Eden Cove Vol. 2

"There is always that one summer that changes you."

The end of July was nothing but sunshine and good times for Jessa. After only a month of working at Karol's, she was now the location supervisor of the kiddie area. This included a water play area, complete with annoying water sprayers the kids loved, a huge double racing slide that she had to staff all day, and three rides. The employees that she supervised called her "The Kiddie Ride Queen". She pretended to hate it but she suspected even they could tell that she loved the nickname. Being the supervisor at Kiddie Korner was the first thing that Jessa had ever been in charge of in her life. She felt like she was really contributing to something and she was part of a team.

Saturdays were always hit or miss with staffing. People called in a lot and it seemed like the weekends were the worst for this. So sometimes, they had to shift the staff around to make it work out. When a tall, thin guy with blonde hair showed up and stopped quickly in front of her, Jessa looked up at him and said "yes?"

"You Jessa? They told me to see you. I'm supposed to work out here today."

Now, the first thing Jessa thought was, dang, he's pretty cute, the next thing was, how does he know who I am?

"Hey, yeah, that's me. Thanks for coming over. What's your name?" she asked

"Taylor"

"Ok. So you're going to start out at Double Slide and then in about one hour someone will replace you and you'll move to Beep!Beep!, then break."

"Cool." Taylor said and he started walking away. He turned back and looked at Jessa "why are you oddly shaped?"

"Excuse me?"

"Like your head is big but your body is small?" Taylor looked a little confused, shook his head, and walked off towards the slides.

Jessa didn't move, she wasn't even sure what he said, big head? Little body? What did that mean? She was so upset she couldn't think straight. No one had ever said she had a big head. Was she oddly shaped? Just then Freddy walked up to her and said,

" Don't listen to that boy, nothing is wrong with your shape Miss Jessa"

"Oh thank you, Freddy". Jessa said, she didn't blush often but she was sure she was now. She didn't know anyone heard Taylor. Maybe Freddy would think it was the heat, it was close to 100 degrees today. She hurried away, Freddy was a sweet old man, she saw him every morning sitting out on the dock, reading his paper. He had to be older than her grandfather, he had told her a few stories about his time in the Army during World War II. He mostly worked the front gate entrance booth and took tickets but he always stayed late on weekends to sweep up and pull trash when needed. He told her that his wife had died nine years ago and since then the staff at Karol's had become his family. Jessa thought that was sad but lately, she had begun to feel like being at work felt better than being at home so maybe he was onto something.

Jessa still lived at home with her parents, who had always been a bit of a mystery to her. Her mom, Lisa, had her sister Millie when she was only 16 and married her dad, Jimmy, a year later at 17. Jessa remembered hearing a fight her parents had when she was younger that had to do with whether or not her dad was Millie's dad. That always really bothered Jessa. Her dad left for the night but he came back and she doesn't remember hearing them mention it again. Her parents have never had much interest in her, they didn't have much interest in each other and if you asked Jessa what they did in their free time, she couldn't answer you. She doesn't really know how things were for Millie when she was growing up, she's never asked. From what she can tell, Millie is very happy with her life now but she got out of here as quickly as she could. The older Jessamyn gets the more she thinks about that, should she be thinking about leaving too? There was a big world out there, she might have only been working here a month but just last week a couple that worked on the old wooden coaster, Bandit, had moved to Florida to look for jobs at a bigger amusement park that paid more money.

Jessa continued over to the Kiddie Korner "shed", a small wooden shack really that contained a shared water cooler, employees' belongings, and a rotation schedule. Every morning, Jessa would get there before her crew so that she could assign them a different ride or location for every hour of their shift. The crew would rotate around to the different locations so that they all got a chance to work at each location and so that they didn't get bored. Some of her crew members only worked a four-hour shift but some worked up to 12 hours. Some worked half of their shift with her and half in another location. So as you can imagine, things were always changing, someone came back late from break so someone was late going on break. It was her job to ensure that didn't happen. Did a crew member get stopped by an angry parent and can't get to their next position on time? It was her job to know about it and step in to take care of the paying guest and smooth things over. She walked around the Kiddie Korner constantly making sure the crew was happy and that the guests were happy. But when she got back to the shed on this trip, she ran right into Ashley. Ugh!

