Tightrope

Threaten My Hypothetical Nuts

The beach was a strange choice for the early spring.

I mean, the water wasn't warm, not after being cooled by the winter weather for months. The sun wasn't shining. The wind was bracing and icy. The group was shivering and clad in hundreds of jumpers, because the breeze from the sea had cooled the air and sunk into our bones. Callie, somehow, remained committed to the cause, braving the elements to sunbathe on the sand in a skimpy bikini that made her look amazing. Jace was an idiot for not going out with her again. She was also slightly blue, and I wasn't exactly sure how tanned you could actually get on an overcast winter morning.

No one had woken up until lunch time after the late night, and by early afternoon, everyone was ready to explore the little stretch of beach in front of the house. There were no other visitors; most of the folks who owned the houses lived in Metropolitan Melbourne, and drove down in the summer months to use their beach houses. We had the place, for the most part, to ourselves. 

A few of the boys had endured the water, splashing around in the knee-high ocean. Alex had tried to go slightly further out, as he had twice already on the trip, with results that would suggest to most that further attempts were misguided. His tormented yells—"my nuts! My beautiful nuts! I think they're gone guys, I seriously think they've committed suicide and shrivelled straight off my body!"—seemed to have warned the other guys off the idea permanently. They were now firmly sticking to non-ball contact depth. Jace, Knight and Alex were flicking water at each other, beers in hand, which I couldn't fathom after the amount of alcohol they'd put away last night, and chatting over the roar of waves as they ebbed and flowed around them.

I sat beneath a large beach umbrella, soaking in the serenity. Jonah and Cady were asleep on the next set of towels, exhausted after the late night, sharing a single pillow, while Chance and Kaelin read their books beside them. Nerds.

Daria, who had been ferrying snacks and drinks out to the boys like the gorgeous human being she was, dropped the empty platter on the mat beside me and sat down. She brushed her hair from her face—the wind had blown it into a small tornado—and smiled at me.

"How do you like your present?" said Daria, looking over at our clusters of friends. I watched as Knight and Alex laughed uproariously at something Jace had said, and the pleased little smile that bloomed on Jace's face for making them laugh. It made me smile too.

I tore my gaze away from the boys and looked at Daria. "It's great," I said. "It was really nice of you to organise it."

"Me? Organise it?" said Daria.

"I just assumed Knight didn't do it all alone," I said, shrugging. "You are, like, the only one of our friends with organisational capacity. I mean, Chance would just get stressed, Jonah would fall asleep, Alex would, like, try to get a penis shaped house, and I can't imagine Cady showing enough interest to help."

Daria shrugged. "Well, it wasn't me."

I raised an eyebrow. "Really? You're saying Knight figured this out by himself?" Knight was many things, but an organiser was not one. This was likely due to a lifetime of having access to his family's personal assistant, and never having to do anything for himself save wiping his own ass.

"No, I'm not saying Knight did any of it by himself," said Daria lightly, but she was grinning cheekily. She gave me a mischievous side eye. "I'm just not your only friend with organisational capacity, you know."

I looked down at the water, and I knew exactly who she was talking about. "Jace," I said softly. "He really helped Knight organise all this?"

I mean, it made sense. Of all my friends, the only one Knight properly knew and felt comfortable around was, well, Jace. I could imagine Knight reaching out to Hartley for help. And, to be honest, I could imagine Jace saying yes. For all of his laid-back and easy-going nature, Jace had an attention to detail that meant he was good at organising things.