Hanging out at the beach

True to their word, Ashley and Heather laid out their towels and did not, in fact, go in the water. Chloe popped down next to them, acknowledging to herself that she was out of her depths and ready to learn.

As the two popular girls applied suntan lotion, Heather yelled out, “Boys, there’s a shed over there with various things that can be thrown; frisbees, footballs, baseballs and gloves, you know,” she smiled and dropped her voice to a normal speaking volume, but still loud enough for the boys to hear, “here Ashley, let me get your back.”

Ashley laid down on her towel and hissed at her friend, “Why are you getting my back? I could be having Zack do this?”

Heather leaned in and lowered her voice so only the girls could hear. “Because, my sweet friend, we’re trying to be slightly cool with this and that’s the most obvious move in the book. Instead, now those dumb boys are looking at one hot girl lotioning up another hot girl. Trust me, they like it.”

“Oh my god, you’re right!” Chloe barely dropped her voice in time, “they’re looking right over here at you, even as they’re walking in the complete opposite direction!”

“See, I know what I’m doing,” Heather smiled, “and that goes for you too, Miss Chloe.”

“Okay, but I’m not going back up to the house now, especially to change. Kurt would just make some snarky comment,” Chloe mused.

“No, you’re right on that one. Okay, we start small. Have you got anything on under there?”

“Yeah, a t-shirt and two sports bras.”

“Two sports bras? In this heat? You know what, I don’t want to know. It’ll be a weird tan, but let’s get you down to one bra.”

Chloe waited until the boys were in the shed, still a little nervous, before she did as Heather requested and took off the shirts, getting ready to take off the top layered bra before Ashley let out a low yell.

“Holy shit Chloe, what are you hiding for?!”

Heather acted immediately. “Okay nope, quick, put the clothes back on before the boys come back!”

That was all the excuse Chloe needed to back out of showing any skin. She quickly pulled the sweater back over.

“Wait, why?” Chloe asked.

“Actually yeah, I’m wondering about that too, not that I’m not already intimidated as fuck by all you’ve got going on,” Ashley added.

Heather smiled. “Because, dear Chloe, you did not tell us that’s what was under your sweater! I was worried that you weren’t going to fit into my top when I eventually convinced you to wear it, but I was expecting the top to be too big, not your chest! Fuck, I should have guessed from looking at your ass.”

“I mean, yeah, I’m not skinny like you guys though.”

Ashley joined Heather in smiling now. “Maybe not, but you’re jacked, girl! You’ve got that functional muscle! Heather’s right, your butt is too curvy, we should have seen this coming. And now I’m the itty-bitty titty girl on the beach, what the hell Chloe!” she teased the shy girl.

“Okay, so why is this a bad thing now? I’m not being self-deprecating when I say I know I’m not outshining you two,” Chloe asked.

“No, no, those boys are going to see soon enough. But Chloe, I thought this was just going to be a fun self-esteem moment. This though, we have got to present this properly. A tight little outfit or something, you walk down the stairs like ‘She’s All That’, we’ll figure something out,” Heather said.

“Ooh yeah, she’s right,” Ashley added.

“Of course I am. Now Ash, get my back, the boys are coming out the shed.”

Ashley started to re-tie her strings that Heather had undone, stopping suddenly when Heather snapped at her.

“Excuse me, I did not just untie those so you wouldn’t get tan lines. Chloe, are the boys looking this way?”

“They’re walking this way and looking forward, so yeah.”

“Good,” Heather replied, “Ash, you are going to lift yourself up, be surprised that your top isn’t on, the boys are going to get a very quick show, and then you can lie back down and tie it up.”

*************

“I dunno man, I think there’s a way bigger chance I accidentally launch a frisbee into the lake than—” Gavin started.

“Dude, dude, shut the fuck up and look!” Zack started pushing his friend in the arm to get his attention.

“At wha—holy shit!” Just like that, Gavin saw the first nipples on a woman he’d seen in real life and they were incredible. Tiny, but pointing out, perfectly round, these little joysticks begging to be played with, sucked on, and overall enjoyed. They capped off two wonderful light-brown areolas, just more than the size of a quarter and they seemed to be as round.

