**Author Note**
*(Hi, thanks for checking out this story. For context, this is the first story I've attempted writing here, so I welcome any and all feedback. I'd love to know what's working well, and what could be improved. Even if this story turns out to be a steaming hot pile of garbage, I would rather know it than carry on writing something that doesn't resonate with readers here. It is written as a possible first chapter in a series, but I have tried to round the ending off enough that if no one cares for it the story can stand alone without needing any extra chapters. I also apologize in advance for any errors or inconsistencies with the story. I am afraid I am not lucky enough to have a beta reader and don't always catch my own errors.
With all that said, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy)*
**Chapter 1**
...Just be prepared to cringe when you see the girls, they've been really pushing the bounds of decency with their fashion lately.
I really did try and rein in my curiosity at Robert's latest text. When your best friend complains about his nineteen-year-old daughter and her friends being indecently dressed your first thought shouldn't be about looking for pictures. I shouldn't have been curious. I shouldn't have looked, but I did.
Maybe I would have noticed Tammy's blossoming earlier if I had not chosen to block notifications from Robert's socials. Robert may have been my best friend and a good guy, but he loved his memes and reposted random clickbait like he was getting paid commission from it.
Searching Robert's name, I found his account and immediately went into looking through his photos. I didn't have to scroll far till I found a photo from his last trip to the lake to find a picture of Tammy taken four months ago.
My eyes widened and my mouth went dry as I opened the thumbnail and stared at it.
The photo showed three people standing together on a pier. Robert, my best friend, stood in white shorts and a shirt and wearing a captain's hat. He looked like he was the entertainment on some dumb cruise liner. His wife, Clara was next to him, dressed in a modest one-piece swimsuit with a dark sarong wrapped about her middle that hid her legs from view. They stood together, Robert's arm around his wife and a big goofy smile on his face. But I barely paid attention to them. My eyes were on their daughter, Tammy.
Maybe if I had seen Tammy more often in the last few years the change that had come over her wouldn't have hit me with as much force as it did. If I'd watched her gradually blossoming into adulthood I might not have found her alteration so jarring on my mind.
My resounding memory of Tammy was of a skinny, beanpole, fourteen years old with large round glasses and braces. That memory didn't compute with the voluptuous nineteen-year-old vision in the photo. It was like Robert and Clara had traded in their daughter for someone else entirely.
The Tammy before my eyes now was tall and curvaceous. She had strong legs and thighs, no doubt earned from a lifetime competing in track at school. The globes of her ass were generous peaches, the fabric of her emerald bikini bottoms containing only half that juicy flesh.
As my hungry gaze roamed higher, I took in her flared hips contrasted against a taut firm stomach. My eyes lighted on the three small freckles that clustered near her belly button like a tiny constellation of stars. They contrasted with her otherwise porcelain skin and I could not help but notice the belly bar piercing with an emerald stud Tammy was now sporting.
I wish I could say I didn't fixate on Tammy's chest, but it was impossible not to. The last time I had seen her, she didn't even have breasts, and, given her mother's modest swells, I never would have expected her to be sporting the bountiful orbs she now possessed.
I stared hard, biting my bottom lip and trying to pretend I didn't notice the blood rushing to my dick. She had to be sporting D cups... minimum. Like her bikini bottoms, the fabric trying to restrain her milk-white mounds was fighting a losing battle. I found myself zooming in on the image, swallowing as I saw how her tit flesh threatened to spill out. No wonder her Mom was fixing her a disapproving look.
Forcing my eyes away from those young ripe tits was hard, but I managed to scroll the rest of the way up, taking in Tammy's face and hair. Tammy still had red hair, but it was no longer held in childish, bland ponytails. It was a cascade of autumnal burgundy, straightened and running right down Tammy's back so that the ends brushed against her the curve of her ass. She could very well have hidden her prodigious chest behind those long tresses, but she seemed to have purposefully hooked her long hair back to ensure her bountiful assets weren't obscured.
The only blemish to Tammy was the resting bitch face she had. Tammy had a beautiful oval face, a small constellation of freckles over her button nose, and eyes that matched the emerald of her bikini. But all that was ruined by the irritable scowl she was wearing. She stood with arms folded tight under her chest, something that pushed her generous cleavage up and drew even more attention to her soft, full swells.
