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“No!” Em said, jumping up. “None of that!”
Paige laughed and let Esme wrap her in the towel and then sat on her lap in one chair. Alivia picked up her own towel and rubbed it over her arms and legs before going across her head and squeezing the water from her hair.
“How was it?” I asked as she sat down next to me, digging her toes into the sand.
“Good,” she said, still breathing heavily. “Intense. The cold water really does a number on you.”
“Sounds fun,” I said with sarcasm.
Alivia laughed. “It’s not that bad. It’s a challenge. I guess I’m just weird that way.”
“It’s okay to be weird,” I said. I wasn’t exactly standard myself. So many people stared at my pink hair and my colorful clothes and my loud voice.
“Good to know,” she said, and then went to get herself a drink.
* * *
I ended up falling asleep in my chair and was roused by Alivia asking if I was hungry for lunch. Paige and Esme were taking orders for the snack bar.
“Yeah, I’ll have a chili dog and fries,” I said. I was in the mood for something spicy.
Alivia gave my order to Paige and Esme as I stretched my arm over my head. I never slept so hard as I did when I was at the beach. Like, ideal nap environment.
Alivia sat down again and I realized that her hair was getting curly as it dried.
“Is your hair naturally curly?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I straighten it most of the time.”
“You should let it be curly,” I said. “It looks good.”
The curls fell in a wave across her forehead and I couldn’t even breathe.
She was so unbelievably sexy.
Esme and Paige came back with trays of food and we all ate ravenously, while also trying to guard our food from rogue seagulls who would snatch a whole hot dog right out of your hand.
“Remember when we used to just…dig a big hole?” Paige asked.
“I fell into a hole that someone didn’t fill in properly once,” Em said.
“Oh my god, I remember that,” Natalie said. “I had to pull you out.”
Natalie and Em had been childhood best friends until something (they never really said what) happened in middle school to break them up. They’d been pretty much enemies until last year when Em had agreed to go pick Natalie up from her college in Arizona and they’d been trapped in a moving truck and hotel rooms for a week. That would change anyone’s relationship, and they’d come out the other end of it completely and totally in love. They were too cute together, and it almost made me sick sometimes, but I didn’t mind hanging out with them. It wasn’t their fault that they were too adorable to stand.
Paige and Esme went off to build a sandcastle, and Natalie and Em went to hunt for shells, leaving me alone with Alivia. I’d been reading a book, and she’d been doing whatever on her phone.
“Book?” I asked, pulling several paperbacks out of my beach bag and set them on my towel.
“Do you always carry around this many books?”
“Oh no. These are just beach books.”
“What are beach books?” she asked.
“Books specifically to be read at the beach. I have to have the right vibe to read a certain kind of book. Like, for example, cozy mysteries are for fall and winter. I can only read those if I’m wearing a sweater and drinking some hot tea or something. These books are for sitting with my toes in the sand and a drink in my other hand.”
“That’s quite a system you’ve got there,” she said after a few moments. “I feel like I just read anywhere.”
