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“You’re bad at this.”
Randy glances over at Jess, just for a second, just long enough for his already precarious swirl of soft-serve to gain some ground in the wrong direction. He makes a staccato sound of distress and lets go of the lever on the ice cream machine, wrist wobbling as he tries to balance the lopsided cone.
“Here.” She holds out a styrofoam bowl just in time. The ice cream tips and slides and she catches it deftly, sticks a plastic spoon straight up in the middle, and hands it to the kid watching across the counter wearing a dubious expression.
“S’posed to be $4.99, but….” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder at Randy, rolls her eyes. “We’ll call it even.”
“Cool!” The kid scurries off, wet feet slapping on the concrete.
Jess turns around slowly to face Randy, hands on her hips, a pitying look on her face. Abashed, he drops his eyes to his flip-flops. “Sorry,” he mumbles.
“Don’t apologize to me,” she says. “Apologize to yourself. We’re supposed to take turns back here, but if you suck that bad, there’s no way we’re trading off. That means I get to stay in the shade and you get to clean the pool.”
Randy sighs. “I mean…it’s only my second day,” he mutters.
Jess is unimpressed. “Still. It’s not that hard.”
Randy sighs again, but he doesn’t try to argue. Obviously, objectively, he does suck that bad. Plus, Jess has been here longer—she worked here last summer, even—so if she wants to kick him out of the snack shack, he supposes she has seniority.
That being said, if he ends up spending his entire shift in the sun every day…he’s going to blow half his paycheck on Banana Boat. And he’ll probably still get melanoma, what with his five hundred moles.
His eyes wander wistfully out from under the tin roof awning and float over the idyllic summer scene of the community pool: kids bobbing in the big bright blue rectangle of water, swimsuits and floaties like rainbow sprinkles, a gang of parents idling away the afternoon on the lounge chairs across the way.
The low, sun-bleached stucco building that houses the bathrooms and the showers and the locker room sprawls lazily to his left. There’s a cluster of teenage girls huddled at the far corner, chattering away amongst themselves, adjusting their bikinis and throwing not-so-surreptitious glances at the lifeguard chair looming over the deep end.
Randy’s gaze lingers there too a little longer than it should. The occupant of the chair is…interesting. Intriguing.
He’s slumped back in the chair with a posture of full-body boredom, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. He could almost be asleep, maybe. Maybe that’s why Randy lets himself stare. His hair is chopped in a messy mullet, thick and wavy and sunkissed on top, curly in the back. He has a mustache and a patchy beard tucked under the point of his chin.
Unlike Randy, in his boxy turquoise STAFF shirt, he’s sporting cherry-red swim shorts and a white tank top with straps as thin as Randy’s index finger. And he’s tan—of course he’s tan, how could he not be tan—the lines of his body lithe and lean, draped across the armrest like a cat in the sun.
He’s gorgeous. Okay, so he’s gorgeous. Really, really hot. Randy feels a swarm of butterflies make a home inside his stomach.
He saw him yesterday, too, but he was so caught up in orientation, so nervous on his first day, that he barely registered the details. He registers them now, catalogues them one-by-one: the hang of his hands, the tilt of his head, the exact amount of skin he can see from here with his shorts riding up his thigh—
“Earth to Bradley, come in, Bradley.” Jess snaps her fingers right by his ear. Her bracelets jingle like bells. “This is Houston, we think you’re a freak.”
Randy flinches and comes back to himself all at once. He has no idea how long he was zoned out. He flushes a little bit with the ever-present anxiety that maybe she can read his mind, that all his naughty thoughts were somehow broadcast in big letters on his forehead.
He’s so flustered he doesn’t even bother to correct her on his name. It’s not her fault anyway—the lanyard he’s been given sports his last name instead of his first.
“Sorry,” he says again. “Just…spaced out. What—what were you saying?”
Jess heaves a sigh. “I was saying maybe you just need some practice.” She fishes a lollipop out of the jar on the counter, peels off the wrapper, and pops it in her mouth. “Like you said, it’s only your second day, so you might not actually be hopeless. Remains to be seen.”
“Oh,” Randy says. “Thanks. I mean, maybe. I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to…wait and see.”
Jess stopped listening to him almost immediately after he started speaking, pacing away down the line and breaking out a new stack of cones from under the counter. “Why wait? Let’s get you going right now.”
