Playing With Lightning

Sea Breeze

“Get up lazy asses,” a way too cheerful voice shouted. Tay jumped, causing her to roll of the bed and take the doona with her. I groaned and sat up, seeing Nathan and Tom standing there grinning.

“What the hell?” I grumbled, rubbing at my eyes.

“We’re going to the beach,” Nath explained. “Get up and ready, we’re leaving in twenty.” And with that they left.

“Twenty minutes?” Tay exclaimed, jumping up immediately. “Are they joking?” She ran straight into the bathroom and the next second I heard the water running. Okay, sure you can have first shower.

After she was done I took my turn, not bothering to wash my hair considering I’d be going in the sea and it would get ferral anyway. When I came out, she was sitting on the bed in a bathrobe, all my bathers spread out around her as well as the couple of pairs she kept at my house for emergency situations.

We sorted through them all, trying to decide which ones to wear. She settled on a plain pink pair with a frilly bandeau top. She threw on some floral denim cut off shorts with a see through white button up.

I went with my favourite bikinis, which were navy and white stripes and the top was a big bow. I threw a sheer white beach dress over the top and slipped on some thongs. I threw my sunnies, towel and other necessary items into a canvas bag before we deemed ourselves acceptable and went out to join the others.

Everyone was there, including Michelle, Kelsey and Nareesha.

“Looking gorgeous girls,” Nareesha commented, the first to notice us come in. The others all looked up and grinned at us.

The car ride to the beach was short seeing as it wasn’t too far away. The driver dropped us off and told us to call him when we wanted to come home. There was nobody there, so we had pretty much the whole stretch to ourselves.

We dumped our stuff high up on the sand, spreading out our towels in a row before deciding what to do first.

“I want ice-creaaaaam!” Taylah declared, jumping up and down excitedly.

“Me too,” Tom agreed, pouting at Max pleadingly. He shrugged and nodded and we all cheered, racing up the beach to the little café. Nathan got there first and held out the door, letting us all through.

“Can I please have a ummm… double chocolate scoop?” Tay decided, asking the girl behind the counter. The girl snapped out of staring at the boys and nodded dumbly as she started piling the ice-cream into the cone.

“Make that two,” Nathan spoke up. “On me.”

“Awww,” Michelle cooed, pinching his cheek teasingly. “Jay, you could take a page out of Nathan’s book, buy a lovely girl an ice-cream.” She looked pointedly at me with a mischievous grin.

“Yeah babe,” I elbowed him, watching him blush. “What kind of date are you?”

“My apologies love,” he rolled his eyes. “What’ll it be?”

“Chocolate, duh,” I said obviously and he smacked his own forehead before ordering two cones. He handed one to me and I looked at it with the look of pure love I reserve only for anything chocolate.

“Naaath!” Tay squealed. We turned to see her trying to wipe off a dot of ice-cream on her nose. Nathan laughed and licked his ice-cream innocently.

“It was an accident,” he shrugged and she narrowed her eyes at him. He reached out and wiped it off easily with his thumb. “Better?”

We all filed out of the shop, back onto the sand. I kicked off my shoes and slipped them into my bag, wiggling my toes around in the pale grains.

“Want to go to the rockpools?” Tay asked, pulling on my arm. I nodded and ran off with her, hearing laughter as some of the boys followed us.

I ended up sitting with my feet dangling into a pool of crystal clear water, watching tiny fish swim circles around them. A pair of larger feet appeared next to them and I looked up to see Jay grinning down at me. He nodded his head in the direction of a pair of figures out further on the rocks.

Nath and Taylah were hand in hand, Nathan guiding her over rocks and pools, making sure she didn’t slip. She lost her footing for a second and his arm shot out automatically to steady her. I could hear her laugh drifting over to us as he said something in her ear.

They got to the end of the rocks, looking over the edge out to the sea. He said something to her and she shook her head quickly. He nudged her encouragingly and I could see her hesitate before slipping off her shirt and stepping out of her shorts, kicking her thongs aside as he pulled off his own t-shirt. He held out his hand again and she took it before they launched off the rock. I heard her scream before a splash rose up over the rocks.

Their heads popped back up out of water. They looked over to us and waved beckoningly. I looked to Jay and shrugged before hopping over the rocks to the edge. I pulled my dress up over my head, feeling the sea breeze hit my bare stomach between my bikinis.

“On the count of 3?” he suggested, placing his hand in mine. I nodded and he started counting, “1, 2, NOW!”

He jumped into the water, taking me with him. I squealed shrilly before I hit the water, being engulfed by the freezing cold. I re-emerged and spat out salt water, pushing my hair out of my eyes.

“Nice of you to join us,” Nathan grinned, sending a wave of water towards Jay. He coughed out the bit that ended up in his open mouth and splashed him back, starting a full blown water war.

We waded back to the beach, splashing each other the whole way. The boys looked to each other, grinning evilly before high fiving and looking back at me and Tay. We caught on and sprinted out of the water, running back up the beach as they followed us with handfuls of  seaweed trailing behind them.

“Max, Tom, save us!” Tay begged as we stopped behind them. Michelle and Kelsey looked up through their sunglasses from where they were tanning on the sand.  The boys shrugged and chased after Nathan and Jay, leaving us to flop down on our towels in relief.

“You guys are so childish,” Kelsey laughed, sitting up to look over at us.

“Us? We were provoked!” I defended, Tay nodding in agreement. Michelle rolled her eyes and pulled out a magazine, flipping through the pages. The boys trudged up towards us, Siva and Nareesha behind them.

“Did we win?” I asked Max as he flopped down beside me, reaching over Michelle to grab a drink.

“Of course,” Tom grinned, ruffling my hair as he passed.

“In your face Sloth Boy,” Tay teased Nathan, who stuck his tongue out in response, sitting on her towel and hugging her with his wet, seaweed covered arms, making her squeal and try to push him off feebly.

“Stop flirting you two,” Siva threw a water bottle at Nathan, hitting him in the arm. They both turned to glare at him, perfectly synchronised. We all looked to each other and chorused, “awwww!”