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"You know this was not what we had in mind for a low budget vacation, Winston!"
"You said you wanted to go somewhere you couldn't find at home."
"So, why would you take us to the beach all the way across the country, man?!" Sand shot in the air as an angry kick on the shore was executed effortlessly by the man Schmidt himself. "We live in freakin' LA! There's beaches crawling out of everywhere! And you wonder why no one lets you choose any of our vacation spots anymore, ya freak."
Cece threw up a hand in exasperation, diamond ring winking in the sun. "Yeah, why didn't you just tell us we were going to the beach, Winston? We could have saved a lot by just taking a car nearby instead of you surprising us with these 'low cost' plane tickets."
"See, you guys don't get it. I told y'all we were going on a cheap trip we ain't never done before, right?" Winston's smile brightened, the look of misguided, twisted comedy overtaking his expression with alarming speed. "And then, boom, I took y'all to the beach. On the East Coast. Ha! You just got Bishoped!"
Nick shook his head, right hand rubbing wearily against his face, looking just as tired as the rest of them. "You've gotta stop with your pranks, man."
"Y'all should've seen the look on my face - "
"Y- Seen the look on your face?"
The only word to describe the look on Schmidt's face was 'flabbergasted.'
" - When I swiped y'all's credit credit cards last month as you were all arguing with Nick over that Flat Earth theory video on YouTube - "
"When they asked the guy about his qualifications, he answered 'critical thinker'! Does that sound like someone who would just lie to you?!"
" - And for your only holiday weekends too! And, man, Nick is so broke right now! I was trying so hard to hold it in!" Winston was absolutely beaming with mirth at this point, reducing his friends' sense of camaraderie towards him to a terrifying low. "You know, you guys should really be checking your billing history more often, for real, someone could really be stealing from you, and you'd have no idea."
Before Winston could register Schmidt's increasingly tomato red face, something else in his periphery caught his attention. "Damn it, Ferguson, don't go near that water! It is not your friend, baby!"
"What type of idiot lets a cat roam free on the beach!"
While Cece attempted to alleviate the pressure between Schmidt's tightly clenched teeth, an irritated look overpowering her own, a low voice spoke from behind. "Are your friends always like this?"
Ginny, who had been laughing at her loftmates' antics and was surprisingly not feeling as bothered by Winston's tendencies as the rest of them (this vacation is, after all, well-deserved after the shitty week I've had, and every second counts, even if they are each spent planning Winston's upcoming ultimate demise), turned around to see an incredibly fit man her age speaking to her directly.
Sweeping her eyes over his form once, she leaned closer. "I'm afraid they are, yes, but I've got to warn you I'm not much better."
He seemed equally as amused as her. "How so?"
"Well, as you can tell from my completely American accent," she deadpanned in her British accent, amused when the stranger rolled his eyes in response, "my sense of humor is a bit dry. Superior, of course, but I'm told some people can't handle it."
"Natural selection will handle that, I hope," he chuckled.
"If we're lucky," she smiled. Feeling particularly introductory that late afternoon, she gestured halfheartedly to the obnoxious chatter several meters ahead of her. "My loftmates here, on the other hand, each have an equally questionable sense of humor themselves."
"Who, those few?"
She rolled her eyes, failing to prevent the corner of her lips from quirking upwards. Pointing to the man who was now dragging an increasingly wet and agitated cat from the Atlantic ocean, his jeans completely soaked from the knees down, Ginny drawled, "That idiot over there who cost us a proper, well-earned vacation is Winston. The only thing this man loves more than crazy pranks is his even crazier cat, who I'm pretty sure doesn't even know he exists. Needless to say, I've really never been more envious of a cat's attention span myself."
Moving on to Schmidt and Cece who were lying on the shore as far away from Winston as much as possible as a form of spite, Ginny explained matter-of-factly, "Schmidt and Cece don't have a cat, but that won't stop them from also making ear infection-inducing noises at six in the morning through our paper thin walls."
Pointing to the last couple on the beach, she continued, "Not like Nick and Jess are any better, though. They like to make weird noises too, but it's not always during sex, and that scares me more than it should anyone, really."
She gestured to herself. "And last but not least, you have me, whose most normal experience of today is having a fit guy at the beach wonder out loud about how five idiots managed to drag their even more fit loftmate out of her comfortable bed and into an expensive five hour flight. Just to do the same things that I easily could have done if I just took a simple albeit very long stroll outside. And I would have had a much better view, too, no offense to your rather peculiar looking ocean over here. What shade of contaminated gray would you call that hue, by the way?"