Ashley was just not her favorite person on the crew. She had a pinched-up face that made her look like she just smelled something bad. Her attitude matched her face. Jessa had an attitude of her own when pushed too far and after the incident with the rude ass Taylor guy, she wasn't in the mood.

"Where's Taylor?" Ashley asked, staring hard at Jessa.

"He's at Dual Slide" Jessa replied, proceeded to check that the water cooler was full, and started to walk past Ashley when she realized that she was holding the rotation in her hand. "Something wrong with your rotation?"

"Um yeah, can you move me to DS this hour and Lil' Riders next hour? Thanks. " Ashley said rather than asked.

Jessa was immediately annoyed. It took a reasonable amount of time to write that rotation and moving one person meant moving several, for the rest of the day! Everyone on the crew knew that. Ashley knew it, even if she had only been working there two weeks.

"No Ashley, I think we went over this in training, if you have an issue with your assigned rotation, you need to let me know as soon as you see it. Either first thing in the morning or when you come in. Sorry." Jessamyn said in her professional voice, she wasn't really sorry, but she had a habit of feeling bad when she disappointed people, even people she didn't like. She turned and walked out of the shed but she heard Ashley whisper "bitch". She guessed she was meant to hear that. She would hate it but she would think about that for years, how she had not been rude, just followed the rules, just done her job but still got called a name for it. Eventually, she would forget about Ashley, she would forget her name even and when she tried to remember the story of Taylor, she would say "and his girlfriend, oh what was her name?"

But that night as she was locking up the shed, she saw Taylor and Ashley walking out for the night just ahead of her, holding hands, and laughing. Oh, she thought, well that's a match made in heaven, rolling her eyes. Ashley looked back over her shoulder and then whispered something to Taylor, he glanced back over his shoulder, whispering back. Jessamyn thought this a bit ridiculous, they were too far away for her to hear anything they were saying anyway. Before she could change course and walk out on a different path, Taylor was running back to meet her, she heard Ashley call his name but he didn't respond to her. He stopped quick right in front of her, the same as he had done earlier that day.

"Hey, Jessa. So, sorry about that shit I said earlier. When I get nervous, I just, I don't know, I act like an idiot. Do you hate me?" Taylor said quickly, so quickly that Jessa paused before she answered because she wanted to make sure her brain caught up.

"What? No, I don't hate you."

"Cool. See you in the morning"

Taylor ran back again to catch up with Ashley, who had started walking back in their direction but didn't have a hope of reaching them because the whole interaction had taken less than ten seconds. Jessamyn was happy to see that Ashley looked pissed. She shouldn't take any pleasure from that she knew, but Ashley was always nasty to her and with no good reason. In reality, Jessa wanted nothing to do with either of them, she didn't know what Taylor's deal was but she was smart enough to know she didn't want to find out. He was rude and insulting earlier today for no reason. It was great that he apologized and she didn't hate anyone but she wanted to keep a distance from both of them. Jessa looked around for Adam and spotted him and Justin walking up. Oh great, Justin again. Justin was Adam's best friend and that was all fine and good but he was goofy, convinced he was going to be a rap star, he was an entertainer for the one show that Karol's Karnival currently had. No, he did not rap in the show, he juggled and danced. Although Jessa had to admit, he did both quite well. Now that she thought about it, Justin being around could be a good thing. She hadn't mentioned to Adam that she was off Monday and she was going with Freddy down to the car dealership to see about buying a car. She had mentioned needing a car to her parents and they told her to check the papers and buy something used so she asked Freddy if she could look at his newspaper when he was done with it last week. After explaining why she needed it Freddy offered to take her car shopping, he said that would probably be better than trying to find one from the paper. Jessamyn had never had a car or even thought about buying one so she agreed. She would take all the help she could get. Only, she wasn't sure Adam would like the fact that she was getting her own ride. He already complained about how much she worked, he didn't work at KK's as much as she did and he didn't love it the way she did either. His dad had gotten over being angry at him pretty quickly and needed him to help out at the electrical shop so by their third week at Karol's, Adam was giving up shifts to head to the shop. Jessa understood and it didn't bother her at all, she got rides with friends and her best friend Molly just got a job at Karol's last week. But she and Adam were spending less time together and it seemed to bother him. Jessamyn was working too much to notice and she enjoyed flirting with the park guests and other boys who worked there. Adam told Justin he needed to drop him off first so that he could spend some time with Jessa but she told him it was fine to drop her off first, she had an open-to-close shift tomorrow, the dreaded O-C, and would be going straight to bed anyways. She kissed him goodnight and said goodnight to crazy Justin, who rapped something back. Jessa rolled her eyes and escaped the car as quickly as possible.

