Page 19 of Noticing Natalie
I ended up working part-time for Snow Cone Hut with Tim’s sister Alexis. She was about to start her senior year of high school and needed a job for the summer, too. There was a guy in Halliwell who owned ten portable mini food trucks that were outfitted as Snow Cone Huts. He handed me the keys, gave me a working area and turned us loose. We got to keep forty percent of the profits for the summer. Easy peasy.
Our area turned out to be one of three places. The rec center pool, the tennis courts, or the Indigo Falls Country Club. We’d set up in the parking lot of one of the three places and stay there from seven in the morning until seven at night. We’d each take two thirty-minute breaks a day, never at the same time. I posted a set schedule online of when we’d be at each location, and I wrote it on a sandwich board we’d set up each day with our flavor of the day on it.
Tim worked at the quarry. He’d been working there every summer since he was old enough to work legally. We all knew he wanted to be run the place one day after graduating from Tech. Each summer he got stronger and stronger as he did a mix of manual labor and office jobs at the quarry. The manager there said he’d be extremely marketable with a degree from Tech, but even more so if he’d done every job there was to do around the quarry. Understanding what all of your employees did made you a better boss to work for, according to him.
He had a point.
Tim and a couple of his pals from work would often come to the rec center pool when they got off work. They’d cool off and splash around for an hour or so before coming to buy snow cones from us.
I didn’t mean to, but I often found myself staring at Tim as he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it on a lounge chair before diving in. He was… cut. His muscles had muscles. Iknew he’d always tended towards that body type, but he’d gotten nothing but bigger and broader over the past year or so.
“What are you looking at, Nat?” Alexis asked one evening in a sing-song voice with a little grin on her face.
“Nothing, squirt,” I replied holding the container of blue raspberry syrup threateningly over her head.
“Don’t you dare,” she squealed, and I laughed as she burst out of the truck to get away from me.
“I wasn’t really gonna do it,” I rolled my eyes.
“Do what?” Tim walked up, still dripping wet. Damn. I watched as water ran down his chest in little rivulets. For a moment I pictured myself licking the water off him, before I shook the thoughts away. What the hell?
When I looked up to answer him, he was staring at me as if he’d read my thoughts. I flushed and cleared my throat.
“I, uh, threatened to dump syrup on her head.”
“Oh.”
“Man, are you going to move so I can ask her?” Hunter, one of Tim’s friends who was also beautifully cut and tanned, asked him. He was very handsome, with dark hair and eyes, but he couldn’t hold a candle to Tim.
No one could.
Tim nodded his head in Alexis’ direction. “Dude. She’s right there.”
Hunter frowned looking confused. “What? That’s your little sister.”
Tim turned his head sharply. “Right. That’s who you wanted to ask out, right? Alexis?”
Hunter gave him a look. “No. I’mtwenty, man. Isn’t she, like, sixteen or something?”
Tim’s mouth dropped open a little. “She’s seventeen, but…” his voice trailed off as he realized it was a bad idea. “Who did you want to ask out?”
“This is going great,” Hunter looked at me and winked. He stepped around Tim. “I don’t know if you had figured this out or not, Natalie, but I wanted to see what you’re doing Saturday night.”
Tim made a strange noise. “Natalie? You wanted to askNatalieout?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What’s weird about that?”
“Nothing. Nothing, it’s just… I thought we were going on a double date where I’d be with you, and he’d be with Alexis.”
“You wanted to go on a date with me?”
Tim’s ears turned pink and he rubbed the back of his neck.
“I thought you said y’all were just friends,” Hunter said.
“We are. I just thought—never mind. I’ll leave y’all to it.” He hurried across the parking lot to where Alexis was flirting with a couple of guys from school.
“That was weird,” Hunter chuckled. “Anyway, are you busy Saturday?”
