Not for you (FIN)

>Facts & Trivia:

I'm referencing the movie 'Jaws' in this chapter. Look it up on IMDB if you haven't seen it and read over the trivia: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073195/trivia to see what I'm referring to.




The beach. Did I mention I love beaches in the summer? No? Well, I do.

Hot air, sun, sand, water... and, best of all, the only place a woman can watch mostly naked gorgeous men without having to seek for an excuse.

This time, however, it was me who was stared at when we arrived, or rather, we were stared at. Probably because all hadn't bother to wash before, or to change our clothes. The only thing we had done when stopping at the house on the way was to grab some drinks, towels and - for me - a bikini, which I had put on in the bathroom under my dirty working clothes.

"Beach!" I exclaimed like a little child who sees this for the very first time, grinning as if I had taken drugs.

"Ya, that's a beach. You know... sand... water..." Brian grinned.

"Men!" I said, peering over to a group of obvious bodybuilders playing ball.

"Women!" added Roman, looking into the other direction where four girls were sunbathing on their towels.

"Water!" grumbled Dom, dropped his bag practically simultaneously with his pants and sprinted off into the sea.

We who were left staring after him didn't need to look at each other but did just the same.

It took me a bit longer to get rid of my clothes, as I was also still wearing a shirt. When I started running, the others were already in the water, chasing each other; but as they saw me coming near, they ceased all action.

"What?" I laughed and let myself fall forward into the water. The coolness! I took a short dive and came back to the surface, flipped my hair backwards and turned around - just to find them, who were now between the shore and me, still staring.

"Any problems, guys?"

"You should wear more..." started Dom.

"...clothes." ended Vince.

"Ya, next time I'll consider wearing a polar suit on the beach." I laughed.

"I know why the Arabs have their women fully dressed." Roman said.

"Yes, and thanks for reminding me and anyone else that I'm no one's woman so we don't have to take anything like that into consideration.

"Oh, you're the shark's woman." Dom grinned.

"The what?"

"The shark's." He was already leaping at me, diving and I felt him tugging on my legs.

"Help, help, a shark is attacking me!" I screamed laughing, looking at the others for help.

"Ohhhh - let's play 'Jaws'. I'm the 'Orca', who's my captain?" Roman laughed, also leaping forward.

"Me. Definitely." Leon grinned.

"I'm the head in the hole." Vince laughed.

"I'm the dynamite." Brian said, and they all jumped to my rescue. The problem was just that I was laughing so much that none of them really took their self-assigned jobs serious...

Later, when we were all lying on our towels dozing in the sun, I remembered what Dom had said. 'The shark's woman', and that he was the shark. Huh? Questions demanding answers, I thought. I turned my head to Dom, who was lying next to me on his back, arms folded behind his head.

"Dom..." I started.

"Hmmm?"

"What was that thing with 'the shark's woman' and you being the shark? I'm not 'yours', I'm just part of your team."

"You didn't know he owns you now?" Vince laughed from my other side.

"What should he have bought me with?" I frowned his direction.

"The steel you cut out of my precious car." Dom grumbled.

"What part of 'outlawing the importation of slaves' did you miss at school?" asked Roman from somewhere behind Dom.

"We didn't import her. Plus, we're in Texas, Roman." Brian grinned. "No way they'll ever give up on slavery."

"Well, if I have been paid with steel, then I guess either you all own me now... or still no one." I said.

"Oh, I'd like that, my own slave." Leon laughed.

"I wouldn't, except if you'd learn too cook." Brian yawned.

"Why cooking? She can work on the cars, wash them..." Dom grinned.

"Fuck you." I said.

"Oh, come on. So many beautiful masters. Roman grinned. "Not many slaves have that."

He looked at me and must have seen that I was really pissed.

"Come Dana, walk with me. Let's get something to drink." He jumped up and started yanking on my arm.

"Ow - Rom! Stop that! I don't want to..."

"Yes, you do." He said, finally pulling me into a stand and started to walk, his hand still firmly clamped around my wrist so that I had no choice but stumble after him. I looked back; the others grinned except Dom who didn't look after us.

"Roman, why did you kidnap me?" I finally said when he let go of my hand, sitting down at the table of a small beach bar nearby but out of hearing distance from the others.

"Just because I wanted to. Say - you know you're playing some kind of dangerous game there, don't you?"

"Hah?"

"Oh, come on. Don't play stupid."