The next morning, Jessamyn got to work an hour early, she had a hard time falling asleep the night before and thought a walk might clear her mind. She wasn't sure what was wrong or why she couldn't fall asleep. For the past few years she had been very tired and slept a lot, did she run out of sleep? The thought made her laugh out loud as she strolled down the boardwalk. If Jessamyn knew then that she would spend the rest of her adult life battling insomnia and that this was just the beginning of it, she would not have laughed. At nineteen, Jessamyn didn't know a lot of things. Towards the end of her walk, she saw Freddy sitting on the dock, reading a newspaper and she half wanted to join him and half wanted to walk away. He looked up and made the decision for her.

"Good morning Miss Jessa! You are early today. Almost as early as me." Freddy said with a slight smile

"Good morning. You can just call me Jessa or Jessamyn you know. I couldn't sleep so I just came in early to walk," she said

"Jessamyn is a beautiful name. How did your parents settle on that?"

" My mom got it from a book she was reading, it was about a girl living on a ranch in Montana, she had never heard the name and said she loved it. She named my sister after a book character too, Amelia."

"Your mama has good taste in names. Just look out at that water. Just beautiful this morning. How blessed are we to be living in this place? I am glad you showed up here this morning Jessamyn. I'm an old man now and the older I get, the less I believe in coincidence, you know what I mean by that? Everything happens for a reason."

Jessa had been nodding along, "Yes, I think I do." she replied.

"Well, now I got to thinking last night, you're a young girl and sometimes it takes time for a girl your age to really come into themselves but trust me on this piece of advice. Stand up for yourself! Hard and fast! Be mean to those boys and they will respect you more for it. I know, I know, I know what you are going to say before you say it. Because you're not mean by nature, but you're a small, cute girl and these boys won't take you seriously if you can't be meaner to them. I know there is some attitude in there girl! Come on now! Bring it out. Yesterday when that young man insulted you, you needed to set him straight. I know it was scary and unexpected but you are in a position of authority here, Jessamyn, not him. If you want them to take you seriously, take yourself seriously. Stop apologizing for everything, take charge. Give em' hell girl!"

Jessa stared down at the ground. She wasn't just listening to Freddy, she was absorbing what he was saying. This conversation with Freddy had a huge impact on Jessa's life although she didn't know it at the time. She had spent her life trying to be pleasing to others, to stay out of the way at home, and to do what she was told at school and at work. Now, here was this man, with all the life experience that she lacked telling her to give em' hell. Is that okay to do?

*****

Karol's opened at 11 a.m. every day and closing time depends on the day of the week. Since Karol's had been around so long and was originally and until recently a family-owned park, it was a mix of old and new attractions. The entrance was still old-fashioned ticket booths, with a vintage sign in classic carnival script. Once you pass through the main entrance you could proceed straight ahead to the boardwalk area, to the right where the carousel, original to the park sits, or to the left where the Bandit coaster is on proud display. Both pathways left and right, will lead you through the park and you'll find rides, snacks, games, and a second brand new albeit small steel roller coaster. And both pathways will eventually dump you back on the boardwalk area. There you will find bumper boats, new this season, as well as your typical boardwalk attractions like cotton candy, snow cones, Justin juggling, and a Ferris Wheel.

