The Beach, The Boardwalk, The Diner, The Summer Love (gxg)

1. June, Jaz

I'm in the cloudy blue ocean water, when I see her. The sun has been beating down on us with not a cloud or a hat in sight, I can feel the sunburn starting on my face. I swim under a refreshingly cold wave. The salt water is cool against my barely sunburnt face and it gets the hair out of my face. I rub my eyes and smile when I turn around to see Gael (guy-elle) get absolutely wrecked by a wave.
His gangly legs twisting fast as he gets to the sand. I'm in the middle of laughing at him when I see her.
A girl with long bright blonde hair and beachy waves I can see from this far in the ocean: where I have to jump to get over waves or get destroyed like Gael did. If I just stood here I would feel the salt water in my nose.
She is wearing a big t-shirt that is catching the wind while she walks so I can see the pastel pink bikini bottoms she's wearing.
This girl looks like she is about to take my beach chair. The chairs at this beach are already here which isnt normal exept for hotel owned beaches or things like that. They aren't really supplied by anyone you can kind of just find them in the dunes and everyone uses them.
I still have a smile on my face when I realize that if she takes it it means that I have to get another chair and drag it across the beach close to the ocean and with the sand burning my feet every second that wouldn't be fun. Here she is just trying to steal it.
I see Gael clumsily standing up in my peripheral and see him wiping his hair out of his face. "Did you see that Jaz? Oh my god that was insane!" He's shouting while walking back to me. I laugh again because he still seems a little dizzy. Then I look back at the girl, walking toward our chairs which are the closest to the water as they can get without going off the drop off. Gael sees me looking and notices what is happening.
"Bro, I can't drag another chair across that sand again!" He complains sarcastically "I know" I chime in.
"Our stuff is still there though she can't actually take the seat if our stuff is there." he realizes.
"I guess" I say as we both watch her approach our chairs. I stand up taller over the waves to try to see if she sees our stuff there. I see that my book is sitting on the chair. The girl sees it along with the small backpack Gael I brought here and she moves away.
"Okay we're good! No more hot sand for us" Gael says and keeps swimming out to me. A wave hits my back as I am still watching the girl walk away. Gael is an arms length away and sees me still looking at her.
"What are you looking at?" he asks as he turns around to see.
"What, she isn't going to take the chairs, why are you looking at her?" he turns toward me. "I don't know, just curious" I say and he looks at me, tilts his head and says with a smile.
"There's no way you're checking a girl out from 20 feet away"
"Why? You did it at the party you dragged me to last week." I retort back and he rolls his eyes.
"And besides I'm not checking her out, I'm just seeing what she is doing."
"Yeah okay then, why don't you peel your eyes away from her because you can very much see that she is not looking at you." I look at Gael.
"You dont know she could have been acting like she wanted the chairs but in reality she just wanted to get closer to me.'' I say as I smile at myself because that is extremely unrealistic. Well not extremely cause I would have done the same thing if I saw a hot girl in the ocean. Gael starts laughing.
"Yeah yeah for sure I'm sure that's why she didn't look at you at all when she was looking for chairs"
"You dont know you weren't watching her"
"Yea okay" he says as we both turn around to go under the wave.
"You know how dumb it is to forget sunscreen on a day with literally zero clouds in the sky" I say shielding my eyes from the sun with my hand. "I didn't forget I ran out last time and didn't get any yet" he says
"Cause you forgot it" I remind him
"No," he starts, then gets swept away looking at kids yelling next to us. They are yelling about the waves while they try to keep up with them crashing.
We go under two waves when Gael tries to float on his back and somehow not get blinded by the sun. He puts his hand over his eyes and I start to float like he is.
The waves are rough but we are out far enough that they won't crash yet. it is peaceful until you go just a little shallower and then the waves crash on you one after the other after the other and you can't stop until you are at the sand and you are face to face with some little babies playing in the sand that you almost hit because you couldn't control yourself.
Not speaking from experience this is simply a fact of Piper's beach.
And I would know it's not like that only happens once in someone's life.
I feel the peaceful up and down of the waves. My ears drift in and out of the water so I can hear silent, almost white noise one second, and then hear the kids from earlier talking about boogie boards the next second. I feel my arms drifting out to the side and hitting Gael's.
I try to push him down but using only my arm isn't enough and nothing happens
"Don't even try" he deadpans. I can feel the sun already evaporating the water droplets off my stomach and I'm scared I'm going to get sunburn just from these twenty seconds of my body out of the water.
I have been in the ocean the whole time we have been here so the only thing that is going to get tan but probably sunburnt is my face.