"Roman, I have so no idea what you're..."

"Anything for you two?" A woman came over.

"Coke for me." I said.

"Me too." Roman dismissed her. "Dana, I have a problem with you. I've known women who were not into guys at all, avoiding them, and clearly so. I have seen women who were hot for guys, also clearly so. You, as I understand, have been travelling for some days with the others, and if I may say so, if a woman who isn't blind can't pick any of them, me included," he grinned, "then she's clearly not into guys. You are, as you've frequently said. Yet you pick none of us, not even the one who's most interested in you, as it seems."

"Uhm - I told you I don't sleep with my friends... and who could you possibly mean with 'the one who's most interested in me?"

"You don't sleep with your friends, yet you don't mind appearing before them with clothing that would fit into one of my hands? Either you have balls or you expect all of us to have none. Or both, perhaps." He laughed.

"Oh, I just thought you were all mature enough to not drool over any woman who's wearing a bikini." I said. "And you're avoiding my question. Who's most interested in me?"

"Ah," he laughed, "there is still hope. If you're interested who it is, then you're perhaps also interested in him."

"Roman, I would lie if I would say that none of you interest me. However, I can't have any of you."

"Yeah, friends and that shit, I heard it before. What about having some fun?"

"That kind of fun destroys friendships. Have it with one - that one will think he owns me. Have it with everyone - they all become rivals. Who is it, Roman? Still waiting for an answer."

"You want to know? I'll show you when we get up. Don't blame me afterwards, though." He said, still grinning.

"Why not just tell me? I mean..."

"Your Coke." The woman came back and served our drinks.


"No." Roman took a sip. "I think you need to see that. Perhaps he needs to see something too, to finally do something about it."

All of a sudden he was very friendly and extremely flirty, leaning over the table, smiling at me.

"Does the behavior you're all of a sudden showing have anything to do with your 'show?" I said, also leaning over and smiling at him as if he was a god.

"In some way, perhaps." He replied, taking my hand from the table, picking it up so that the others would really see it.

"Oh, those kinds of games I like." I grinned, brushing some imaginable sand from his shoulder with my other hand. "You want that person to freak a bit about what we're doing? See, Roman, that's the kind of fun I'm totally into." I giggled as if I had heard something very funny and leaned further over the table, watching the others from the corner of my eye; but no one looked at us.

We continued to giggle, hold hands and sticking our heads together, talking about the most ridiculous things which so didn't match our body language - and both eyed the others.

"Ah, finally." Roman laughed as if he had heard an extremely funny joke. "Look, Vince is looking at us." His hand started wandering over my upper arm.

"It's Vince?" I giggled back, doing the same.

"No, but he'll alert the others."

We kept playing our show, until finally, everyone of the other four was looking over. Even Dom had turned around for a short time, but then lay on his back again, facing away from us.

"Hmm." Said Roman. "This is not the effect I wanted. We should try something else." He emptied his Coke; mine had long been empty. "Walk with me?"

"What do you have in mind now?" My body was still speaking flirt language, my face and voice were not. What the hell was this guy up to?

"Wait and see. And whatever I do... don't you stop watching them."

He got up and extended his arm to, as I assumed, pick me up. However, when I gave him my hand, I was yanked up, practically catapulted into his arms, and received the first and only true 'Gone with the Wind' kiss in my life.

Which, as I found as soon as I had recovered from the shock a second later, really was a movie kiss: His lips were about a quarter inch away from mine, and he used my hair to shield us from their looks as well as to look through it to them, as I noticed.

"You crazy?!?" I hissed.

"No - demonstrating. Keep watching."

I looked at them through my hair, just to see Vince, eyes wide open, staring at us, tapping on Dom's shoulder.

Who, in return, jumped up and tried to walk a step forward towards us, only to find himself being stopped by Vince holding his ankle. Dom looked at Vince, said something; Vince looked up to Dom, shook his head, also said something. Then Brian turned to Dom, got up, draped his arm around him and pulled him back to the water. Dom was walking backwards, still pulled by Brian and still staring at us, but then my view on him was blocked by Vince, who followed him - not before taking a look back at Roman and myself, shaking his head.

"Uhm..." I said, pushing Roman away from me. "You can stop demonstrating, they're gone."

"And? Saw this? Priceless, isn't it?"

"If you wanted to tell me that Dom is my secret admirer, you're wrong, very wrong." Roman finally let go of me, and I found myself staring at him.