So by 10:30 a.m. Jessamyn was sitting in her shed, writing out her rotation for the day, the crew would arrive in about 15 minutes. Taylor was working that day but Ashley was off, thank God. Only half the drama to deal with today. Her best friend Molly was also working today so they had coordinated break times. It should be a pretty good day. She jumped when the shed door opened. No one was ever this early.

"Good morning". Taylor said in a voice so quiet she barely heard it.

"Oh. Hey. Good morning. You scared me. No one is ever here this early. On my crew at least. Does your supervisor make you come in this early?" Jessa replied quickly. Was she rambling? Shit. Was she nervous? Was it lack of sleep? No! It was him! He. Is. Weird. His behavior never makes sense. She realized she got to work an hour early and sat on a bench with an old dude getting life lessons but she was at least a supervisor here. That was kind of different.

"Sorry". He laughed. " I'm always early because my grandma works the ticket booth and I ride in with her". Then he sat down next to Jessa, so close that their thighs were touching and she could tell that he put on cologne this morning. Something expensive judging by how good it smelled. Jessa was sensitive to smells and sometimes working outside with a bunch of people who forgot to shower between shifts made that a real curse. Taylor was making it a blessing but he was also proving to be a distraction as she tried to work on her rotation while he watched her.

"What?" She finally asked him after the combination of his staring and his leg pressed against her made her too nervous to keep writing.

"Nothing. I've never seen anyone write a rotation, it's interesting, that's all"

"Do you have a request?" Jessa asked him

"Nope. "I'll go where you tell me to." Taylor smiled

In her head, Jessamyn heard Freddy's voice "give em' hell girl" and so instead of nodding along like she normally would have she tried something new.

"That's right. I like that attitude" Jessamyn said, in what she hoped was a sassy voice. It must have been good enough because Taylor laughed and put his head on her shoulder. Jessa was surprised because this felt perfectly natural and it shouldn't have, she had a boyfriend and he had a girlfriend. And, oh yeah, they didn't even know each other! They met each other yesterday when he insulted her. The truth was she wanted to sit there like that with him all day but she couldn't and so it was time to make him take her seriously, like Freddy said, she was running things, right?

" Now, get out of here and let me work". Jessa said. Simple and straight to the point.

"Ok, see you in ten minutes. Boss". Taylor said as he jumped up quickly and walked out the door.

What the hell was that about Jessa wondered?

The rest of Jessa's Sunday went by as usual, the crowds were typical for the end of July. Everyone who was scheduled actually showed up. She had lunch in the break area with Molly, Adam, and Justin. She ran into Freddy and he said he was actually leaving on time today but that he would pick her up tomorrow at noon to go look for the car. Jessa thanked him again for taking the time to do this for her and he told her he didn't mind at all. The day went by quickly and smoothly until the end of the night when Jessa was getting her nightly paperwork in order in the shed, she thought all of the crew had left for the night but as soon as she walked out of the shed door, Taylor came walking up.

"Didn't you leave once already?" Jessa asked

"I did, but then I didn't want you to walk out alone".Taylor said

"Well I have a boyfriend, he will probably make his way over here any minute". she stated.

"How many minutes?" Taylor smiled.

"How old are you?" Jessa asked suddenly. There were two reasons for this question, while it was true that she didn't know, Taylor had a habit of throwing her completely off balance. She never anticipated his behavior. She would like to say it was alarming but really, it was kind of exciting but in an unsettling kind of way.

"17 next month. How many minutes do I have?" he asked again.

"You're only 16? I thought you were older than me!" Jessa practically yelled at him.

Taylor approached her quickly, which seemed to be the way he did everything, he pulled her close to him and hugged her tightly. Jessa hugged him back, he was taller than her but everyone was, as Jessa barely made it to 5'3", his arms felt stronger than she expected and she wondered if he played sports. He ran his hands up and down her back slowly. Jessa knew this was not a situation she should be in and she started to pull away. Taylor pulled her back to him.

