Relaxation

"Your mom."

I scrunched up my face, turning my head to the side, causing some of the water to stream into my eye.  I blinked rapidly.  "What, Pablo?" I sputtered, water spitting off of my lips.

"Your mom is calling."  And then, it didn't sound like his voice anymore.

I blinked hard.  My eyes popped open.  I heard the annoying ringtone coming out of my phone:  Your mom is calling, pick up the phone, your mom is calling!  I felt my body was tensed up.  I took a deep breath, feeling worked up from my dream.  But it was just a dream.  I felt the waves of anxiety, invasion, and seduction all leaving my body. 

I missed the call from my mom, but figured I would call her back later.  I stretched out, putting my hands behind my head, staring at my ceiling.  How long had I slept?  I reached for my phone, and unlocked it, ignoring the missed call.  I saw I also had several missed texts.  8:55 p.m.  I had been asleep for awhile.  Hours.

I rolled onto my side, and stared blankly at Sarah's bed, still not fully awake.  I ran my fingers through my hair, them getting caught at my pony tail, which I hadn't taken out after practice.  I wasn't sure what to do with myself.  I wasn't used to not only being alone in the apartment for days, but just being by myself in general.  I didn't really like doing things by myself. 

I knew the next day I was meeting with Alberto around 10:30, and had practice at 2:00, but that's all I had to do.  I decided to just have a night relaxing.  I made a quick executive decision to go to the Racquet Club and sit in the hot tub.  I would be able to make it there by 9:30, and they were open until 10.  Even so, I had keys, but I didn't like sneaking in there after hours.  I wasn't sure who usually worked Friday nights.

I hopped in the shower to rinse the sweat off of my body, and threw my hair into a high bun.  I put on a simple black bikini and slipped on some Victoria Secret sweats and a t shirt and flip flops.  I leaned in close to the mirror to study my reflection, rubbing any last traces of eyeliner from my eyes.  I smiled at myself, happy with how clear my complexion was.  I had struggled with acne in high school, but since getting into college, my face had cleared up quite a bit.  And I was very blessed to not have scarring.

I got into my car to head to the club, and felt my stomach growling.  I went through the McDonald's drive-thru and picked up a cheeseburger and a Coke.  I ate quickly, wanting to finish before I arrived.

I got the Racquet Club and walked in, seeing James working the front desk.  As in, James my hitting partner with the unspoken mutual attraction.  I grinned to myself, thinking about our last interaction, how close and sexually charged it was.  I made my expression neutral as I walked past him.  "Aleah," he grinned.

"Oh, hello James."

"Come to visit me?"

"Actually, no.  I didn't even know you were working."

"I always work Fridays."

"Huh."  I shrugged.  "Anyway, I'm going to the hot tub."

"Maybe I'll join you after everyone's gone."  He smiled wickedly at me, winking.

I rolled my eyes and giggled, walking to the back of the club, where the men's and women's locker rooms are.  There is a hot tub in each one, gender specified.  I peeled my outer clothing off, and sunk into the steaming water.  I sunk down until only my face was out of the water, looking upwards.  I closed my eyes and sat like that, feeling the heat seep into my skin, until my innermost core was hot and beads of sweat were forming on my forehead.

I sat up just enough so that my whole head was exposed.  I lifted my hands out of the water and reached over to my towel and dried them off, then grabbed my phone.  I played a game for a few minutes on my phone, then started perusing Facebook.  I saw movement from the corner of my eye and saw James sauntering towards me.  He handed me an ice cold bottle of water. 

"Mmm, thanks James."

He smiled and continued walking past me out the back door of the locker room.  I knew he was going to grab the clean towels from the dryer to start folding them and putting them into each of the locker rooms so they were stocked and fresh for the next day.  I was too familiar with the requirements of the job.  I opened the water and took a long swig, feeling dehydrated.

I continued Facebook stalking when my phone started ringing.  Luke.  I ignored the call and went back to Facebook.  Shortly after, James came in.  "May I join you?" He asked, raising his eyebrows, giving me an innocent look.

"Sure."

He raised up his shirt, exposing his flat stomach, and chiseled pecs.  I looked away.  Although I may have been having serious doubts about my relationship with Luke, I was a person that believed in faithfulness to the end, and I wasn't going to tempt myself.  I did sneak one last look at James as he took his jeans off, and was only in his boxer briefs.

"Um, don't you have a swimsuit or something?"

 He looked up at me as he was lowering himself into the water and paused, "Nope.  Would you prefer I take these off, too?"

I blushed.  He laughed and dropped himself fully into the water.  "So how's Derek?"

I looked at him surprised, realizing that he and I hadn't spoken in months, since he thought I was still with Derek.  "Oh, we broke up awhile ago?"

He raised an eyebrow at me, "Really?"

"Yeah, but I'm kind of dating someone new..." I trailed off, not really wanting to rehash the details of what was happening.