About fifty feet away, Chloe giggled with Heather and whispered to Ashley, “Oh yeah, they saw. You can put them away.”

“Oh thank god!” Ashley said, grabbing her bikini to her chest and dropping from her kneeling position to her stomach before putting her hands behind her back to start retying the knots.

This was enough time for the boys to make their way over.

“Hey Ashley, want to toss the frisbee? Like, right now?” Gavin asked, a cheeky smile on his face.

Heather gave Gavin a milder version of the look she had shot at Kurt earlier. “Gavin, every time you talk to a woman, I want you to ask yourself, ‘Is this something Heather might smack Kurt for saying?’” she said, pausing for emphasis. “If it is, and here’s the easy part, don’t say that thing. Now apologize. And mean it.”

Gavin hung his head. “Sorry Ashley. That wasn’t a very nice thing to say. Whenever you’re ready, I’d be happy if you wanted to throw the frisbee with us. I’m actually not very good, so if I send it into the water, I’ll go get it.”

Ashley knew Gavin didn’t have the malice that Kurt did, so she let him down easy. “Sure Gavin, I just have to finish lathering Heather’s back and I’ll be right over.”

Up to this point, Heather hadn’t explored Ashley’s suggestion that Gavin might be a worthwhile boytoy for the week. However, Zack was pretty easy on the eyes and Chloe had just surprised her, so it was time to put some bait in the water.

“Actually Gavin, Kurt got punished for his crimes and Chez Ravers is nothing if not a fair state. That was a sincere apology, so we’ll tone down the punishment. To make it up to Ashley, you will be lathering my back,” Heather smiled, “and since you clearly got a peek at Ashley’s nipples, we’re going to need to see yours. Lose the shirt, we’re at a beach anyway.”

“Ah, but I—” Gavin sputtered, looking to Zack and Chloe for help.

Zack laughed at Gavin’s difficulties. Some comeuppance would do his friend good anyways.

“I think you better do what the lady says, Gavin. She’s right, that wasn’t very nice of you.”

With that, Gavin’s mouth twitched and he sighed, “Okay, here goes fucking nothing.”

The quiet boy reached down to the bottom of his graphic tee and struggled a little pulling it over his head to avoid his glasses, as Heather watched intently. She had to admit, Ashley had fucking nailed it. Gavin didn’t have a ton of muscle per se, but he was very lean, with some four tight abs poking out. There was some definition on his arms as he crossed them in front of his chest, his face reddening.

“Woo, Gavin, take it off!” Ashley could tell Gavin was embarrassed and she felt a little responsible for Heather’s punishment. Plus, he was pretty cute and she was glad to be right about the abs.

The rest of the group joined in. Zack was eager to support his friend and Chloe did so as well, albeit a little more hesitantly; it felt like a different dynamic because of the gender. Heather curled her lip into a smile, making sure to catch Gavin’s eye when he looked up.

“Okay, let’s get that other part of the penalty going. Come over here, cutie,” Heather said, lying down and unclipping her bikini top.

Gavin moved over and grabbed the offered lotion as the other three started walking off to throw the frisbee.

“If you really want to show you’re sorry, throw a little massage in there.” Heather added.

She was expecting a retort of some sort, but Gavin wordlessly started going to work on her shoulders, applying just enough **** to start activating a few muscles that had kinked up. Right, Heather thought to herself, he’s got no experience! She was going to have to spell it out a little more, let the guy learn that he can banter back and forth a bit.

“Oh wow Gavin, you’re actually pretty good at that!” Heather said, a bit surprised and doing her absolute best not to moan.

“Yeah, my grandpa has a bad back from 40 years as a construction worker and my grandma can’t really torque the kinks out anymore, so I got half-decent at it. I already had good thumbs from video games, so it was a pretty easy jump to make.” Gavin replied. He had been worried about an erection sprouting up and Heather teasing him, so bringing up his grandparents was a very fortuitous way of shutting that down.

“Well, um, tell your grandpa thanks. And keep up the good work!”