I had to give Tammy a free pass for her bored, irritable expression. When I took a step back from admiring the teenage goddess, I could see the animosity in Clara's eyes. There had to have been something said before the photo was taken, some argument about decency and covering up that Clara had clearly lost.
Also, this photo would have been taken a few weeks after Tammy's nineteenth birthday. It was important to remember she was still a teenager, chaffing under her parent's watchful eyes. Ready to fly the nest for college in the fall but still trapped in her childhood for a few months more. That had to be tough.
I resisted the urge to trawl through Robert's feed looking for more snaps of Tammy. Red-blooded male though I am, I felt some stirring of guilt at staring as long as I did at this one picture.
I moved back to my messages, reading it through again.
Hey, would you want to come out with us to the summer house for a getaway? All on us. The Michaels will be there, Brody, John, Isaac, and their families. Just be prepared to cringe when you see the girls, they've been really pushing the bounds of decency when it comes to fashion recently.
My mind cast to the other families all going out on this getaway. I knew them all to varying degrees of closeness. All of them were in their late forties or early fifties, all of them with children eighteen to twenty. I was the odd one out in the group -- thirty-four, single, no kids. From the outside looking in, there was precious little connecting me to these five families, save for one important thing.
Five years ago, I saved their daughters' lives.
Sounds dramatic, doesn't it? Saving five lives. I was lauded as a hero by the girls' parents and even found my face gracing the pages of some local papers. Local entrepreneur Jacob Preston Saves Teenagers Trapped By Tide. I remember my feelings at the time when I was interviewed by news crews or praised by the girls' parents for my bravery. Odd as it might sound, it all felt overblown to me. It had me feeling like I was a fraud.
The bare bones of the story are this. I was taking some RNR at the beach and rented a jet ski for some fun out on the waves. Somewhere between my racing across the waters, I noticed some teen girls going into a cave by the coastal cliff edge. The tide was beginning to come in but I thought nothing of it at first. I carried on horsing around, but every now and then I found my attention turning back to the cave mouth, looking to see if the kids had come out.
One thing about that stretch of beach, the tide really creeps up fast. It wasn't long before the entrance to the cave was filling with water and I still hadn't seen the kids come out.
I tried to convince myself they were fine. I spent minutes reassuring myself they had probably slipped away and back to their families while my back was turned. But the worry persisted in the back of my mind, ruining my good time. In the end, I rode out to the rapidly filling cave. I really thought I was just going to satisfy my worry, call into the cave once, and have my fears settled.
Of course, that isn't how things went down.
When I pulled up to the flooding cave mouth, I heard the shouts and screams coming from within.
The rest gets weirdly hazy. I heard the girls in the cave and called out to them. I told them I'd save them and then... I just did it.
My jet ski had an underseat and wet storage, including spare life preservers and tow rope. I tied a line of rope to the ski, the other to my waist, then swam into the cave with one life preserver.
The kids were already up to their waists in the water and I could barely see them in the gloom. They were just bodies, crying, screaming, begging to be saved. One by one I got them out, guiding them with my tow line back to the jet ski and then going in for the next girl.
Elle, Scarlet, Jorja, Savannah and Tammy.
My resounding memory of the five girls is of scared teenagers clinging to me, shivering from cold and fear, hair plastered over their faces, eyes wide and haunted, lips quaking. None of them could swim well.
Memories like that stay with you. Perhaps that was why the photo of Tammy had such a great effect on me. It was a jarring contrast seeing the fit, confident but moody beauty in the photo and reconciling that image with my recollection of a scrawny beanpole staring at me from under a blanket at the lifeguard station.
As said already, if I had seen the girls more often growing up, maybe their transformation into adulthood wouldn't have hit me quite so hard.
Though the girls' families were all insanely grateful to me for saving their daughters, and I became friends with all of their parents to varying degrees, I rarely saw the kids I had saved. Most of my interaction with their parents was meals out, and nights at the bar while the kids stayed at home. Then I moved away for work and keeping up with Robert and the others moved mostly online.