I don't know if I am going more out in the ocean, or getting closer to the sand, but for the latter there isn't anything to be worried about. It doesn't get much deeper than this until you hit the buoys and we would know if we hit the buoys. I can't be going much further toward the sand because any closer would have us hit the crashing waves.
I stand up and the water feels cool on my stomach. The ground is a lot closer than i though and when my eyes are still closed from how bright it is outside I can feel a wave crashing on me, not hard enough to knock me al the way to the shore though.
I walk back to Gael who is still laying on his back just farther out than me. But then a huge wave comes toward me and I even laugh to myself because of how close it is and before I can prepare for it, it smacks me in the face. Suddenly I'm deep enough for the water to come out from under me.
And that's how I end up with a jug of salt water in my mouth and lots of sand in my hair.
When I hit the sand there are no babies playing around that I almost smack in the face but I am very close to my chair and bag that is without sunscreen and the girl with beachy waves from earlier.
Her chair is pretty much right in front of my face.
I see her legs because i am like two feet away from them. I look up and i see a book and her brown eyes and long lashed glancing over the book looking straight at me
I realize I must have been staring and I try not to make it seem creepy, so I smile and try to laugh. She smiles back.
Well maybe not that far.
Not like a teeth smile or a smile when someone is genuinely happy, it's more of an awkward closed off nod. Like an acknowledgement that I was there.
Now I just feel awkward. I'm left laying in the sand, the water lapping at me, looking up at her. I quickly and awlwardly get up and go back to Gael. I realize he is yelling to me now and I tell him I'm okay.
I wish I could have talked to her. I dont know why I think that but she just seems like someone I want to be around. She seems cool. I walk back and remind myself that I will never see her again.
There are a million people on Piper's Beach that I wont see her again. There is no need to feel embarrassed, she probably already forgot. Nothing is going to happen.
I try to remind myself of what actually happened. I smiled and she just nodded. I was too eager to see her and she didn't care. Okay nothing actually happened. She already forgot about it.
I'm at an arm's length of Gael when he says "Man you really took it hard on that one and out of nowhere." he laughs
"I look behind me and I see you tumbling to the sand" he continues. "Are you okay?" He asks mid laugh. "Yeah i'm fine" I laugh and I try not to think too hard over one awkward moment.
Scarlett
I check my phone and it has been two hours. Maybe I should reapply sunscreen. It's been two hours of just reading, on the beach, in the sun, for two hours. I did put sunscreen on like less than a hundred pages ago. I finished re-reading my favorite thriller in which i am still shocked at just how supprising it was. Which I only started this morning but when you find yourself alone most of the time without work to do you can get a lot done. I look around me to see what I have missed in those two hours.
There are young kids playing with the sand while older ones are playing tag on it. These teens who look my age have been in the ocean for i guess the two hours that i was reading. With the exception of getting snacks for like 20 minutes but they were here before I was.
I pulled my chair up to theirs because it was close to the water and far away enough that i dont have the families with screaming kids right next to me. I see them body surfing back to the shore. I'm sure the water feels good to swim in and I'm actually tempted because of how hot it is out here. But I'm not gonna because i didnt bring a towel and i dont want to get my books wet.
The teens are close to the shore and they actually go to their chairs. The guy is average height with very skinny, lanky kind of build. He has pineapple swim trunks and the girl is actually gorgeous.
This isn't out of the ordinary though I find most girls gorgeous. She is wearing a black triangle bikini that matches her black hair and dark eyes. It doesn't make her seem dark, it actually seems to all compliment each other and make her stand out. I'm surprised the ties of her bathing suit stayed on with how rough the waves can be, and when she nearly tumbled into my chair.
It made me laugh honestly. I know it couldnt have looked it because i started laughing when she was turned away. She looks like she is having such a good time and when she smiled she really looked happy, radiant even but that could have just been the sun.
The constant looking at people, not judging just observing. I think it makes me look mean. Or standoffish maybe. I don't know but after the girl smiled at me she didnt start any other conversation. I dont know what i expect maybe just a funny "didnt see you there" or something but its fine, cant say i wouldnt have done the same.
I enjoy my own company and honestly I probably wouldn't have liked her anyway. She seemed like we wouldn't match if we were friends. While she is jumping through waves I am reading, while she is with her friends I am alone. We probably don't have much in common.
They both get towels, sit down, and dry their faces off. I'm not consciously looking at them. I'm just a little bored now and don't know what book to read. I put a towel over me instead of sunscreen because it's too hot. I don't want to be in the sun anyway. I turn my phone on and it actually burns my hand. While I try to cool it off by covering it in my towel I see the girl with the black bikini turn to her backpack and bring out snacks, her phone and sets a book down beside her.