Randy furrows his brow. “Huh?”
“Listen, the shade is great, but if I have to spend the whole summer behind the counter in this little shithole I’m gonna stick my head in the deep fryer.” She rearranges the cones and bowls on either side of the ice cream machine. “Get over here. We’re gonna run drills.”
“Drills….” Randy shuffles over, bemused.
“Yeah. You know, like soccer. You’re gonna swirl until you’re perfect. Until they could feature your swirl in a commercial.”
“But isn’t that—I mean, that’s like…really wasteful.” He squints against her impending judgment. “Right?”
Jess lolls her head and gives him a look with her whole body, lollipop stick hanging out of her mouth like an unlit cigarette. “Does it look like I give a shit, Bradley?”
No. No, it does not.
Randy shifts his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. It’s only his second day. He hasn’t seen Mr. Hardy once since orientation yesterday morning, but he really doesn’t want to get in trouble already….
Jess rolls her eyes. “Fine. Here. Hold on.”
She flounces away again, over to an A-frame sign leaning folded in the corner. She snatches a marker off the menu whiteboard, scribbles something across the sign in big letters, and finishes with a flourish. When she turns it around for Randy to see, it reads:
UGLY ICE CREAM. FREE TODAY. A heart with an arrow through it punctuates the announcement.
“Ta-daaa,” she says. “Now it’s official.”
Randy worries at his lip. “I’m…I don’t know about this.”
“C’mon, Bradley, it’s like charity. For the kids.” She pouts theatrically. “And the dweebs.” She pokes him in the chest with the marker.
Without waiting for his agreement or approval, she sets the sign up in front of the snack shack. Randy looks around warily, waiting for someone to point and shout Hey! You can’t do that! No such response materializes. Nobody’s even looking.
Well, almost nobody. Probably nobody. The lifeguard’s sunglasses are aimed right at them, but he doesn’t move a muscle.
Jess comes back around the counter, readjusting her matching turquoise t-shirt. She’s got it tied up around her ribs to expose her stomach, the red-and-white stripes of her bikini bottom ties peeking over the edge of her shorts. Her bellybutton is pierced with a ladybug charm. None of that complies with the dress code, Randy knows. He read the handbook in its entirety.
“Alright, loser, let’s get swirling.”
Feeling more than a little helpless, Randy takes a cone. He lines it up and pulls the lever. Things start off okay, until his first turn comes out kind of wonky and then it’s all downhill from there.
“Try again.” Jess proffers a bowl and reluctantly, he tips the cone inside.
His second attempt is about the same as the first. His third is definitely worse. Randy shoots Jess a look of desperation. “Got any, um, tips?”
“Mm.” She pulls the lollipop out of her mouth with a wet pop. “You ever given a hand job?”
Randy’s jaw drops. He snaps it closed so fast his teeth clack. “I—no—I haven’t—I’m not—”
“Well you’ve got a dick, right?”
Is he supposed to answer that? “I—yes.” He’s as red as her ladybug, he can feel it. “I don’t see how—”
“It’s all in the wrist.” She bumps him out of the way with her hip and grabs a cone. “You just…give it a little twist…nice and easy…just a little tease. And voila!” She holds up an immaculate ice cream cone. “Perfection.” She smirks around the lollipop stick.
Randy exhales with feeling. “Okay. I—okay.”
Jess scoots out of the way. “C’mon, Bradley. Get crankin’.”
So he does. He spins up one messy cone after another and tries not to think about his dick as he does it. And it works, sort of. At least, he thinks he’s getting better. They’re still coming out lop-sided, mostly, but maybe less than before. Some of them don’t even have to be flopped into a bowl.
Word travels fast around the pool and soon enough there’s a mob gathered around the counter. It makes Randy nervous, all those shrieking kids, all the attention, but Jess is in her element. She hands out ice cream like she’s bestowing a gift upon each child, tells them they better throw their trash away so she doesn’t have to clean it up later, and snaps at a couple of teens when they cut through the line like sharks through a school.
At one point a light comes on at the front of the machine and Randy has a moment of panic, but Jess takes the opportunity to cheerfully demonstrate how to top up the tank with more liquid ice cream mix.
“You’re doing great, Bradley,” she says, and he thinks she might actually mean it. “Hand job champion of the world.” She grins.