"Walk with me, Leon is still looking." He replied and we started walking together along the beach.

"You're still wrong." I said. "I'm not the kind of prey that would match his preferences."

He started to laugh. "What could you mean by that?"

"Well, I'm too old; I don't look like a supermodel, I..." He stopped me, standing before me with his hands on my shoulders.

"You stop selling yourself under value, Dana."

"But it's true! And I'm scarred, outside as well as a bit inside, I guess." I stared at the floor.

"Yes, the others told me a bit about it the day before you arrived. Still, you're undervaluing yourself. Problem with your self esteem, huh?"

"Not really, I just see the facts."

"Well, I can't see those facts you're obviously seeing. I don't even pretend kissing with any woman, you know?" He winked.

"Oh, come on, Roman. How old are you?"

"Thirty-four, why?"

"Well, I'm two years older than you."

"So? You don't look like it."

"Yes, thank you, somehow it paid off eating all the food at McDonald's - preservatives have to be good for something, right...?"

He laughed.

"Well, no, but that's not what I wanted to say. See, I'm older than you, so I don't really expect that you would consider me a proper candidate to..."

"...sleep with you? Oh yes, hell, I would. Relationship would be something else, though; and I think that of the whole team, only one would be up to that task." He said.

"Ya, sure." I snorted. "Listen, Roman, I have so no idea if you know it, but that guy's been sleeping right next to me for several days now, never tried to touch me."

"Oh, I think he's got the idea you're too good for him and doesn't want to chase you away."

"Since when does Dom Toretto think that any woman would be too good for him?" I laughed, almost stumbling. "Besides, how would that change a thing if he were interested in me? I still don't sleep with friends."

"Maybe, but you're hot for him. Don't think no one can see that. Hell, even I've seen that; and I'm not the brightest crayon in the box when it comes to something like that, if you get my point."

"See, Roman, that's the difference between women and men; we're further up on the ladder of evolution than you. Besides having lost most of our body hair, we're also able to do some thinking and suppress our animalistic needs rather than following them. Well, at least most of us."

Now it was him almost stumbling to the ground because he had to laugh so much.

"Dana, you're entertaining, most entertaining. I kind of see what he sees in you. And you should do some serious thinking about him, about what you really want. Come, chase me back to the others; a bit more water will do us good now."

He started running, I was right behind him. As our towels came in sight, we both stopped in our tracks.

"See, you were wrong." I said, pointing at the scene right before us.

Dom, Brian, Leon and Vince were very busy massaging, talking to and laughing with the four women who had lain next to our place.

"You don't think he's doing that just to make you jealous? I mean, after what you and I just did... or what they think we did, rather..."

"Gods, Roman, stop the shit. See, that's the Toretto I had heard of. The only thing I wonder about is just why he's never done that before while I was around."

"You think? Well, want to find out what he really thinks?"

"I'm still not interested in him, but yes, I'd love to; and be it just to teach him that he's not the center of my freaking universe."

"Then play along with me." He draped his arm around my waist and pushed me forwards, grinning.

"Hi guys!" I said. Vince took a sharp look at me, then concentrated on his massaging job. Roman got the same kind of stare from Brian; Dom didn't even look at me. The only one who obviously found something to say was Leon; and it wasn't exactly the usual careless comment he gave.

"Had fun?"

"Much so, yes." Roman said. "Say, you all look busy; mind if we two take off?"

"Huh?" Dom coughed, and for the first time I saw a look on his face that I had never seen before. Fear? Worry? I didn't quite know what it was, but it was gone faster than Roman noticed it.

"Yes, we decided that it's boring here." Roman said. I tried to just smile

"By all means, just go; both of you." Vince grumbled.

Roman had already picked up our towels, clothes and bags. "Well, then - see you all in the evening!" He said, already pushing me towards the parking lot.

"Wo-hooo! Have you seen the way Brian looked at me?" He laughed as soon as we were far enough away. "Not to speak of Vince."

"Yes, and Dom? He looked as if he was choking on something." I said, not really in the mood to laugh about that look.

"Hey." He elbowed me. "Don't you think about him. Let's have a good time, come back to the house late in the evening and see what happens."

"And where could we possibly go like this?" I pointed at the dirty clothes he was carrying.

"Well, shopping of course." He grinned. "I say it's about damn time you get some new clothes for you, you look like a guy all the time - well, at least clothes-wise!"

Before I could protest I was pushed towards my car.