Every girl in the world needs at least one guy in her life with whom there is absolutely no mutual love interest. A guy to hang with and have no cares in the world with, a guy who can always take you to the prom if you don't have a date, a guy who can tell another guy that you think he's cute and not completely sabotage the relationship from jealousy, and most importantly, a guy who you don't have to try to impress at all. Mine right now is Cameron Phillips, and he is absolutely the best guy in the world. I have a few close guy friends, but Cameron is by far the funniest, wildest, and most attractive.
Cameron and I have been friends ever since he moved here in second grade from Massachusetts. He knows everything about me; my crushes, my weaknesses, my dreams, and vice versa. He has been my tango partner for all of the school dances, has planned all of the surprise parties on my birthdays, and most importantly, was the one who I had vented to the night of a certain party at the Belle Haven Club, when I found out from
Charissa that Brett Hayes has a girlfriend.
Even though Cameron is absolutely gorgeous with his sun bleached blonde hair and his dark tan, he has had only a few girlfriends in his lifetime. He is the sort of guy who seems to never want to grow up and will never be ready for a serious relationship, which is a serious disappointment to the hundreds of drooling girls at our high school. I never really figured out what made Cameron want to be good friends with me, perhaps I never will.
I think about all of this as I stare into the water farther down the sand, as Cameron and I eat pizza on a red striped blanket under a nearby tree. It's 6:30 in the evening on an idle Tuesday, and the weather is just right; warm with cool breezes. I am leaning against the trunk of the tree in my khaki shorts and red T-shirt, and Cameron is on his back, chewing and looking up at the darkening sky. The beach is pretty deserted, except for a few small families.
I let out a loud burp, full of cheese pizza and orange soda, which of course makes Cameron challenge it with another echoing one. I laugh hysterically as a white-haired man with his golden retriever turns around to see who just let out that earth shattering belch. Burping contests are things that you can only do with guys, so you have to enjoy them while you can. I throw my remaining crusts into the empty pizza box and take another swig of soda as Cameron sits up and looks at me.
"Let's walk down the beach." He tells me as he slips on his black Reefs and tosses me mine. I swallow my soda and pull my bare feet into them, following him down to the water.
"Hey now!" I shout to a middle-aged guy in a foldout chair, reading his newspaper. Cameron and I run away from him as he pulls off his sunglasses and peers closely at us. Screaming random things to the opposite sex is something Cameron and I have done since we were eighth graders. We fall down the beach laughing until our stomachs hurt from the sight of his confused face, and finally we make it to the water's edge.
The sun is blazing with a bright red color, as it seems to fall slowly to the ocean. Fireflies appear and flicker near the trees, welcoming the oncoming darkening night. I look at Cameron who glances back at me, and then I kick a fountain of water at him. I fall over laughing at his bewildered face and he sends a spray of water at me, soaking my shirt and shorts.
Soon we are standing there on that summer-night, kicking pools of water and throwing wet sand at each other like little kids. We continue getting each other more and more soaked and dirty until I push him into the water face first and he pulls me down with him- Then we sit there immersed, sopping wet in our khaki shorts and our hair stringy with clumps of sand. A little girl who is probably four or five in a hot pink swimsuit laughs as she walks past us, her mother smiling with an amused look as she pulls her daughter farther up the sand. I glance at Cameron who is wringing out his navy polo shirt and I notice he is unusually calm, until he sees a guy about our age walking towards us.
"Hey now, Kiddo, he's a hottie," he says laughingly, as I look up at a muscular guy in navy shorts and a white T -shirt with a surfboard printed on the back. I can already tell what is going through my evil friend's mind.
"Cameron don't you dare!" I cry at him, punching him. The guy walks past us and Cameron is just waiting for the right moment.
"Hey now!" He shouts as the poor guy turns around. "My friend here thinks you're hot," he tells him this matter of factly, as I pinch his arm under the water. But it's too late now, I'm obligated to play along. I give him a sly smile, trying hard not to laugh and he winks at me.
“Hey, can I have your number?" He asks me in a macho voice. Then he looks back at Cameron. "Wait, he's not your boyfriend, right?”
Before I can answer, Cameron is talking. "Oh her? Nah, we went out weeks ago, but then I dumped her. Anyway, if you want her number, I'll give it to you." As the stranger writes down the number, which of course isn't my real phone number, he smiles at me again. "I'll call you later then, hottie," he tells me flexing his muscles, and I smile back at him, biting my lip.
I fall into the water, laughing hysterically again as he walks up the sand and I hit Cameron really hard. "Ow!" he yelps, "you KNOW you wanted him, and he was totally checking you out!"
"I can't believe you did that!!" I shout as I throw a huge fistful of sand at him.
"He's going to come STALK me now!!" I laugh.
"You need a boyfriend anyway, and it might as well be him!" he shouts back and then we are splashing each other until we're sopping wet yet again.
As we trudge up to his car, completely dirty and drenched, we both dread the oncoming lecture his mom is going to give us about riding like that in her Mercedes. I push Cameron lightly and he pushes me back, and I think to myself happily, that at least one special guy should always be a girl's best friend. I watch his mom, talking on her cell phone as usual, and the sea air whips at my hair as the summer sun dies out, the sky becomes one map full of stars, and the dim flashes of the fireflies dance around us like a hundred blinking lights.
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