"How are we going to get out of this town?" Sleep filled Maple's voice. Her head lay in Staton's lap; slowly his fingers laced every red strand cascading down his thigh. A shallow sigh and a couple breaths later she sat up sitting on his lap leaning...
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It had been a week since Staton, and I had come home from getting married. Everyone was still furious with us that we would have hidden it from them. The silent treatment was getting on my nerves.
It was yet another day that I didn't want to face the music and spend any time with my friends. We needed to though, we couldn't live like this much longer. The silent dinners, everyone rushing off to go be in another part of the house just to avoid talking about anything that could annoy anyone.
"This is going to be rough, isn't it?" I asked Staton. I tied the strings on the top of my swimsuit, making sure not to tie them too tightly. There was going to be enough tension just with the friend group. I didn't need the added pull on my shoulders.
"Yeah, probably. I'm just glad they all agreed to it. This has become such a mess." I nodded. Pulling out my earrings and setting them on the dresser.
"We better get going then." I glanced one last time at my reflection. The muddy green swimsuit hugged my skin tightly, leaving small indents wherever the material would end. I would need to buy a new suit that fit better. My mother had purposely bought this one too small just to say I could wear a smaller size. She'd always hoped that one day it'd be too big.
"Let's do this." Staton mutters, and the lack of excitement was quite apparent in his tone. No one was ready for today.
~*~
It took us a little under two hours to get everyone wrangled and to the beach. Normally this wouldn't be that bad except for the fact that the beach was literally in our backyard.
"I don't want to sit right there. Let's move the blankets further down." Aria pointed at the blankets that Staton and Breygan were trying to line up for us. Both the boys glanced up at her, holding low growls in their throats as they moved the blankets for the fifteenth time.
"This is perfect Aria. Why don't we just sit down?" I grabbed her arm, coaxing her towards the spot. The flat sand dotted the beach from our failed attempts.
"It is, isn't it? I did really good, but now we have to dig out the sand for our butts. We will need to move the blankets for just a minute." She rushed forward, grabbing the blanket out of Stanton's hand. Flipping it forward about two feet. She dropped to her knees and started digging.
"This will be your spot Maple, and this will be mine, and Julia can sit right here," she pointed to each spot. "I don't care where the boys sit. They can run over there and pick their own spot for all I care." She waved in the distance, refusing to make eye contact with either of them.
No one wanted to argue, so we all just took the seat she told us to. The tension was so thick even the ocean waves didn't seem calm and peaceful.
The boys grabbed a football, deciding that tossing it around was better than sitting down to talk about our feelings.
"Finally, I can get that asshole out of my hair." Aria shook out her blonde bun, letting the wavy curls cascade down her back. She put on some overly dark sunglasses, even though the sun hadn't quite popped through the clouds yet.
