Wading

“This is beautiful.” The pair stood side by side as the waves lapped over their feet. It was pitch black except for the light of the moon and the glow of the street lights far off behind them.

“Yeah. It’s crazy. We live in a city right on the water and I hardly ever get to the beach.” Nikki said.

“Speaking of crazy…” Blake replied, “You still owe me that story.”

“Ugh. I guess I do.” Nikki said looking at him.

“Back when I was in college some folks I was friends with came up with this stupid scavenger hunt that we all should do. Our whole department got in on it.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It was! There was a lot of mundane but like classically college stuff on the list. Like have a beer with one of your professors. Take a photo with every statue on campus. Shit like that.”

“Doesn’t sound too crazy.” Blake teased.

“I’m getting to that part!” She gave him a playful punch in the arm. “Like 50% of it was mundane stuff. Another 45% stuff was all either drinking related or like mildly crazy. Drink an Irish Car Bomb. Make out with a stranger. Stupid stuff.”

“And the last 5%?” Blake grinned.

“We called that the spicy stuff.” Even in the darkness he could tell she was blushing.

“We tried to divy it up so that we all had to do some of the crazy stuff. Like my friends Grant and Mandy both went streaking around a frat house. We all went swimming in a campus fountain in our underwear.” She paused.

“Alright out with it. What were the crazy things you did?”

“Well one of the things was to get kicked out of a bar… and another was to flash a group of at least 10 people… so Mandy and I got up onto the top of this one bar and flashed everyone…”

“And they kicked you out for that? I’d have thought they’d give you a free beer for entertaining the customers.” Blake joked.

“I don’t think it was the flashing so much as the standing up on the bar without permission that they took issue with.”

“I guess they do frown upon that.”

“But that’s not even the worst one…”

“Oh?”

“So another item was to moon someone… you know where…”

“Where you pull down your pants and show your ass to someone? Yeah I’m familiar with the concept.” Blake laughed finishing her sentence.

“Well we were walking down the road and my friends were teasing me that I should do it to a car driving past… so I did. And as I did the driver slammed on his breaks…”

“Oh no.” Blake said inferring where the story was going.

“Yup.”

“You caused an accident?”

“I did.”

“What happened?!?”

“Not sure. I heard the car hit the other car and then we bolted. I was not going to stick around and explain that to the police.”

“Geez… Talk about getting Rear Ended.” The pair broke out in laughter at Blake’s bad joke.

“That’s terrible!” Nikki laughed so hard she was struggling to breathe.

“Come on! None of your friends that night thought of that?” They had made their way back from the water and Nikki collapsed in the sand still laughing. Blake sat next to her. They were now close to the lifeguard station that stood silent and dark in the night.

As the laughter subsided a comforted silence fell between them. It was punctuated by the constant ebb and flow of the waves.

“I miss college.” Nikki said.

“I don’t. I hated school.” Blake joked.

“You know what I mean. I don’t miss classes.”

“No I get what you’re saying. I miss it too. It was great to always be around your friends. Getting to do fun things together every night.”

“Yeah. That’s the thing that sucks most about being an adult isn’t it.” Nikki leaned back and looked at him.

“I mean sure. But it doesn’t have to be that way.”

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“Like… we’re both still in our 20’s! Yeah sure we can’t go out and get drunk with our best friends every night like back at school. But it doesn’t mean we still can’t have fun and do spontaneous things…”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! Like take tonight for example!” Blake explained looking deeply into Nikki’s dark brown eyes. “If you’d have told me I’d have seen an amazing concert, gotten on the wrong bus, and was now sitting on a moonlit beach talking to a pretty girl I’d have said that was a pretty good night.”

“Blake? Did you just call me pretty? Are you hitting on me?” She said with mock surprise.

“Yeah? And what if I am.”

She looked him up and down once. “I’d say you aren’t half bad yourself.”

“You know what? I’ll take it.” He laughed.

“I’d also say.” She said sitting up. “That your spontaneous night is missing something.”

“Yeah what’s that?”