Blame It On the Beach

Chapter Seven

The next morning, Quinn and I head down to the beach. We walk down the boardwalk, carrying towels, tanning oil, and magazines. I adjust my hair under my straw hat, a light wind sifting pieces around my face. I'm really getting tired of long hair.

We head to a relatively secluded area on the beach, setting down our towels and laying down next to each other after putting on tanning lotion. I take off my sunglasses, not wanting to get an awkward tan line. Been there, done that.

"Ugh, I wish we could stay here forever," Quinn complains, looking out at the water wistfully.

"Yeah," I say, closing my eyes and savoring the feel of the sun warming my skin, the distant calls of seagulls, the sound of the light waves crashing onto the sand.

"So, tonight, you think you and Milo are gonna happen?" Quinn asks randomly after a couple of minutes.

I open my eyes, squinting at her against the sharp glare of the sun. "I mean, I want it to," I admit, getting excited at the prospect of kissing Milo's pink lips, feeling his arms around me, his hands roaming around my body... "But the last time I said that about a guy, I ended up walking in on him with another girl."

"Eh, I think that's different," Quinn waves me off, opening an issue of Teen Vogue. "Milo's new-- I think if you dropped a couple of hints he would definitely go for it."

I shrug, now feeling nervous. What if I make a move and he isn't interested? What if he then thinks of me as some creepy girl he barely knows that tried to hook up with him? Which it could be argued that I am.

"Even if nothing happens tonight," Quinn adds, "you seem to like him well enough, and hey, we've got the whole summer ahead of us."

After what feels like another hour of tanning, reading magazines, and just talking in general, we decide we're too hot and jump up to go into the water.

As I brush some sand off my butt, I notice Milo and his little brother, Adam, walking towards the beach. Milo wears the black Raybans that I have come to expect from him, and a towel around his neck. I nudge Quinn, and call his name to catch his attention, waving him over.

"Oh hey, Milo!" Quinn says.

"We were just about to head in the water, want to join?" I ask Milo and Adam. The latter holds a volleyball, and is looking down, drawing patterns in the sand with his foot.

Milo laughs at him. "Sorry, he gets a little shy around girls," he says, and we laugh when Adam tries to punch his older brother. "But yeah, we'll go in too."

We slowly wade into the cold water, and I crack up when Quinn loses her footing after stepping on a rock, falling into the water and yelping at its coldness.

I take my hair out of the bun it was in, shaking it out and going underwear. After a couple seconds I resurface, completely refreshed as the cold water drips down my hair.

"You guys wanna play ball?" Milo asks, taking the volleyball from Adam, who still has not said anything. We all nod and form a circle. I start to jump up and down, the wind picking up and chilling me to my core.

Milo serves the ball to me, and I strike it at Quinn, who is notoriously extremely clumsy and has no hand-eye coordination. She leaps through the stomach-deep water to hit the ball, but swings and misses, landing back in the water with a loud splash.

We all crack up, Adam giggling the loudest of all.

She glares at us when she comes back up. "Glad I amuse you," she says, rubbing her eyes.

We continue playing for a while, before our arms get tired and Milo throws the ball right by our stuff.

"So, Adam," I say, and his blue eyes, slightly reddened from the saltwater, flick over to me. "How do you like it here so far?"