Talia had seemed dubious about the effectiveness of my technique but didn’t say anything more to me about it. From there it became obvious to anyone with working eyes which girls were willing to back off and let me deal with it my way and which ones were keeping a closer eye out for the mystery girl while trying to not say anything or pester me about it.
That is to say that of the five, only Amy seemed to think I was going about this in anything close to resembling the right way while the others surreptitiously watched how I interacted with other girls around the school to see if it was one of them who I had any special reaction to.
It was honestly kind of irritating considering Corrine was one of the ones keeping a vigilant eye out and didn’t seem to realize I had been talking about her. But after a while it got kind of funny. Especially when I decided to use their newfound watchfulness to mess with them.
In retrospect it wasn’t nearly as hard an act to pull off as it might’ve been otherwise: especially since Mrs. Coleman was naturally friendly with all her students and young looking for a woman in her early forties.
I wasn’t exactly a talented writer or one who got hung up on debating the symbolism in books but she was a good enough teacher that she didn’t make you feel like you had to be in order to pass and process English class. She was nice that way even if I wasn’t nearly as interested as I was in my history or math classes.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should probably admit that I likely wouldn’t have gone through with my little play at pretend if I hadn’t happened to forget my copy of The Great Gatsby in the room just before lunch and went back to retrieve it.
I stayed to chat with her a few minutes, got a quick reminder on what pages we were to read and then left again. But apparently I had taken longer than expected since I entered the cafeteria to see my friends having a hushed conversation among themselves as I made my way over to them.
One that quieted down to near silence in the general din of the cafeteria when I greeted everyone by asking what I missed.
After a solid twenty seconds of furtive staring I finally asked if I had something on my face.
“So… did you get your book?” Stephanie asked, awkwardly changing the subject with what I initially thought was a complete non-sequitur.
“Yeah,” I said, allowing the matter to drop but trying to figure out what their expressions meant while I absently answered. “Got my book, chatted with Mrs. Coleman a bit about the usual.”
For reasons I didn’t understand until she spoke up, Elizabeth’s eyebrows had narrowed as though picking up on something unusual.
“I never knew you talked to Mrs. Coleman Ian,” she said, half stating half questioning. The rest of them tried to disguise it but their eyes took a speculative gleam as well when she said that.
In an instant it clicked in my head: they were discussing whether I was finally doing something about the mystery girl in the hospital. And whether they’d at last been told by accident who she was after my refusing to tell Talia her name.
But instead of correcting their jump to a premature conclusion, I decided to go along with it and see what happened.
“Yeah, we’ve talked before,” I said shortly, keeping my voice clipped as though trying to avoid talking about her and keeping my eyes studiously on the non-existent patterns in the table.
“When was that?” Talia jumped in, naked curiosity in her gaze.
“Recently. We’ve talked about how I’m keeping up in class and… stuff.” I said, bringing my right hand to rub the back of my head as my left hand brought some of the tater tots to my mouth.
I finally looked back up at them with a suspicious look just as they all hastily tried to clear their obvious interest from their faces.
“Why do you ask?” I queried after swallowing the food I’d been chewing on.
A chorus of ‘no reason’ and ‘just curious’ greeted me.
For the next couple days leading into the weekend, I was sure to keep up the act. Glancing at Mrs. Coleman if she was around and one of the girls was near me. Looking at her in class when her back was turned to us for a few seconds before hastily returning to the book with what I hoped was a slightly forlorn expression.
Then came the weekend.
It was a blistering day, so the others had asked if they could all come over since my house was the only one with a pool. I saw no reason to refuse since I was a good friend and they were five of the most attractive women I knew volunteering to come over in swimsuits for the weekend.
But when they got there, I pinged that something was up. The girls had come dressed in swimsuits to die for.
Corrine had come in what I was surprised to recognize was the teeny tiny blue bikini and bottoms that she’d worn for the second Werewolves of the Beachfront movie the AV club made. (Corrine had been in the first one as the final victim of the werewolf. The sequel was supposed to be about her twin sister investigating her mysterious ****.) The baby blue color highlighted her eyes nicely while the bottoms did a great deal to highlight just how great her legs were.
Talia, always more creative in her choice of attire, had a green suit on that appeared to be a simple one piece. But when she leapt into the water whatever the material was turned almost translucent; outlining most everything beneath and making her pebbling nipples look like small bullseyes on the suit.
“Show-off,” Stephanie commented with no irony as she pulled her own yellow sundress over her head to reveal a black two piece whose top had a tie in the back and no straps to prevent any sort of jiggling with each step she took.
Meanwhile Amy was relaxed on her beach towel next to all the others: soaking up some of the sun in her suit that looked like a strange combination of practical and erotic. The top was made of what I could only assume was the usual swimsuit fabric but only had one strap on the right shoulder and was the green blue color of the sea while the bottoms were about the shortest set of shorts it was possible to be before becoming a pair of underwear with a slight extension on the legs that didn’t even manage to cover an eighth of her athletic thighs. Give it a leopard print pattern and she could probably pass as a Tarzan movie extra.
Looking around, I couldn’t help the drinking of the sights my thirsty eyes did as my own baggy swim trunks suddenly began feeling uncomfortably tight.
Though it was at this point that I noticed Elizabeth was missing. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, I headed toward the inside of the house, calling to ask if anyone wanted anything to drink. And upon entering I found an interesting vision in the kitchen.
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