"No, that's a pretty accurate way of describing it, actually. I'd like to think there is some green in there, though. Just to give it the illusion of appearing to be clean." Reluctantly, Ginny had to agree.
The stranger's lips pressed firmly in amusement the entire time she was talking - ranting, more like - clearly trying to not give her the satisfaction of knowing how funny and charming he thought she was.
She found that endearing. They all try at first.
Eventually, he settled with: "So you and, uh, Winston, are the only two people in the loft who are not coupled up?"
She raised an eyebrow, impressed by his nerve. "Pretending to ignore your intentions for asking such a tactfully worded question, no, actually, when Winston's not too busy canoodling with his cat, he's canoodling his girlfriend - Aly - back at home, but she couldn't make it here today, lucky girl. So it's just me."
Finally smiling now, the stranger ignored her challenging look ('why are you so curious about my relationship status, you hot, inquisitive, none-of-your-business stranger?') and asked her teasingly, "Aren't there a lot of people to fit in just one loft?"
"I mean, we're from LA. Rent there is mad, so we need all the help we can get," she shrugged. "But, yeah, most definitely breaking some housing rules here or there. Is that something that bothers you?"
He smiled, something akin to arrogance taking over his face. She found that look more stirring than she'd like to admit out loud. "You'll find I'm not really the rule caring type."
"Oh? When would you imagine I'd be finding that out?"
She was beyond the point of caring how brazen she must have sounded to a complete and utter stranger. And if she was being honest with herself, she never did care, really. Besides, if she was going to fit a hot summer romance in the span of a whole day, she thought she might as well get on with it.
He cleared his throat, his gaze silently indicating how much he'd like to agree with her on that one, too. "Okay, Miss Dry Humor. I guess I know everything there is to know about your loftmates without risk of my mind being fully blown apart, now. What's your story?"
"What's yours?"
He chuckled at her retort though immediately furrowed his eyebrows afterward, as if he was confused by this question himself.
Ginny did not know what to think of that, though she found a strange fog overtaking her when she tried to ponder on her own personal history too.
Strange.
Instead, she prompted, trying to clear her mind, "You're a lifeguard here, right?"
He looked down at his form, a lanyard draped across his increasingly interesting collarbone and a whistle resting just above his bare chest.
"I can't swim."
She blinked.
"What?" she laughed. "Isn't that, like, a hazard for what you do?"
"Probably," he said sheepishly, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck. "I don't mean to, like, put anyone in danger or anything. It's a long story, but basically, I'm covering for my friend while he's, um...making noises with his girlfriend, as you said. Hence, the whistle right here. So I'm not really a lifeguard. But if anything happens, my other friend - an actual reliable lifeguard - can help you out. He's right over there nearby."
He pointed to another dark-haired, attractive man standing farther away from them along the shore. At first, Ginny thought he was winking at her, but when she saw the tension building along the shoulders of the stranger next to her, she knew who that teasing look was meant for.
"Sorry about him. He thinks I'm trying to make a move on you."
"Oh? Is that not what's happening right now?"
His cheeks flushed slightly. Ginny found it amusing how this man could be so confident but also so shit at flirting too. It strangely caused warmth to expand, but this time it was not through her lower belly.
"I don't want him to think that, though. I'd never hear the end of it."
It was not a direct answer to her question, but his eyes were so soft and mischievous that she had no doubt as to what he really meant.
She rolled her eyes anyway. "I thought you Americans were supposed to be more direct than that."
He scoffed, eyes lighting up at her jibe. "Oh, I see. You're one of those. Dry humor doesn't have to equate to being mean, you know."
Ginny laughed. "Well, that's why my loft arrangement works out so well with this lot over here," she jabbed her thumb to her friends, watching as Ferguson was attempting once more to drown himself in the ocean to escape his owner's clingy attentiveness. "My sense of humor is mean and dry, and their sense of humor compensates by being mean and wet."
He coughed. "Wet?"
She raised an eyebrow at him, pretending like she hadn't made any suggestive comment whatsoever. "Well, occasionally we do like to alternate, though."
"Of course."
"If I was always dry, and they were always wet, we'd have a different problem altogether."
He barked out a laugh, his cheeks flushing again. "How are you even real?"
"Well, anything's possible if you've got enough perv."
The man's breath hitched, his green eyes staring at her intensely. Despite her earlier insult, Ginny thought the color reminded her exactly of the ocean they were at now, something much stormier than the one back in California.
She found herself growing fond of this beach in a way she was not before.
"Do I know you? I swear I feel like I met you before."
She leaned closer to him, fighting feeling flustered herself. "I've probably got one of those memorable faces or something."