He’ll take the compliment, he supposes, and he’s about to offer thanks for her training, but then an unexpected and an all-too-familiar voice bellows over the herd of swimmers.
“Babe! Babe, what the fuck is going on?”
Randy looks sharply over his shoulder, so totally caught off guard that he moves the cone in his hand and gets ice cream all over his knuckles. To his utter and immediate horror, he sees another tall, tan, tank-top-clad lifeguard shoving kids aside as he approaches the snack shack.
It’s Chris. Chris from high school. Chris who made it his mission to harass Randy at every opportunity for the duration of his junior and senior year. Randy had no idea he worked here, although he shouldn’t be surprised—Chris was on the varsity swim team three years in a row.
Chris blows a long, loud blast on the whistle around his neck. Randy cringes, along with everyone else in the immediate vicinity.
“Break it up! Break it up! No groups of more than two, that’s a rule. Yes it is. Yes it is! Get out of my face.” He pushes a kid away by the forehead and leans his elbow on the counter as the crowd disperses. “What’s all that about?”
“Hello to you too,” Jess says with attitude.
“Hi. Yeah. S’up.” Chris cranes his neck and gives her a half-hearted kiss and Randy’s heart sinks.
He remembers Jess from school, sort of. Remembers seeing her around. But both she and Chris were a grade behind him, and he doesn’t recall them dating. Must’ve happened after he graduated. Great. Awesome.
“Randy?” There it is. Chris’s voice is pitched with disbelief. “Randy Bradley? No fucking way.”
Randy grimaces. “Hi, Chris.”
Jess’s eyes flit back and forth between them, connecting the dots. “Wait, your name is Randy?”
“Nah babe, look at his lanyard,” Chris says before Randy has a chance to answer. “His name is Bradley Bradley. That’s adorable. What the fuck are you doing here, Bradley Bradley?”
“Working,” Randy says lamely.
Chris cocks an eyebrow. “You sure about that? Is that vanilla all over your hand or are you jerking it to my girl back there?”
“Ew,” Jess says. Randy feels a stab of betrayal. “He is working,” she says. “He’s trying to, anyway. Mostly he’s wasting ice cream trying to learn how to swirl.” The betrayal blossoms into a full-blown gut wound.
Chris lights up. “Oh, Bradley, why didn’t you say so? I can teach you how to swirl. C’mon, let’s go to the bathroom and I’ll show you the classic method.”
Jess giggles and Randy makes a mental note to never trust her ever again.
It’s not too late to quit, probably, right? He’s only two days in—not even. No shame in that, surely. If he disappears now, it’s like it barely even happened, like he was hardly even here.
Never mind that it might doom him to being cooped up in the house with his mom and his sister all summer…never mind that not a single other job he applied to called him back…never mind that it would make him look pathetic, so pathetic, twenty-one years old and still falling prey to the same high school bully who called him Handy Randy for three months straight—
“Chris.”
Randy doesn’t recognize the voice, low and rough and a little sharp. Chris does, though, and so does Jess, because they both turn around immediately like dogs caught digging through the trash.
It’s the lifeguard. The hot one. And he’s not sleeping, he’s right there, sliding his sunglasses down his nose just far enough to shoot daggers at Chris with his eyes. And they’re maybe possibly the most beautiful eyes Randy has ever seen—blue, but a deep, dark, heavy blue that catches the light like glass.
“What’re you doing?” He’s older than Randy thought, older than the three of them, much older, maybe. There are permanent lines carved into his brow, too many crow’s feet to count.
Chris looks…scared, maybe, somehow, or annoyed. Or both. “I was just offering to show Bradley here to the bathroom, since he’s about to piss his pants. Is that cool with you, Benson?”
Benson. His name is Benson. Benson doesn’t look at Randy, but he levels his stare at Chris like a gun. “Cool with me. Gay as fuck, though, taking some guy to the bathroom. You gonna hold it for him too?”
Randy’s eyes go wide as the moon. He’s never heard someone stand up to Chris before. He’s never heard someone stand up to anyone before, not like that. Not even in his own secret self-indulgent revenge fantasies has he ever managed to be so…menacing.
Chris scoffs, sputters. “No, I’m not gonna—ew. That’s your fucking department, fag. Why are you even over here? We don’t trade off until one.”
