holy ground ★ conrad fisher (1)

daft pretty boys ★ bad suns

twenty-five | 1x04

THE GROUP MADE THEIR WAY back to the beach house, Conrad leading them. Rory walked a little faster to catch up to him in the front. She walked past Chase, who had been talking to Shayla and Steven about the trip to New York the girl had taken last weekend.

"Here, let me help." Rory offered, taking the pool floaty Conrad had tucked into his arm from him. He carried a cooler and empty dishes, too.

"Thanks."

"Feeling better?" She asked, glancing behind her at the sound of Jeremiah and Sophie's laughs.

He hummed in response. They continued to walk in silence until they got to the end of the beach, steps leading up to the dock, and then the summer house.

The boys and Rory set the things in their hands down before most of them made it onto the dock.

"Hey, I'm gonna grab a football," Jeremiah informed Conrad, and he nodded.

"I'll join you, show you how to do that spinning thing with your arm."

"Oh hell yes!" Jeremiah bounded away, with an extra bounce in his step at the idea of hanging out with his big brother.

Conrad shook his head with a soft smile, and Rory watched the interaction with a smile of her own.

She went to say something to Conrad, but arms wrapped around her waist from behind her, and, albeit a little roughly, she was pulled back into Chase's chest.

"Hey," Chase couldn't see, but Conrad almost flinched at the strain in Rory's smile. It had been wide lit up her face barely a second ago, and now it was obviously more forced.

Conrad and Chase shared an awkward nod before the Fisher boy walked away from the couple, Nicole immediately attaching herself to his side.

"Hey, I was thinking we could go for a walk on the beach," Chase suggested, and Rory turned around in his arms to face him.

"But we just got back from the beach." She said, simply.

Chase furrowed his eyebrows at her tone, and so she added, "Let's just sit with the group at the docks for a little bit, maybe we can go see the fireworks from the beach later."

Chase pulled his arms away from Rory's waist, and she immediately felt more comfortable, which somehow made her feel more awful.

He didn't reply, but followed her to the dock, where the girls had been sitting with Cam and Steven.

"He,y where's Theo?" Rory asked, leaning against the dock rails, and Chase sat in one of the chairs by Steven.

"Something about clams," Ellie replied.

They continued to converse, and as Shayla brought up the topics of celebrity gossip, Rory looked out at the expanse of the beach before she looked back towards the house.

Jeremiah and Conrad tossed a football between them on the grassy field, and Rory thought back to the countless Sunday morning football games and scraped knees from past summers.

"Oh, okay, but did you know that she was one of the last people to visit Lindsay Lohan's beach club in Mykonos before it closed?"

Gigi shook her head at Shayla's comment, "Are you serious?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Oh, my God, I'd die for Lindsay," Ellie said, and the girls agreed as the guys listened on and Belly took loud sips of her never-ending margarita.