"Something like that." His eyebrows furrowed, but his lips were still upturned. "I'll certainly remember it much later today anyways."
His ears promptly reddened.
She gasped playfully, smiling as she hit him lightly on his very fit arm. "You are much smoother than you look. And randier."
He laughed. After a short while of them standing in a silence filled with smirks and silky sheet-like possibilities, he finally asked, "Okay, Miss Dry Occasionally Wet Humor - "
"Nice."
He bit back another chuckle. "What's your name?"
"What's yours?"
He rolled his eyes ("stubborn too"), he relented, "I'm Harry."
She chuckled, shaking his hand that was offered to her mockingly. She tried to ignore how well it fit in her own small one.
"Ginny."
He watched her nose crinkle, a deep smile spreading across both of their lips contentedly.
It was something tangible, she thought, as her insides fired up, not out of lustful heat - though certainly that too - but something warm, like receiving hugs after being shoved outside in a freezing tent in the woods for months and months, with nothing but a piece of marked parchment to keep one sane.
Parchment?
Something within her squirmed, and she thought that if she listened closely enough, the sounds of seagulls cawing in the distance could easily be replaced by something akin to an audience crooning in sympathy.
As if watching a pair of hopeless lovers on a silver screen.
Suddenly, Nick's comically high pitched scream filled the air, allowing Ginny to shake her head at her crazy thoughts.
"It's just a ghost crab, Nick!" Jess yelled from far away, annoyed as her boyfriend jumped on her back in fright, almost causing her to topple over herself.
"Why are there crabs and ghosts, Jess! You can't have both! You know I always told you that crustaceans are the cockroaches of the sea! It's a crazy world out here!"
At Jess's blank stare, Nick chuckled incredulously, his last brain cell firing meekly. "Wait. I get it. You're teasing me, Jess. Ghosts aren't real. Psh. Nice try."
Nick's neck cricked as he glanced around in paranoia.
Jess rolled her eyes, attempting to drop him down from her back but failing badly, his legs wrapped around her like a vice. "Ghost. Crabs. Nick. I don't know why you're even scared of them - they even walk sideways like you do!"
"They should not be blending in with the sand like that! They're all spooky ghosts! It's not right!"
"You. Are. So. Infuriating, Miller!"
As Nick hopped off of Jess to moonwalk away from the ghost crabs, a thought came to Ginny.
"They kind of remind me of..." Both Harry and Ginny said at the exact same time, causing them to stare at each other hastily.
When neither of them finished their sentences (what even was I going to say anyways?), Ginny huffed. "Right," she said, "Well, I've got to head back now before Nick finds out that it's getting late, which can only mean that more ghost crabs are bound to be crawling all over the place soon."
He laughed but quickly became alarmed when she made to leave. "Wait."
She turned around, hand cupping her forehead to squint at him through the waning sun. Harry swallowed, eyes drifting to her red hair in a daze.
Before he could say anything, however, Schmidt and Winston's obnoxiously loud voices were shrill above the sounds of the waves crashing ahead of them.
"Of all places for a prank!" Clearly, Schmidt's ability to let things go was about as weak as Ginny's right hook. "Why did you decide to take us here in the end?"
"As in, why the East Coast and not a beach in a whole other expensive ass country? Damn, now that would have been a better prank."
Four legs reached out to kick sand in Winston's face, Ferguson following with a screech.
"But to be honest, I couldn't wait to see what the sunset looks like on the other side of the country."
Pause.
"Winston! We are on the East Coast! The sun falls west at night time! Look at where the sun is now," Schmidt gestured aggressively behind him, where towering beach homes covered the view. "You can't see the freakin' sunset on this beach, man!"
"Aw, damn, my bad."
"How are you actually one of the more intelligent people I know in my life?!"
If there was one thing she and Schmidt shared, Ginny concluded, it was their inability to handle rage.
Her eyes flitted to Jess, who was trying to catch her attention.
Ginny chuckled, holding up a hand to let her loftmate know to wait there when she saw her smiling knowingly towards her and Harry. She watched as Jess's eyebrows waggled dramatically, stuffing her index finger through a hole she made with her other hand in repetition as she chomped down on her lip.
Completely unfazed by her loftmate's quirks at that point, Ginny turned to Harry again.
"If we can't do that sunset, I suppose I'll have to make plans for a sunrise tomorrow before we head back to LA, then. Join me?"
His answering smile could make a grain of sand feel alive.
She had the strangest feeling that the sound she could have sworn she heard a while ago was ringing faintly in her ear once more.
This time, she thought she heard boisterous whoops instead, clapping cheerfully as Ginny smiled one last time to Harry before finally walking toward her friends.
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