Benson pushes his sunglasses back up his nose. “I’m taking my break. That cool with you, Christopher?”
Chris clenches his jaw, looks like he’s running through possible retorts and coming up empty-handed. “Fine. Whatever. Make sure you put the smoke alarm back when you’re done, Virginia Slim.”
He stalks away, almost-but-not-quite attempting to shoulder check Benson but thinking better of it at the last second. “Babe!” he snaps over his shoulder. “Come stand by me.”
Jess sighs, looking less than thrilled. She flashes Randy a knowing, not entirely unfriendly look and gives Benson a wide berth. “See ya later, Bradley.”
Randy watches her go, not quite sure what to make of her after all that. Knowing now that Chris works here…knowing that he and Jess are an item…he’s going to have to keep on his toes. If he’s even going to stay. Part of him wants to leave his lanyard on the counter right now and head home.
“Hey.”
Oh. He’d all but forgotten about the lifeguard. Benson.
Randy glances over at him. Must’ve moved his head too fast because his stomach swoops. God, he’s something to look at.
Benson’s pretty eyes stay hidden but he arches one eyebrow above his sunglasses. “You good?”
Randy nods quickly and offers what he hopes is an easy, apologetic smile. “Yeah. I’m good. Um…thanks.”
Benson rests his forearms on the counter and leans in conspiratorially. Randy catches the faintest whiff of sunshine and sunblock and sweat. His mouth goes dry.
“Listen. The next time that dick with arms messes with you, I want you to shove him in the shallow end. You got that?”
“Oh.” Randy lets out a nervous laugh. “I’m…probably not gonna do that.”
“Nah, I mean it. He’ll be fine. He can swim. Unfortunately.” Benson tilts his head. Even through the shades Randy can feel his gaze probing at him. He stands very still and wonders what he sees. “Bradley, right? You go by Brad?”
“No, I—I go by Randy.”
Benson’s head rights itself one degree at a time. His brows knit together. “Randy…” he repeats, half statement, half question.
“Yeah. It’s my—that’s my name. Mr. Hardy must’ve, um…read the paper wrong when he gave me this.” Randy grips his lanyard. “But it’s—it’s Randy. Randy Bradley. Two first names,” he says weakly, like it’s a joke. Because it is a joke. Because he is a joke.
Benson stares at him for a second before speaking. The corner of his mouth quirks up towards his mustache. “That’s very special, Randy.”
“Thank—thank you.” The ice cream is drying on his knuckles, sticky and uncomfortable. The cone still in his hand is melting fast.
“Well.” Benson taps his fist on the counter. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go hotbox a changing stall.” He offers a lazy wave and turns to go.
Randy scrambles for something, anything, to get him to stay a little longer. He offers up the only thing he’s got at his disposal. “Hey, um—do you want—do you maybe want some ice cream?”
It works. Benson stops. Randy nods towards the sign. “It’s free. Today.”
A ribbon of delight weaves through him as Benson pushes his sunglasses up on top of his head. His hair sticks up in all directions. He considers Randy, then the sign, then the slough of dairy in his hand. “Does it have to be that one?”
Randy glances down and back up. “No! No, I can—I’ll make you a new one.”
And it has to be perfect. It will be perfect. He’s going to make it perfect.
Benson sidles back to the counter. “Alright. Show me what you got.”
Randy nods dutifully and dumps the soggy cone into the trash. He scrubs his hands blessedly clean in the little sink at last. “We ran out of chocolate,” he says over his shoulder, “so vanilla’s your only option. I hope that’s okay.”
“‘S fine.” Randy turns around just in time to see Benson’s gaze flick back up to eye level from…wherever it was before. “I like vanilla.”
“Cool.” Cool. God. He’s an absolute moron.
Randy gets a cone and squares up in front of the machine. He can sense Benson’s stare pressed up against his back. He shakes it off and tries to focus. Just a little twist. Just a little tease. He thinks hand jobs and has to derail that train of thought before it can leave the station.
He pulls the lever with a confidence he barely feels. The machine whines to life. He nails the first swirl. Then the second. Then the third. Tops it off with a cute little dollop of ice cream. Perfection.
Randy smiles to himself before he turns around, relieved. He did it.