“Would you like me to get your legs too?” Gavin offered.

“No, I think you’ve served your crime. Actually, if you would clip me back up, I did make you take your shirt off, so I should probably give you some of this.”

Gavin’s hands, which had been so sure while he focused earlier, shook a little bit at the idea of putting a girl’s bikini back on; it was practically like undressing a woman. On the fourth try, he eventually managed to clip it up.

Heather rolled over just in time to notice a sizable bulge in Gavin’s shorts. She didn’t expect a phone to be so close to the middle of the shorts, but she didn’t really understand guys’ pockets anyways. It must have just swung over.

“There you go!” Heather teased him, “Okay, turn around, let’s get at this back of yours.”

“I’m pretty pasty,” Gavin mumbled.

“Yeah, but we can fix that. You’ve got a week here, hun, we’re going to spend lots of time outside.”

“I guess. My rank is going to tank without Wi-Fi though.”

“Don’t those ranks reset every so often anyways?”

“Yeah, it’s a couple weeks from now. How did you know that?”

“When my dad isn’t working, he likes to game as well. He’s got this image of this super business guy, but I secretly wonder if half the time he’s on his computer, it’s gaming.”

“Damn, I gotta meet this guy now.”

“It kinda sucks, he showed me the game, but now he won’t let me play on his account because he says I tank his rank. And starting my own account would take forever to pick up all the cards I would want to play with, since I’m not obsessed with gaming like you are. I just want to be able to pick it up and play every now and then.”

“Well that’s stupid of him. Look, when we get back to the cottage, I’ll write my account name down. I’d love to play you; we can set up some friendly matches, so they won’t affect rank.”

“That’d be really nice, thanks Gavin.”

*************

As the afternoon moved into evening, Kurt finally appeared with a plate of hot dogs, two bowls of chips, and even a plate of chopped vegetables and dip.

“I have to say Kurt, the chips make sense, but I wasn’t expecting the veggie platter. I’m impressed,” Ashley offered.

“As much as I give him shit, Kurt is a half-decent cook, not that any of this is difficult. That’s part of why I put him on cooking duty,” Heather replied, “still, we were hungry an hour ago, where the hell were you?”

“Oh, after you guys got me hard earlier, I had to masturbate. It was pretty hard without internet, but I managed to make it through,” the older boy said with a smile.

“And there he is! You almost got through this social interaction without being a perv, Kurt. Better luck next time!” Heather swiped the plates from him and started serving dinner.

“Oh, come on, it’s not like I didn’t wash my hands,” Kurt said cheekily.

Zack looked Kurt dead in the eye and told him, “That’s why we’re still taking the food, moron. Look, I don’t know much, but don’t tell people when you masturbate. That’s one of those thoughts you can keep to yourself. Seriously, what did you get out of this?”

At this point, Chloe blurted out, “Ooh, maybe he has a shame kink!” before turning red from realizing what she had said out loud.

“And what would you know about shame kinks, Ms. McRose?” Ashley inquired of her new friend, a fiendish look on her face.

“I mean, some people get off on other people calling them disgusting. Kurt did just say that after you girls yelled at him, he had to go masturbate because he was so hard. Now he’s coming back and saying something obviously rude again. Maybe he’s hard again now.”

“Ooh, Kurt show us, big boy! Does it look like this?” Ashley laughed at him, holding up a hot dog and then making a half-hearted lunge towards his pants.

The older boy turned to the side, deflecting her arm. “Okay, fuck off, fuck all of you! I’ve got a normal-sized dick that gets hard for normal reasons.”

“Yeah, that definitely didn’t touch a nerve,” Zack commented, before quickly turning to a conversation about video games with Gavin that he was surprised to hear Heather join in on.

*************

As the sun started to set, Ashley was getting antsy.

“Hey, we should have a fire! Cook some marshmallows and whatnot!”

“Ooh yeah, I could go for some s’mores!” Zack chimed in.

“Okay well we’re out of chopped firewood, so someone will have to get on that,” Heather pointed out.

“Oh, I’d love to get an arm workout in!” Chloe offered.