"No". he whispered. Jessa pulled him closer to her for a few more seconds and then finally pulled away and started walking.

"So do you have to go to the main office? Is your boyfriend meeting you there?" Taylor asked

"Yes, and he normally meets me somewhere between here and there.." Jessa said.

"How long have you guys been together?"

"A little over a year". Jessa answered his questions.

"Holy shit! So it's like a real serious thing huh?" Taylor sounded surprised

Jessa would have answered but right then Adam and Justin walked up so she got to introduce the three of them. Taylor was polite and even told Adam how lucky he was to have a girl like Jessa and Adam quickly agreed. Justin jumped in and asked if anyone was planning to attend Boardwalk Nights next week. The park had originally featured a small pavilion for concerts and "dance-offs." Even today, though modified, that section of the park remains and they now host Boardwalk Nights. Today, this is just a DJ and dancing, although sometimes there may be a local live band. The park only did the Nights events one Friday a month and Jessamyn had arranged to get off early this Friday to go. She went to a few of them last summer with Molly and Adam and they were the most fun! Jessa let them know that she was going for the first time this year, Adam complained that he had to work a closing shift, Justin said he had to close too but was trying to talk someone into switching shifts with him and Taylor said he had never been to one and didn't know if he would go.

On Monday night, Jessamyn pulled up into her driveway in her brand new, shiny, black Rav-4. Freddy was a force to be reckoned with at the dealership! He got Jessa into a first-time buyer program the sales guy didn't even know about when they got there, he asked for a manager after that, got free oil changes, and got them to lower the sticker price. She ran into the house, so excited for her parents to see the car.

"Mom! Dad! Come outside and see!" Jessamyn yelled and ran back outside so that she could be standing next to the car.

"What is that?" Lisa asked while her dad just stood there beside her looking slightly confused but overall blank-faced.

"My new car! I got a great deal on it too, it's brand new! Can you believe it?"

" I said look in the paper for something used. You can't afford that." Lisa replied, now she looked confused.

" I can. With my promotion and everything I have saved up, plus I'll work during the off-season. Obviously. " Jessa answered

"What about moving out?" Lisa asked, "Do you plan to live with your parents forever?"

"No, I don't" Jessa answered.

Her father walked back inside and Jessamyn realized he hadn't spoken at all. Lisa was still just staring at her, she looked a little disgusted. Like both Jessa and the car shouldn't be there at all. Jessa was crushed by emotions, she felt incredibly guilty for buying the car. She thought she was being responsible by buying the car, everyone her age had one. But her parents had made her feel like this was a stupid, immature decision. Jessa looked back at the car and thought about the conversation she and Freddy had about how she needed reliable transportation. It made so much sense back then, she looked back at her Mom's face.

"Mom, I just thought it was time I had reliable transportation. I am going to save to move out. I do have a savings account. Just last week Molly and I looked at some apartments"

"MOLLY!" Lisa screeched " What do you mean Molly? I thought you and Adam were moving in together?"

"Well, I just mean, I think he is going to move in with Justin."

Lisa didn't answer, she stared at Jessa like she thought she was lying but she didn't know for sure so she didn't speak. She turned and walked away just like her father did.

*****

Telling Adam that she bought a car went a lot better than telling her parents. He was surprised but happy for her at least. The rest of the week went by smoothly, she bought a couple of new CDs for the car, she had lunch with Molly every day and she came in early twice to hang out with Freddy. Taylor was not assigned to work in Kiddie Korner this week but she noticed that he came by a lot more than he ever had before. Ashley was working a few times so that made sense, lots of people stopped by to see a girlfriend or boyfriend. Adam stopped by to see her a few times a week if he got off before her. The thing was, Taylor had stopped by on the days that Ashley was off too. Jessamyn stayed pretty busy during the day and other than saying hi and chatting for a minute, she didn't talk to him for long. When she got back from her break on Friday afternoon, Lily, a sweet girl that Jessa had always loved having on her crew, pulled her aside.