“Look at that,” Benson says when he proffers the cone. “That’s pretty good, Randy.”
“It’s all in the wrist,” he says shyly. It’s impossible to prevent a stupid, subtle note of pride from sneaking its way into his voice.
“You don’t say.” Benson takes the cone from him with great care. For a moment, the flat of his hand wraps around Randy’s fingers. “I’m expecting sculptures by the end of the summer. Giraffes and crocodiles and shit.”
Randy smiles. “I’ll work on it.”
He’s feeling terribly brave and he’s about to make a bid to keep him talking—ask how long he’s worked here, maybe, or what made him decide to be a lifeguard, or if he’s originally from Chalmette, or if he likes long walks on the beach—but every last modicum of conversational kinetic energy comes screeching to a halt when Benson takes his first lick of that ice cream cone.
In the blink of an eye he undoes a quarter of Randy’s careful work, running his tongue in a slow, wide stripe up the side of the swirl and sucking off the top completely. “Mm.” He laps halfway around the base of the cone—one, two, three—turns it deftly in his fingers and closes the loop with a single long pass. He licks his lips, completely missing the dots of ice cream in his mustache, makes eye contact with Randy, and raises the cone in acknowledgment.
“Thanks for this.”
Randy only remembers to close his mouth when he goes to reply and finds it hanging open. “I—it’s—you’re welcome.” He’s not even blushing. He has no blood to spare.
“I like your necklace.” Benson nods at the puka shells around Randy’s neck. “‘S cute.”
“Oh.” Randy glances down like somehow he’s going to be able to see the thing while it’s still on him. He got it in Florida on a family vacation, back when he was a teen. It seemed like appropriate work attire. Summery, beachy, something like that. Did he say he thought it was cute? “Um.”
Benson lowers his sunglasses and gives him a subtle toss of the head, unfazed by his apparent inability to conjure any kind of response. “See you around, Randy.” He saunters towards the changing rooms with vanilla on his lips.
Starving, shameful, Randy’s eyes follow him the entire length of the pool, raking up and down his back, clinging to his waist, catching on his ass. “Bye,” he says softly, even though he’s far beyond earshot.
Once he disappears out of sight Randy expels every ounce of air in his lungs. He sags against the counter, tugging uncomfortably at his too-tight cargo shorts. “Oh my god,” he whispers to himself.
He can’t quit now. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
It’s not like he thinks there’s even a remote possibility of anything happening between them, because there’s not. He knows there’s not. Not in a million years. Not when Benson is so cool, so confident, so mature, so far out of his league it’s like staring into the sun, and Randy is so…Randy. Frankly, if it weren’t for all the drama, Benson probably wouldn’t have even noticed him in the first place.
But he did. He definitely did. Randy supposes he has Chris to thank for that.
His mind buzzes like a weed whacker as he sets about cleaning up the ice cream wreckage, stacking the bowls and wiping up stray splatters of dairy, stowing the sign and erasing the evidence of their afternoon escapades. He’s not mad at Jess for abandoning him. It gives him room to think.
He decides he can put up with Chris. He can handle some light harassment. After all, he’s done it before and made it out alive—barely. And this time might be different. This time it seems like he just might have someone in his corner. He can deal with Jess being kind of a bitch, too. As long as he gets to share the snack stand.
From here, he has a perfect view of the lifeguard chair.
Randy pauses in the middle of polishing the counter and gazes out across the crowded pool. Chris has taken Benson’s place at the deep end, Jess hovering at the foot of the chair. The teenage girls have lost none of their enthusiasm. The parents are still nose-deep in their books and phones.
The sun off the concrete is blinding. It’s hot, even for June, and he feels kind of sticky all over. The smell of chlorine saturates the air, pervasive and sharp. Randy has a feeling that even if he never touches the water it’ll still follow him home each day, clinging to his skin and his clothes.
It might not be ideal—it might even kind of suck—but it might be worth it for the freedom from his mother. For the $6.55 he makes an hour. For the possibility of getting to see Benson almost daily.
Maybe they could talk a little more, get to know each other better. Maybe, just maybe, by the end of the summer, they could even become something like friends.
His mind made up, he smiles to himself, feeling oddly optimistic. He could stand to be here four days a week. Hell, who knows? He might even manage to have fun.
The fact that he doesn’t really know how to swim hardly seems important.