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Ava reclines on the towel. Her face is shaded by a large beach umbrella, but she can feel the sun on the rest of her body. She moves her sunglasses down her nose to look over at Sara.
Sara is lying on her front in a lawn chair next to Ava. Ava can see her back muscles and scars under her blue bikini top. She’s wearing bright orange
shorts.
“Need some more sunscreen?” Ava calls.
“Sure,” Sara says. Ava walks over and drips sunscreen on Sara’s exposed back. She rubs it in, feeling every bulge in her muscles and raised pink scar.
It’s an awkward angle to rub it from the side, but the alternative is kneeling over Sara, and Ava doesn’t think she could handle that.
She reaches under the bikini straps so the sunscreen doesn’t miss a spot. Sara giggles a little.
“Could you do my legs too?” Sara asks. “I can’t reach very easily.”
Ava frowns a little.
“Sure,” she says, knowing she’ll probably regret it.
She starts applying sunscreen to the back of Sara’s knees. She works higher until she’s almost up to Sara’s shorts. She’s breathing harder than normal
as she steps away.
“Alright. Let me do you.”
Ava lies down on her front, and Sara starts working from her shoulders down. It feels nice to have Sara’s hands on her back. Sara starts at the back of
her neck, then moves down to Ava’s back. She lifts up the straps on Ava’s top to get at the skin under.
Ava tries to suppress a giggle when Sara’s fingers brush a patch of skin near her armpit.
Sara must have felt the movement, because she touches it again. This time, Ava can’t stop herself from laughing.
“You’re ticklish, huh?” Sara says jokingly. Ava just grunts. Luckily, Sara moves on to her legs.
Ava keeps her face impassive when Sara touches the underside of her knee and higher.
She stands up and takes a drink of her cold lemonade. She looks out at the rest of the Legends. Nate is burying Ray up to his neck in sand. Amaya and Zari are building a very complicated sandcastle. Mick is asleep in the shade, and Leo is lurking next to him.
“What else do people do at the beach?” Ava asks.
“Hmm. You want to collect seashells?”
Ava frowns a little.
“Ooh, I know! I brought a volleyball net!”
“I don’t know how to play,” Ava says.
“That’s okay. We don’t even have to go by the rules. We can just hit the ball back and forth.”
“Okay,” Ava agrees. She stands up and helps Sara set the net up.
Sara stands across from her with the ball and shows Ava the correct way to hold her hands. Sara launches the ball into the air and sends it across to
Ava’s side. Ava steps forward and the ball strikes her forearms, bouncing back off at Sara. Sara strikes it down, and this time Ava can’t block it.
“That thing hurts,” Ava says. “This was a lot more fun with balloons as a kid.”
“Yeah, but those would blow away. I have a beach ball, though.”
The beach ball is a lot easier to hit. Ava abandons all pretense of the official hand position to slap it down at Sara.
They grin at each other. Ava takes a sip of her drink.
“Ooh, are you playing volleyball?” Amaya asks.
“Of a sort,” Sara says playfully.
“Zari, it’s us versus them,” Amaya says.
Zari looks a little confused. “What do I do?”
“You’ll get it quickly enough. We just hit it back and forth,” Amaya tells her.
“Oh. Okay,” Zari says. Ava steps around the net to go to Sara’s side.
Sara serves the ball, and Amaya hits it back. Ava bounces it back over at her. Amaya hits it to her again. It’s moving too quickly, and all Ava can do is
send it back into the air. Sara takes the opportunity to make it fly to the other side. It hits the sand.
It’s not a very strenuous exercise compared to the combat training Ava is used to, but it’s much more fun. Amaya and Zari are both laughing happily.
Ava whoops as she hits the ball as high into the air as it can go.
“Zari, look,” Amaya says suddenly. The beach ball hits her in the side of the face, but she doesn’t care.
“What am I looking at?” Zari asks.
“They’re baby sea turtles!” Amaya says happily. “Look at them. They’re so cute.”
Ava looks down at the little creatures and smiles. Amaya and Zari abandon the volleyball match to look more closely.
Sara tilts her head in the specific way she does.
“This is nice, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Ava agrees. “Thank you for inviting me.”
Nate and Ray splash over. They are both covered in sand.
“Sharpe! What’s that on your neck?” Nate asks. Leo looks over, interested.
Ava sighs. Nate pushes her hair out of the way to look at the mark.
“Is that a hickey? Agent Ava Sharpe, getting laid?” Nate says annoyingly.
“Shut up,” Ava tells him.
“Who is it? Do we know the lucky lady?” Nate keeps pestering.
“How did you know I’m gay?”
“I could tell you totally had a thing for Sara- wait, it’s Sara, isn’t it?”
Ava takes a sip of lemonade and puts her sunglasses back on. She can still hear Sara telling Nate and Ray to keep burying each other in sand. They walk away laughing gleefully.
Sara moves her towel next to Ava.
“Well, now they know,” Sara says.
“Yeah. I meant to cover that up.”
“They would have figured it out soon enough anyway,” Sara says. She doesn’t sound concerned at all.
“Yeah, and I guess now I can do this,” Ava says, swinging her leg over Sara and kissing her sweetly. They’re not going to go any farther in front of the other Legends, but Ava is still glad for their beach towels.
“I think we should do this more often,” Sara says quietly.