.
Rico has something I don’t: a beach bod. He’s got the tight abs, the tapered sides, and the waistline. As I rub suntan lotion on my friend’s smooth caramel skin that even the gods envy, I’m left to critique my tragically lackluster self sitting next to him, unseen.
It’s suddenly impossible not to compare us. I am not one of the beauties strolling around this beach. I don’t have the rippling abs, nor the chiseled pecs and modelesque broad shoulders. Perhaps the only thing I’ve got going for me is a less-than-horrifying face and maybe decent legs. I inherited my dark brown hair and perma five o’clock shadow from the Greek side of my family, and tragically rosy cheeks with dimples from my Welsh side that make me look sweeter and shyer than I really am.
What I didn’t inherit was the twenty-five-hours-a-day, eight-days-a-week gym membership everyone on this pseudo island apparently has.
“Don’t look,” says Rico, “but I think that hot blond by the red umbrella is staring at me.”
Is that what’s wrong? My lack of gorgeous aesthetics? Is that why no one’s looking at me?
The realization has me wracked with sudden panic.
I’m the ugly duckling here. The cold sore thumb in a sea of hotness. The dud.
Do I even belong in this place?
“Should I say hi?” asks Rico in a suggestive tone. “Or should I play hard-to-get?”
Another pair of muscled men walk past. Both stare hardcore at Rico. Only Rico.
What if those three guys outside our hotel were only looking at him, too? What if the hot clerk at the gas station didn’t even notice I was standing there? What if the front desk receptionist with the bowtie only offered us those special massages because of Rico?
The realization shatters the fantasy.
“Jonah, you stopped rubbing. Are you done?”
I feel like I can’t breathe. I’m freaking out. I … I … “I forgot something.”
Rico twists around. “Huh?”
“At the hotel. I forgot something at the hotel.”
“We have everything we need here. What’d you—?”
I’m off the ground in the next instant and heading across the sand. Everyone around me becomes a blur. I almost knock over some dude’s drink, and I think I might have unintentionally kicked sand in someone else’s face. I lack the awareness to even apologize.
But the hotel isn’t where I end up. Apparently I got turned around halfway across the beach and have now found myself on the Quicksilver Strand in a crowd of hot couples, hot singles, and all other matters of hot.
What the hell was I expecting to happen on this vacation, anyway? A miracle? Some beautiful man to materialize in the sands and whisk me off my feet?
That’s not how it happens.
I read too many books.
And you know what else sucks? I had to sweet-talk my boss into giving Rico and I the same weekend off to take this stupid vacation. I can’t just change my mind and decide to go to a museum instead. Or an art exhibit. Or the north pole for all it matters. I’d probably be stared at by more penguins there than I am guys here, who are too absorbed in their own muscles and Speedo-clad monster dongs to see anything else. Instead of a chilly getaway with cool-as-fuck penguins, I’ve gone and trapped myself in a beach town full of horny men who are too hot to look my way. Sounds like paradise for a guy like Rico, who basically guilt-tripped me into coming.
And a nightmare for a guy like me.
That’s when I make the decision. I’m not going to do it Rico’s way this weekend, no matter how many times he pushes and taunts me. I’m doing it my way. I’m gonna strut back to the Elysian Seaside Resort, grab a good book, maybe pick up my laptop and a fucking sugar-filled Coke and fat-filled bag of chips—why not?—then send my comfortably-attired 90s-straight-boy ass back to that beach, plop down next to my horrified friend, and enjoy my hard-earned weekend the way I want to enjoy it.
I mean, if no one’s going to look at me anyway, why not really give them something to not look at?
At the precise time I arrive at this epiphany, with every last bit of my crushed confidence restored, I notice the name of the storefront across the boardwalk from me. Blue Coral Bakery. The place with the five-star funnel cakes I read about. Now that’s what I call some tasty serendipity. It calls out to me with the heavenly, delicious shimmer of its sign in the piercing daylight.