"Hey Jessa, Taylor came looking for you. He said he needed to talk to you before Boardwalk Nights tonight so he would be back in a few hours." Lily repeated the message.

"Oh, um, thanks Lily". Jessa replied quickly pretending to be busy with the rotation because once again, she was confused by Taylor. Last she heard Taylor didn't seem interested in going tonight, why did he need to talk to her about it? Why come down here on a day when Ashley was working to find her? Why not just ask Ashley? Why involve Lily? Jessa's mind was racing again. She worried too much. She decided to just get through the rest of her shift and then get ready for a fun night. The plan was for her to clock out around 7 p.m., meet up with Molly, get changed, do their hair and make-up, then head to the Pavilion. The dancing started at 8 p.m.

For the next few hours, Jessamyn kept expecting Taylor to pop up, but he never did. By the time 7 o'clock rolled around, she was beyond ready to go. Molly had told her to meet at her car in the employee lot so Jessa grabbed her clothes out of her car. She had chosen a tiny tank top and her tightest jeans. She wore her hair up every day for work so tonight she was curling her long, brown hair and leaving it down, the temps would be pretty nice right down by the water. She spotted Molly by her car, scanning the parking lot for her, and called out. Molly and Jessamyn had a lot in common but Molly was a little more adventurous. She was a little louder and a little more excited about things than Jessa tended to get. But tonight, Jessa was really excited, off early, on a Friday, Boardwalk Nights, with her bestie, no Adam. Wait, no, she did NOT mean to think that! She loved Adam, it was just that he hated loud music and he hated to dance, and Jessamyn LOVED to dance. She didn't care what you played for her, she would dance, country, pop, hip-hop, folk, whatever, she could appreciate and get down to it, just play it loud!

"MOLLY! I'M HEREEEEEE!" Jessa shouted and ran over to Molly. The two girls hugged and jumped into Molly's car, then took turns watching out for other people while they changed clothes. They realized about halfway through this process that they could have, as employees, just changed inside the park restrooms. This is where Molly's sense of adventure and fun nature came into play.

"Who even cares? This is a better story! What if someone walked by and saw our thongs?" Molly laughed and then kept on laughing. Jessa rolled her eyes, that was not the kind of story she wanted to be telling. Suddenly Molly reached back into the back seat and handed a wine cooler to Jessa.

"Got a little surprise for you! Figured we would have a toast to our first Boardwalk Nights as employees. Well, it was Mom's idea" Molly said this as she giggled and grabbed her own wine cooler from the back.

" Thanks". Jessa said, "But just one! Your mom is the coolest mom".

Jessamyn had always called Molly's mother by her first name, Candy, and had always been shocked by how different she was than her own mother. Molly told her that Candy divorced her father, Peter, when she was barely two years old, her only reason was that marriage just wasn't for her but motherhood was and he was more than welcome to stay in Molly's life. Peter decided not to if Candy wasn't part of the deal and left town about a year later, he sends cards to Molly on her birthday with some cash inside. Candy had never gotten married again or even dated anyone seriously that Molly knew about but she dated a lot of men. She didn't bring those men home and she never let it get in the way of parenting Molly. Jessa admired both of them and the friendship they had. They didn't sit around worrying about things the way she tended to do, they had fun, Candy was always saying to her, "relax Jessa, live a little baby".

Jessa and Molly sat in the car and drank their wine cooler, then drank a second one. By then they were both giggling and gossipping about the girls they worked with and Jessa finally filled her in on the mystery that was Taylor. It was fair to say that Molly wasn't a huge fan of Adam. She liked him well enough but Molly was of the mindset that no one their age should be planning to get married and have kids before they even turned 20. They went to school with several girls who had done just that and when they did run into them somewhere in town, both Jessa and Molly felt a little weird, for different reasons that they didn't discuss. Jessa felt like she was looking at her parents over thirty years ago and it gave her an overall trapped feeling inside like she needed to turn away before it happened to her too. Molly felt a bit angry with them like how could you really be that stupid in the year 1999 to not know you have so many more options? So Molly suddenly felt hopeful that after the past year of talking about nothing but Adam that Jessa finally had something exciting going on with another guy. Even if it turned out to be nothing at all. Molly had a bit of a confession to make too, she had been spending all the lunch breaks that Jessa couldn't make it to with Justin.