"Is it serious?"

"Eh."  I wavered my hand back and forth.  I switched the conversation over to him, because I didn't want to talk about me.  "What about you?  Anyone new?"

"There's always someone new, but they've never you."  He was looking at me seriously.  I knew he wasn't joking.  I wanted to avoid that conversation, too.

"Oh, you couldn't handle this." I joked, hoping it would lighten the mood and we could eventually work our way away from the conversation.

He leaned back in the water, putting his arms out on the ledge, staring at me.  He deadpanned back at me, "I'd like to find out."

I giggled nervously, but glanced from his eyes that were trying to penetrate my secret thoughts, down to his slightly parted lips, only briefly imagining what it would be like to feel them lightly pressed against my own.  Then I looked away quickly, and asked.  "Do you have plans tonight?"

"No.  Tomorrow I'm going to Omaha with the kids to the zoo."  James has two kids with his ex-wife.  They are super cute.

"Oh, that'll be fun!  I haven't been to the zoo there in years.  Let me know how it is.  I love zoos.  I'd like to go again sometime."

We chatted for awhile, long after my fingers and toes were prune-like.  We both got out at the same time, and I made a specific point to not look at James as he was getting out, knowing his wet boxer briefs would be clinging to every curve and aspect of his body.

We walked out together and said goodbye, and I purposefully kept my distance so there wouldn't be any lustful temptation  poking through.

When I got home, I actually did some school work.  I sent Luke a text telling him I had been at the Racquet Club and I'd talk to him the next day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday morning, I was unsurprisingly running late, and got to the library at 10:47 a.m.  I ran up to Pablo and Alberto, calling out, "I'm so sorry!  Lo siento!"

They spoke in Spanish to each other.  Pablo gave me one of his sexy smiles, and I blushed thinking about my dream the previous evening and looked away quickly.  Before he walked away he said, "Just bring Alberto to practice with you, and you hit with him."

"Okay, see you then."

I then turned to Alberto, not really sure what to say or where to go, or even how much he would understand if I talked to him.

Seeming to sense my hesitation, Alberto spoke, "My mother teach English in Mexico.  I know little.  But not very good."

"Oh, that's good," I said cheerfully, "and my talking to you will probably help!"

He chuckled, "I think, yes."

We walked around a large portion of campus, showing him all of the major places he would need to know (like the library, and dining commons, and a lot of the building that had general education classes in them).  Then we went to my car and drove him around to the different housing areas, and pointed out some of the other buildings.  By the time we got done, it was 1:15, and I told him I had to go back to my apartment to change.  He told me, in broken English, that Pablo had all of his tennis gear, and would be bringing it to the courts.  I told him I was also going to make something small to eat and asked if he wanted anything.  He agreed to join me to eat.  At home I quickly changed into some shorts and a tank top and my tennis shoes and grabbed my tennis bag and threw it by the door.  I made an egg sandwich for myself, and one for Alberto.  "Sorry I don't have anything more... fancy."

"No, no, this is good," he said, waving me off.  While eating, though we didn't have much time, I learned more about Alberto.  He told me about his family, and growing up in Mexico.  I reciprocated in telling about my family, telling him I had only been to Cozumel, and telling him about my vacation there I'd taken with my family.  He told me how he knew Pablo, that they were from the same home town in Monterrey.  He told me he knew a few other guys at UNL from his same home town who were on the soccer team.  We then had to leave to go to practice.

After practice, I looked at my phone and saw I had a missed call from an unknown number.  I had a voicemail and checked it, and heard it was from Detective Stratton.  He didn't give me any real information in the message, but told me he's like to meet with me next week sometime if I had time and asked him to call me back on his cell phone when I had a chance, and left his number.

I immediately called him, to no answer, but told him in a voice message that I could meet with him either Monday or Tuesday, because Wednesday I was leaving for Illinois with the tennis team and I was unsure when I would be back.  I immediately felt tense, anxiety creeping into my consciousness, anticipating as to what Detective Stratton had to say.



*Author's Note:  Hey everyone, I'm going to *attempt* to stick to a posting schedule of Tuesday and Friday nights.  I'm not going to give a specific time as I'm not exactly sure what time, but at some point during the evening/night on Tuesdays and Fridays, I will have posts up.  I will also try an extra one when/if I have time, but no promises there.  However, with that being said, THIS post will count as the Tuesday one (unless something happens when I can get another quality one done by tomorrow evening).

Also, I wanted to apologize for the quality of posts  recently.  Reading over them, and reading over some of my beginning ones, I realized I wasn't producing the same quality, probably because of some things going on in my life.  But that disappoints me, so I'm sorry if I also had let you all down!  Hopefully, from this one on out, the quality will consistently be better (at least in my opinion!). 

But thank you to all of my readers for feedback/comments/reading!  I read and appreciate each one of your comments, and hopefully will be able to start responding to them again, as well.

~Aleah~