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She breathed and held me as the waves tried to knock us off-balance. I held tight to Natalie.
With a little sound, she let go and started walking out of the water.
“Want to get some ice cream?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, suddenly freezing.
* * *
We dried off and wrung out our hair and put our cover-ups back on to go get something to eat.
“Whatever you want, it’s on me,” she said.
I was really craving caramel, so I got a vanilla caramel pop covered in chocolate and Natalie got a fruity popsicle.
“Bite?” she asked me, when we’d unwrapped our treats back at our spot on the beach.
“If you wanted ice cream, why didn’t you get ice cream?” I asked.
She opened her mouth and I sighed but gave her a bite.
“Because I didn’t want a whole one, I just wanted a taste. I’m craving mango more.”
“Okay, then I want a bite of yours.” She held out her popsicle and I tasted some of it. Mango and pineapple, you couldn’t go wrong with that combination.
Natalie dug in the sand with her feet as she ate, and I took another picture.
“If you photoshop a dick in my mouth, I will actually kill you,” she said, and I snorted.
“I hadn’t thought about that, but now I’m thinking about it.”
“Don’t you dare,” she said, pointing at me.
“Fine, fine. But it would be funny,” I said.
We finished our ice cream and then Natalie yawned.
“Do you mind if I take nap?” she asked.
“No, do whatever you want. I have a new book.”
She closed her eyes and sighed happily. I pulled up the book on my phone. Esme had recommended it to me. I’d recently started reading her blog and had ended up completely blowing my book budget as a result. Esme had excellent taste.
I couldn’t stop glancing over at Natalie as she dozed next to me.
If you would have told me two weeks ago that I would be sitting with Natalie at the beach, I would have said you needed to get your brain checked.
Yet here we were. In Castleton, at the beach together. Some things didn’t change.
* * *
Before we left, we took a walk over to the tide pools the tide had gone out and they weren’t so crowded with little kids searching for crabs to throw in their buckets.
I’d brought my second shell bag for Natalie to use. Might as well have her looking for me too. Four eyes were better than two. Plus, sometimes you could find really beautiful rocks or even the piece of rare beach glass. Once I’d even found an engagement ring and had gone on a crusade to find the owner online and had been able to. Got my name in the paper and everything.
“You know you can buy shells online,” Natalie said.
“I know. But I want to do it myself. It means more.” It also meant I couldn’t make very many pieces, so those that I could finish were all the more valuable. Sometimes rare was better.