“And I’ll go with her to make sure she does it right,” Kurt added.

“What, just because she’s a woman, she doesn’t know how to chop firewood?” Heather asked with a withering glare.

Kurt cocked an eyebrow. “Chloe, do you know how to chop firewood?”

“Um, no.”

Heather rolled her eyes. “Way to support my feminist argument, Chloe. Okay, you two go chop the firewood, it’s gathered by the shed and there’s an ax inside. Everyone else, let’s take care of these dishes, grab some blankets, and change if need be. Meet back in 15”

With that, the group dispersed, with Chloe and Kurt heading towards the shed.

“Hey, flash a little light,” Kurt asked, “it’s dark in here and I don’t want to step on the ax.”

Chloe complied and was quickly able to see the ax. “Hey there it is. Okay, you made it seem like this super hard task, what do I do first?”

“It’s actually not that hard,” Kurt replied, “We need a good flat space to put the wood on, then you stand the wood up on it vertically. I’m guessing the Ravers probably use that stump over there.”

“Okay, anything else?”

“Well, you should probably take the cover off the ax. Makes the edge a lot sharper.”

“Okay, no shit.”

“All jokes aside, make sure the ax is sharp enough. These things can dull up pretty easy, but Heather said they just ran out of firewood, so it was probably sharpened this season.”

“That’s actually useful, thanks. So what, square my shoulders and hit the wood?”

“Pretty much. You can line the wood up with your axe before you wind up. It’s usually more important to be accurate than it is to swing hard.”

Chloe took a few chops at the first piece and knocked some small pieces off but wasn’t splitting the wood in two very well.

“Hey, can I take a couple swings?” Kurt asked, “learning by doing is great, but I always find it easiest if I see someone do it in a way I can emulate.”

Chloe passed him the axe and the tall boy’s right hand held hers for a moment, the pair sharing eye contact. It felt good, she could feel that he had a nice strong grip, which isn’t something she’d thought about wanting before this. Thinking about it a little too hard, she stumbled and Kurt caught her with his left arm, holding the ax that she’d let go of in his right.

Kurt could feel the redhead’s heartbeat quickly and see her chest rising as her breathing picked up. With seemingly little effort, he pulled her up.

“Are you good?” he asked.

“What? Yeah no, I just slipped. Good thing it wasn’t in the direction of the ax.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Why don’t you show me how this chopping wood thing is done?”

“Sure thing.”

“And Kurt…?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

*************

Meanwhile, up at the house, Zack and Ashley got started on the dishes while Gavin and Heather went to get changed.

“I can wash if you dry,” Zack offered.

“Yeah, works for me.” Ashley replied.

After what was probably only ten seconds of silence, but felt like an eternity, Ashley broke the ice.

“Okay, this is crazy, right? Our families are so close, we can text back and forth furiously for like three hours, but now that we’re in person, we have nothing to say?”

“I feel like when I text you, I delete and re-write everything pretty frequently, just to get it right. You don’t really notice over text if someone doesn’t reply like right away, but now in person I try to think about what the best way to word something is and suddenly there’s an awkward silence in the air. And now I’m worried that my thinking face looks like a constipated possum.”

Ashley snorted at that last line, not able to catch it and turn it into a cute laugh. Zack’s eyes widened and he pointed at her, shaking his finger.

“I fucking knew it! I knew the snort was still in there, not your new giggle!”

“Noooooo, that’s a real laugh too! I’ve just worked really hard at laughing cute, but sometimes the snort comes out!”

“Mhmm, okay sure. All I know is I’m going to start figuring out what you really think is funny when I hear pig noises.”

“Pig noises?! Oh that’s where we’re going now, Mr. Constipated Possum.”

“Hey, that is my line! As a constipated possum, I’m sorry, but that is our word. You can’t say it unless you are also a constipated possum.”

Ashley scrunched her face and looked at Zack. “Am I doing it, is this good enough to join your little club?”

Heather walked back in the room carrying a set of blankets at that exact moment. Looking oddly at her friend, she said, “Bestie, why are you trying to look like a constipated possum?” which had both Zack and Ashley howling laughing, Ashley once again failing to prevent her snort laugh from coming out.

