Explaining the other night.

I probably spent a little bit too much time sunbaking or I didn’t reapply enough sunscreen after I went for a swim as I am feeling a little bit of the heat when I get ready for work again that night. I’ve always been lucky that I never really burn unless I spend almost the entire day out in the sun with no sunscreen. I might look a bit red for a day but it naturally just turns into a tan the very next day. Still, my feelings are confirmed when I have more than a few people comment that I caught the sun when I get to work for my shift.

I’m just getting changed into my work shirt when Holly enters the little common locker room all the staff use.

“Oh hey!” Holly says when she sees it’s me doing up the last of the buttons on my shirt.

“Hey Holly,” I say back to her. I look over to her and she quickly looks away. I’m fully dressed so it’s not like she needs to give me privacy. She’s probably a little embarrassed about making a pass at me the other night.

Holly seems to be hanging around the staff area for longer than she needs to and I’m just about to walk out when she finally spits out what she wants to say. “Look, about the other night,” she begins and then takes a look at my face for the first time, “oh Jesus you are burnt!”

“It’s not that bad is it?” I ask, trusting Holly to give me the honest answer.

“Not bad but you really need to put some After Sun Lotion or you’ll peel,” she tells me.

Peeling isn’t what I want if I’m going to be meeting everyone Yui works with.

“Shit. I don’t have any of that,” I say annoyed.

“I’ve got some moisturiser that does pretty much the same thing. I can put it on you if you want?” Holly offers to me then and I take her up on it.

Holly goes and retrieves the bottle of lotion from her bag and I undo some of the buttons on my shirt to show her.

“You really have caught it everywhere,” she tells me as she sees my red skin, “you’ll have to take that off so I can rub it in properly.

We both know it’s not a great look for us if I’m half-naked getting lotion rubbed into me so Holly leads me into a little shower cubical the girls use. Pulling the curtain shut behind us to give us privacy, I take off my work shirt and Holly squirts some of the lotion into her hand and begins to rub it into my back.

“So, about the other night,” Holly begins, finding it easier to talk to me with my back turned to her, “I wanted to say thank you for not letting me do anything stupid.”

“Wow! You basically just said doing me is doing something stupid,” I tease her.

It wasn’t a good idea by me as she slaps my sunburnt back making me wince.

“You know what I meant, idiot,” Holly curses me.

“I do, I just like stirring you up still,” I tell her.

“You might have heard I’ve been spending a bit of time with someone and it’s going great. I really like them so I do what I normally do and try and sabotage things before they get too serious. You stopped me and I really appreciate it, especially after how we used to… you know,” Holly explains everything that’s been going on with her recently.

“I get you and I understand too. I’ve been seeing someone for the last couple of weeks and it’s going well so I couldn’t do what we used to do. Not that I wouldn’t want to, if we could, that’s all,” I say back to Holly telling her about my situation.

“Back’s all done,” she says telling me to turn around, then, “what’s her name?”

“Yui. How about yours?”

“Cute. Jessica. She works here too which really would have messed things up if we did.”

With the air cleared, Holly goes to work rubbing the lotion into my chest which she would be lying if she didn’t admit to herself that she kind of enjoyed. She didn’t pour quite enough out to finish everything so asks me to spray some more into her hands for her.

We don’t notice that someone else has joined us in the locker room, hidden where we are behind the shower curtain.

“Oh God! Your spraying it everywhere. I’ve got cream all over me now! Help me clean it up,” Holly tells me in a loud voice.

“It’s because my fingers were all slippery from you. I couldn’t control where it was going,” I tell her back.

The person in the room with us calls out loudly then, “I knew there was something going on with you two still! I believed you when you said nothing happened after work the night I was off!”

The curtain is snatched back open and a very angry looking girl with pink hair is shocked when the scene doesn’t resemble the one she is imagining in her head.

“Jess! What the hell?” Holly yells angrily in surprise.

“I thought you two were….” Jessica tries to explain herself.

“Oh, this is Jessica. Ooooohhhh,” I add rather stupidly before I can keep my mouth shut.

“You thought what?” Holly says not letting it go.

“Well, I heard you say there was cream everywhere and his hands were slippery from you,” Jessica fumbles and I cannot help starting to laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

“We are kind of hiding in a shower Holly,” I say hoping to help defuse the situation between Holly and the girl she just admitted to being sweet on.

“Arghh put your shirt on and go do some work!” Holly snaps at me, using me as the target to deflect her anger onto.

I quickly button my shirt back on, slippery fingers and all, and leave the two lovebirds to sort out their misunderstanding and hopefully get things back on track. It sounded to me as if Holly is genuinely crushing on this new girl Jessica and I hope things work out for them. I really do. Having found Yui, I want everyone to experience the same sort of joy and happiness she brings to me.

Thankfully I am able to have a good last shift at work for the weekend and look forward to seeing Yui later that week.