Huh, so she reads too.
I lean over trying not to make it look like I'm looking at her book while I search up the name of it on pintrest. "Beach Read by Emily Henry" I look it up and see a bunch of peoples annotated copies of it. I click on one of the posts and see the title.
The best romance books of the year: Beach Read. Well she listens to other peoples recommendations. I wonder if she watches the same book reccomendation videos as me.
I wonder if the girl likes that book? Maybe she doesn't even read and she is just trying to clear out her bag. That could be it.
Ugh whatever i'm never going to know anyway. I close the pinterest tab and look through my bag, i brought two other books i haven't even read the back of yet, a banana that i was worried was going to be squashed, my sunglasses case, gum and chapstick.I listen in on parts of pineapple trunks and black bikinis conversation.
"I can't go to another party like last week," she says.
I rummage around in my tote bag still acting like I'm not eavesdropping. "C'mon Jaz you had fun"
Jaz. That's her name. Jaz. Like the music. That has to be short for something. Jazzy. Jaz. I don't know.
"No I didn't. I don't want to talk to people who won't even remember me in the morning. It was interesting to say the least but I'd rather just stay home with everyone." Jaz says.
"This one will be on the beach though" the guy says.
"We are at the beach right now." she says "What would we do?"
"I don't know hang out just be with people." he pauses "we have been at home these past few nights, let's do something interesting."
"We can go out to dinner." she suggests and then i realize.
What if they are together.
Good for them, I guess. at least they have somebody to take to parties or get invited to them with. I don't want to go anyway but it would be fun to at least be invited. Or have somebody to go out to dinner with who I actually enjoy being around. Especially in the summer. Don't get me wrong I love staying at Piper's beach but when you value your alone time more than other people's time and then you actually end up lonely then you don't have anyone to talk to.
"Where would we go?" he asks
"i don't know where would you want to go?" she replies "What about Lobster Shack?"
"I would but brady is going tonight" he pauses. "Just come please, we will enjoy having you there and you can meet some girls."
Girls.
As in, she's looking for a girlfriend. So she's queer.
"It's always fun finding the gays out in the wild." is my first thought. It's not like they ever talk to me though because I look as straight as an uncooked spaghetti noodle. Being gay doesn't have a look though.
Just because im feminine doesnt mean I am straight and the only way to know if im gay is to ask me. So please gay girls everywhere, ask me.
It's not like I like this girl anyway. She does seem cool but I also can see her going to parties and hanging out with friends and that is very much not my scene. Although she doesn't want to go to this party. It's definitely another reason though not because she just doesn't like parties. There is probably going to be an ex-girlfriend or two there and that's why she doesn't want to go.
"It's on the beach?" she asks
"Yes, a campfire. It will be fun" he replies.
Jaz pauses then says, "I'll think about it." and leans back on her chair.
Well that settles it. She is going to a party. I'm going to stay at home reading and we are both different and probably couldn't agree on anything. And with that i go back to my book and ignore any friendship that would happen between us because we are really just two strangers sitting next to each other on the beach.
Jaz
I can tell she's eavesdropping. She has been rummaging around in her bag for like five minutes straight. She isn't rudely eavesdropping, I think it's more of curiosity and I take it as she wants to hang out with me. I look over to her as she is putting back a book with a dark cover. I assume she finished that one because she has been here almost as long as we have and she already has other books ready in her bag.
I'm hoping to catch her eyes but it never happens, she is too engrossed in her totebag. Then I turn back to the ocean and I swear. I swear! I feel her eyes on me.
I turn my head around casually and catch her eyes for a split second and then she looks back at her tote. I keep my eyes on her waiting for a chance to smile when she does she does a double take.
Looks at me and looks down on impulse, realizes I am still looking at her and looks back. I smile and she smiles back. Again not a teeth smile. Not a smile when you are really happy looking at the person, a smile where you are just doing it to be nice. But it still happens. I get a close lipped smile and I can really see what she looks like now. I can see brown eyes and cute pink lips.
She looks really pretty.
A girl you would see on your pinterest boards. I turn back to look at the ocean and I just then realize that she actually wants nothing to do with me. She was just reading and I had to try to get her to talk to me just by smiling. What I was really trying to do I don't know. I did try but I just hope it wasn't too creepy. I try to focus on something else when Gael starts talking to me about how we should be leaving now cause it's getting closer to dinner,we start to pack up our snacks. I'm never going to see her again. I got to stop stressing about how that barely an interaction went.

Please Tell me what you think!