“Well, that’s my new favourite laugh,” Gavin mused.

“Oh, you guys are lucky. She’s been trying to ditch it forever now. I always count myself lucky when I get a snort or two out of Ash,” Heather smiled, “anyway, we looks like you guys are done the dishes, so go get changed. Zack, I think there are a couple blankets in your room; Ash, I’m not sure if there are two or three, so could you help Zack carry if there are too many? Gavin, you guys unpacked, so go find the marshmallows and cookies. I’ll grab some old newspapers and head down to help the other two set up the fire.”

Everyone headed off to their respective roles, with Gavin finding the snacks relatively quickly and walking down with Heather.

“So Heather, I feel like I would have heard if the most popular girl in school was into gaming. What gives?” Gavin asked.

“I mean, it’s just one of many things I’ve tried to reach my dad on. I’ve tried to get into poker, he won’t let me drink scotch with him, hell, I started cheerleading because he likes football. But yeah, if people knew I gamed, would I still be the most popular girl in school?”

“Probably not, but should that be enough to stop you enjoying something you love?”

“It’s not really something I love. I like it, but it’s mostly about having something to talk about with my dad. He’s not really into small talk and he’s stupid busy, so I make my opportunities where I can. Beyond that, I’m enjoying seeing you be so passionate about something, but I was always happy to sacrifice gaming for popularity. I liked being popular. It’s fun knowing who has the good parties every weekend, who hooked up with who, being treated with respect.”

“But it’s such an arbitrary system! Hot people do the same things normal people do and they get treated way differently for it. Like if I found a girl’s house and left flowers for her, it’d be creepy, but if a ripped guy like Kurt did it, it’d be cute and thoughtful.”

“It’s not hot people; it’s charismatic people. When was the last time anyone called Kurt thoughtful?”

“I guess, but he still gets laid a ton.”

“He says he gets laid a ton. I’m pretty sure he’s inflating numbers. But yes, he does have more than his fair share. Do you know why?”

“Because he’s in good shape and has a strong jawline?”

“A little bit, but mostly because of one thing: he tries. With everyone.”

“Isn’t trying to get with everyone going to make it so no one feels special?”

“It is and that’s why he’ll never have a girlfriend, but for some girls the confidence to ask is enough for a hookup. They’re horny, he’s clearly horny. It’s not the worst way to spend a few minutes.”

“Girls get as horny as guys?”

“Oh Gavin, you sweet naïve boy. Of course we do, you know my reputation, but we just aren’t allowed to show it the same way. It’s getting better, but it’s important for other guys to call Kurt out on being a perv, the way Zack did.”

“I don’t know that much, I wasn’t really tuned in to the school gossip.”

“Yeah, but I bet you heard something.”

“I guess, but the more salacious a rumour, the more likely I figured it was bullshit.”

“I don’t know what you heard, but I do like to fuck. It’s fun, it feels good, and I love the control.”

Gavin took a second to reassess his views on sexuality and by the time he was ready to answer, they were back on the beach with Chloe and Kurt, a pile of firewood beside them.

*************

Ashley had her packed clothing memorized, so she was easily able to grab a hoodie and daisy dukes (she checked in the mirror and her ass was still amazing, which made her smile) and make her way over to Zack’s room.

“Hey Zack, need a hand?” she asked, knocking on the door.

“Mhmm, sure,” was the muffled reply she thought she heard, until she opened the door and saw a very nude Zack Bishop from behind!

“What, whoa, I said still changing!”

“Shit! Sorry! See you at the beach!” Ashley’s face turned beet-red and she quickly closed the door, running out of the cottage before Zack could hear her snort again. Still, she knew that image would be seared in her head of the first time. He was flicking through his closet, so she could see his back muscles were toned and impressive. Moving down his body, her eyes took in his butt, which was taut and juicy; it also jiggled appropriately when he turned partially to the side. She’d touched his arms earlier and they still looked well-muscled, but that wasn’t nearly the focus this time around. Man, what a good butt he had, she just wanted to squeeze it!