Ambivalently Yours

Tiki Beach

When Rafe comes over the next evening, he isn't cold towards you, but he isn't his usual self. You had clearly upset him, but you knew if you tried to pry, it would mess up everything, including this paper you had to write with him. Since it was worth a decent chunk of your grade, you couldn't afford to complicate things for the sake of your curiosity.

"It's kind of funny, isn't it?" he says, comparing your lists of possible topics for your paper. "We have a lot of the same topics listed. Ironic, considering how we can't seem to agree on any of the topics in class. We're always arguing opposite view points."

"She picks polarizing prompts on purpose," you reply. "I swear, sometimes, I think she picks some of them with us in mind."

"She might," he agrees. He's quiet for a minute. "Are you leaning towards any of these?"

You look at the list, considering each of the items. "What about the elimination of political parties?"

He nods. "I can work with that. To be clear, you support getting rid of them, right?"

"Yeah, definitely. Vote with your heart, not your affiliation."

"Huh. First thing you've ever said that actually makes sense," he says, giving you the first teasing smile you've seen all evening.

You let out an inward sigh of relief. It wasn't much, but it was a start. "Yeah, well, if you spend enough time with me, you might find that I actually make quite a bit of sense."

"I'll be seeing you at least two nights a week for the next three weeks, so we'll see how well that comment ages," he says.

You raise an eyebrow at him. "At least two? Did you plan on being graced by my presence more than that some weeks?"

"It's inevitable," he says with a shrug. "You know Kelce and Liz are planning a night out this weekend, right?"

"I hadn't heard anything. Where are we going?" you ask.

"Oh, you're not fighting plans that include me?" he asks.

"Wouldn't make a difference if I did," you reply.

He chuckles. "Kelce mentioned Tiki Beach."

Tiki Beach was a tropical beach themed bar that was a little sketchy but a whole lot of fun. It was the one eighteen and up bar in town that served to minors. You could not for the life of you figure out how they got away with serving alcohol to kids under twenty-one, but since you still had almost two years to go before you hit the legal drinking age, you didn't really question it. You weren't big on going to bars or clubs (you preferred to chill and drink at someone's place, or for more action, attend a house party), but when you did go, it was always to Tiki Beach.

"Tiki Beach, huh? It's been a minute since I've been there."

"Same. Probably not since the spring semester," Rafe says.

"Hmm. Well, if that's the plan, I'll go. I'm not going to turn down alcohol."

You get back to working on your paper after that. You decide on some points you want to make, then divide up the research between you, with a plan to have some resources gathered by the time you meet again on Thursday.

The rest of the week moves slowly. All your classes are focused on preparing for midterms, so you spend your time note taking, reading, and highlighting mostly. You're more active in the group chat now (mostly to roast Rafe when the opportunity arose, but still), so you helped solidify the weekend plans to go to the bar. You've all invited extra people, so you're going to have a pretty big group to go downtown Saturday night. It made you excited for the change of pace from drinking at your apartment or going to a friend's party.