"Ok, I am so confused! Like, why would you hang out with Justin? You did it on purpose?" Jessamyn was a little tipsy so she couldn't make it make sense.

" I know you think he's goofy and the weird rapping is pretty annoying but he's actually smart and funny. And that boy can dance. He's coming tonight!" Molly said with the world's biggest smile.

This sent Jessamyn into a whole new fit of giggles. Molly and Justin. That was unexpected.

"Oh shit". Molly said just then. "We're running late, it's already 8 o'clock!"

Both girls walked quickly to the pavilion area, flashed their employee badges, which got them in for free and headed straight for the dance floor. Jessa and Molly danced together and with a few random guys until they heard a loud voice screaming their names, Justin had arrived. He wasted no time jumping in between the girls and dancing with both of them at the same time. Jessa always knew from watching him perform at KK's that he could dance but it was a different experience up close. Justin was a blast to dance with, Jessa swung her hips and sang along to the music. The night was flying by and Jessa wished she could slow things down, she felt so happy and relaxed on that dance floor. A good-looking guy slowly danced up to her and she moved closer to him and smiled. They danced together for half of a Jennifer Lopez song when Jessa felt two hands gripping her waist and pulling her backward. She looked over her shoulder and was staring into Taylor's irresistible smile. Jessa felt happiness surge through her body, she never stopped dancing and just moved with Taylor. She saw Justin look over at them and then saw Molly redirect his attention by throwing out a few provocative dance moves. Taylor didn't waste any time and started moving them towards the other side of the dance floor, towards the beach exit. They danced until the song finished and Jessa pulled him towards the exit and boardwalk.

"What are you doing here?" Jessa asked

"Seeing you". Taylor said very matter-of-factly.

Jessamyn had no time to come up with a response because Taylor had pushed her back against the wooden planking and leaned down to kiss her. Jessa had read a lot of books with moments that contained those "weak in the knees" kisses, she had just never experienced one before. When Taylor's lips touched hers, soft at first but then with more force, as though he was afraid she might slip away, Jessa completely lost herself in that moment. Everything about it seemed like perfection, the way he felt and tasted, the sounds of the music, the boardwalk wooden planks pressed into her back, the smell of the ocean air, the waves crashing nearby. Jessamyn didn't know how long they stood there like that. At that moment, she didn't care.

*****

Saturday was a complete nightmare at work. Three people had called in sick and so she was so short staffed, they managed to get one person from another location but she was working on attractions all day. That wasn't typical and while she actually enjoyed working ride, it meant no one was checking on her crew. She got her second break of the day at 7 p.m. and decided to check on her crew and stop by the shed. It had been a long day but the crew all seemed to be in good spirits. She was about to walk into the shed when she heard voices and she stopped when she heard her name.

"Are you serious?"

"Yes! For real! So many people saw it too!" Lily said sounding excited

Jessa was trying to hear who the other voice belonged to, it was a female.

"Wow! Who would have thought Jessa was such a slut?"

Jessamyn was shocked. That was Hannah. A quiet and shy girl on the crew that she had never had any issue with so why was she calling her a slut?

"I know right!" Lily exclaimed laughing as if the whole conversation was funny, "Apparently they were making out on the dance floor and then on the boardwalk. But Joy told me that Taylor wasn't even the only guy that she made out with! I guess first she was making out with Justin the juggler. And her friend Molly did too! Total slut move."

"Ok, that's totally disgusting. She shares guys with her friend?" Hannah asked

Jessa didn't hear what else was said because she walked away. She needed to talk to Molly right away and let her know what people were saying about them. About her. She needed to talk to Taylor. And Justin. And Adam.

Tune in next week for Volume 3 to find out what happens at Eden Cove.