Riptide (An Emblem3 Fanfic)

Chapter 22

A cold stinging feeling filled the lower half of my body. Beads of water rolled down across my torso, and I flailed slightly. Ahh! So cold! I rolled off Wes and buried my head in his armpit to shield my eyes from the blazing sun. I was about to relax again, but I felt another wave of icy liquid crash against me. This time it hit Wes too. Immediately we both shot up into a sitting position.

"What the hell man?" Wes said shaking himself off. My eyes focused on something glowing white. As I looked, the white blob shaped itself to form the undeniably cute smile of Drew Chadwick. He was grinning like crazy, holding a plastic red bucket shaped like a castle in his left hand. He was laughing hysterically.

"Eh, the lovebirds looked like they needed to cool off." Drew chuckled. I hopped up and punched him in the chest. 

"Ew. No. Lovebirds. That sounds so gross." I looked over at the horizon; the sun was way lower than it was before. "Hey Drew, what time is it?" I asked glancing at the position of the sun. I tried to remember some of the shit I learned about wilderness survival in the fifth grade. I would probably have to say that it was about 5:00, judging by where the sun was.

"It's almost 3." Drew said clicking on his phone. Oh shit. Maybe I should retake one of those classes before I go out camping or something. I glanced behind him and saw a little girl with pigtails and a pink plaid bikini staring at his back.

"Uh, Drew." I stated, pointing behind him. He turned around and knelt down to the little girl. He handed her back the bucket.

"Thank you Milady." Drew said in a terrible British accent. He bowed to her and she accepted the bucket and smiled. She returned back to her family, skipping happily across the beach. Drew got up from the ground and smiled at us.

"She's pretty cute." Wes said smiling. Little kids just had that affect on people. Everyone loves them.

"Yeah, that girl is giving Adrianna a run for her money." I joked. Drew laughed. I looked around. "Where is Adrianna anyway?" I asked him.

"She went back to the hotel with Owen and Keaton." He started. "I told them I would wait for you so you wouldn't be all freaked out when you woke up and no one was here." 

"When did they leave?" 

"Eh, about 5 minutes ago." Drew said. He saw my expression and shrugged. "What? I got bored okay." He said. I whacked him on the arm.

"Thanks Drew, I'll still be wringing my hair out on the way home." I laughed.

"Well we don't have to go home yet." Wes said. 

"What do you mean?" He was folding up a bunch of the towels around our stuff and putting them into the bag we brought. 

"We're already out, so we could go to that record store if you want." Wes said.

"Amoeba? Really?!" I asked jumping up and down. Drew nodded and looked at Wes.

"Yeah, let's go. It could be cool." Drew said. So we hopped on a bus and went. 

The minute I stepped on the tile floor, I felt excitement creeping up my body. I closed my eyes, grinning from ear to ear. This place was my literal definition of paradise. I ran my fingers across the cool vinyl of the records, smiling as I touched each one. I spun around.

"This place is so amazing!" I turned to Wesley and Drew. They looked just as awestruck as I was. I saw their eyes run up and down the walls, admiring the stacks of records. I smiled. We all shared that same love of music. I liked how this place sold both records and CDs. It was old fashioned and vintage, but modern at the same time.

I walked up and down the aisles of CDs, looking at all the albums. I saw ones that I already had, Sublime, the Ramones, Grateful Dead... This place was totally sweet. Could I just live here?

I ended up buying like 7 CDs. Drew and Wes even bought a couple. Content with our purchases, we decided to head back to the hotel. It was about 5 o'clock when we finally got up to the room, I set my eyes on the couch and fell on top of it. Seconds later I felt another person fall on top of me. I recognized the tan arm draped in front of my field of vision.

"Wesley! Get off!" I laughed, the air slowly depleting from my lungs. He wrapped his arm around my head, covering my mouth.

"What? Sorry, I can't hear you!" He said jokingly. His arm muffled my laughter. I was running out of air, so I had to act fast. I stuck my tongue out and licked his bicep. He squealed from on top of me, I felt the weight on top of me disappear as Wes rolled off me and hit the floor. I turned over on my back, laughing hysterically. "Really Avery? Again? Blehhh." He started wiping his arm on the carpet, looking like a wiggling worm.

Drew was chuckling over at the table. "Really bro? You let her get you again?" I smiled at Wes sweetly.

"Don't look all innocent." He nudged me smiling. He crawled back up and sat next to me on the couch. I smiled at him again, and he put his arm around my shoulders. I rested my head softly on his shoulder. Keaton walked out from his room.

"Hey, you guys are back!" He said happily. He fell back in the chair that was perpendicular to the couch. "Do you guys want to grab some dinner or something?" His face looked hopeful. Typical. Boys were always hungry.

"Yeah sure. It's included with the room, so we can just order up if you guys want." I announced, grabbing a room service menu.

"Yesssssss." I heard Drew said with his face down on the table. I laughed at him. He looked up. "I'm just kind of tired, I don't feel like going anywhere."

"Yeah, we woke up pretty early." Keaton said, rubbing his eyes. Adrianna and Owen came out of their rooms, and we were all together. I passed the menu around, and then called down stairs for room service. I didn't realize how starving I was until I saw the empty plate in front of me. I crumpled up my napkin and threw it on top of the crumb-covered plate.

No one felt like going out, so we played games the rest of the night. The room had a bunch of games, but we spent three hours playing Scattegories on the floor of the living room. I've never played this game before, but I could go for another 3 hours. After the thrill of the game wore off, I was completely exhausted. Drew and Owen went off to bed, and Keaton and Adrianna went shortly after.

Wes and I played a couple of rounds of checkers because we couldn't play Scattegories with 2 people. He beat me every single time. I blamed it on the fact that I was too tired to keep my eyes open, but he just laughed at me. I almost started to fall asleep right there on the carpet, but Wes nudged me.

"Hey Aves, you should get to bed." He said standing up. I blinked a few times.

"But I'm not even tireddddddd." I said leaning my head on the couch. 

"Haha, okay sure. I'm not even sure you're awake right now." He laughed and stuck his arm out to help me up. I reached back to him, not quite meeting his hand. I fake whimpered. He shook his head at me, but he still knelt down to pick me up. I was used to him carrying me... I kind of liked it. I placed my arms around his neck in their usual position and he walked off and carried me into my room.

Wes pulled my covers over me and tucked me in. I didn't want him to go just yet. There was something about his presence that just made my troubles melt away. I forgot about everything when he was touching me. I scooted over to the very edge of the bed and patted it lazily. I felt Wes crawl in on top of the covers. I nuzzled my head into that little crook in his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around me, and I grabbed on to his shirt lightly.

"Avery?" I heard him ask.

"Yeah?" I replied.

"We're going to go do whatever you want tomorrow." He just said.

"What do you mean?" I laughed slightly.

"Whatever you want to do, wherever you want to go, I'll be there right by your side." He said. It was so beautiful and poetic the way he said it. It was really sweet. So, of course I had to crack a joke.

"Even if I want to go underwear shopping at the overpriced Victoria's Secret on Rodeo Drive?" I joked.

"Especially then." Even in the dark I could see his eyebrows wiggling. I hit him in the stomach.

"Shut up you jerk." I laughed, hitting him again. I could feel his torso under me shaking as he was bursting with laughter. I smiled to myself, falling asleep tracing my fingers along the contours of Wesley's abs.