Blame It On the Beach

Chapter Two

^^ emilia's outfit! ^^

The next two days pass by quickly, with swimming, tanning, and lots of eating. Quinn and I had our second shift at Finn's on Wednesday morning/early afternoon, so we spent it scooping ice cream while gossiping. Finn is a typical surfer dude in his mid twenties, with blonde hair down to his shoulders, light blue eyes, and a deep tan. He's probably the chillest boss you could ever get; he's not annoying if you show up late, tells you funny stories about himself while you're not working, and constantly has reggae music playing in the shop. Not to mention that he's high 70% of the time.

"Crap, my arms are soooo sore," Quinn complains for the fortieth time, rubbing her biceps.

"Same," I reply, "but at least by the end of the summer we'll be pretty ripped."

Quinn giggles as she takes out her envelope of money. "And we'll be rich!" She exclaims. "It's been only two days of work and we already made 70 bucks each."

Smiling, I take out my envelope too, filled with bills and some coins. As we walk over to our bikes, my eye catches Louisa's Boutique, our favorite clothing store in the town.

"How 'bout we use some of that money to get new outfits for tonight?" I say, wiggling my eyebrows.

Tonight, Krista Springs is having her annual "first party of the summer" party at her house. She invites basically every teen with a house in our area, which comes out to almost 40 people. Her house is probably the nicest one around; it's three stories, with a huge pool and beautifully decorated rooms. So yeah, Krista is extremely loaded. She's not exactly the most genuine person to grace the planet, but she's nice enough and she does throw killer pool parties.

"Ooh, I like that idea," Quinn says, starting to walk to Louisa's, a small little clothing store with pretty cheap, cute girly clothes. "Gotta look good for Sawyer! It's your first night seeing him."

My cheeks warm a little at that, at the thought of seeing Sawyer.

Ok, I'll admit it. I have a little crush on him.

I met him four years ago, when we bought our house here. With boyish good looks and a tendency to flirt with anyone, he immediately left an impression on me. But we never got together-- I don't know, I guess it never occurred to either one of us to take anything further. But we always had... some sort of flirting between us? I don't even know how to describe it.

"Tonight's the night, Em," Quinn says, grabbing me by the shoulders. "You just gotta go up to him and be ballsy and do it."

I nod, ignoring my uncertainty, and my feeling that something bad would happen. "Same goes for you and Joshua," I reply, giving her a grin. She flips her hair and opens the door to Louisa's. I follow her inside.

Over the next hour, we go all out, trying on practically every dress in the store. I end up getting a simple red, sleeveless, short dress. And it was on sale, so it was an extra sweet deal. Quinn buys a classic, little black dress.

We bike back to my house, singing High School Musical songs. When we get to a downhill, I grin, enjoying the rush of wind that whips my hair around, and gives me butterflies in my stomach. When Quinn narrowly avoids running into a squirrel then almost crashes, I stop to make sure she's ok, then start cracking up. We're still laughing when we pull up to my house, and when we walk inside through the front door, and to the living room. And then notice that we aren't alone.

"Um, hi," I say, to my parents and the unknown family before us, staring at Quinn and I. We stop, with our shopping bags in our hands like we've been caught red-handed, even though it's my house. I look at the four unknown people staring back at me, sitting on the plush white couch, and then I remember. The new neighbors. I had completely forgotten that they would be moving in today.