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Harry takes her shoes off and stands at the edge of the sand, hand blocking the sun from her eyes as she looks for Louis. It shouldn’t be this hard to find her fucking girlfriend, especially when she’s wearing the one piece speedo leftover from her days on the swim team, a bright blue and neon green monstrosity that was intentionally too small years ago and is now...kind of indecent, really.
She decides to start wandering, figuring she’ll see Louis sooner or later and guessing that if anything Louis will spot her with her giant beach bag and the mini cooler she packed with watermelon and sandwiches and two cold beers leftover from their dinner the night before. And of course now she has her shoes in what was her free hand, annoyed with the way the cooler keeps bumping her knee and wishing that she’d thought to take her sunnies down from on top of her head and actually use them to block the sun from her eyes.
Okay. So maybe Harry really does hate the beach.
Louis had said as much the night before, sitting on the kitchen counter of their airbnb while Harry made chicken fajitas and fretted over what they’d bring with them to the ocean the next day.
“If we bring watermelon it’s going to get all sandy the second we take it out. Like. Immediately. Probably before we open the bag, even.” Harry had stopped stirring the onions and peppers around for a moment, lost in thought as they sizzled frantically. “Berries make so much more sense.”
“But they were $8 for a little container, babe. They’d be gone before we even settle in.” Louis had poked at Harry’s bum with her big toe and laughed when Harry swatted her away. “And who cares about a little sand, anyway? It’s the beach!”
When Harry tossed the chicken into the pan it sent up a furious hiss that had almost covered her sigh. “Yeah, but that’s pretty much the worst thing about the beach, right? Fucking sand.”
“Oh my god I can’t believe you hate the beach!” Louis had pretended to look offended, clutching her chest dramatically and letting her mouth fall open as if she were truly scandalized.
Of course Harry had rolled her eyes and fought back a bit, but as she trudges through the sand (the annoying, grainy, too soft yet far too resistant sand), she starts to reconsider. Does she hate the beach? She likes the water, certainly, sometimes going so far as to jokingly call herself a mermaid, especially when she lets her hair get long and she can feel it trailing behind her as she dives under the water. She takes in the crashing waves up ahead and scrunches her nose, thinking about choking on a mouthful of sea water when she was nine or ten and thought she could withstand an oncoming wave. Ugh.
Louis chooses that moment to come running up to Harry’s side, silky athletic shorts slung low around her hips and aviators down. She’s tan and the few strands of silver in her hair glint in the sun, bright as her teeth when she smiles, and she looks so much like a true summer fantasy come to life that it almost stops Harry’s heart. “Sorry, babe, I was looking but only just saw you. I’ve got a blanket over here.”
She takes the cooler and nods in the direction she came from, waiting to link hands with Harry so they can walk there together. Harry slides her sunglasses down over her eyes and tries to ignore the way the sand pushes back as she steps into it. Damn, she really does hate sand.
They settle in and Louis offers to put Harry’s SPF45 on for her, and for a moment Harry thinks that this is what makes the beach worthwhile: sitting on a blanket with her girlfriend’s hands on her in public, sans judgement for the most part. She hears the obscene blurt of sunscreen leaving the tube and waits for the feeling of Louis’ hands on her shoulders, closing her eyes to savor it. The first stroke down her back is pleasant, but a breeze must kick up the sand around them because as Louis starts to rub the sunscreen in it’s like an exfoliant, each tiny scratch like a taunt.
“I think I hate the beach,” she says, her words spilling into one another as Louis rubs the sunscreen in underneath the straps of her bikini. Louis’ hands still for a moment. When she continues, she casually asks what Harry said. “I hate sand. I like lakes, but the ocean is just. I dunno, too much, maybe? It’s crowded and there’s only shade if you bring it with you.” Harry turns her head to look back at Louis. “So maybe I do really hate the beach?”
Louis looks back at her with her mouth slightly open, as if she’s on the brink of responding but can’t quite get her words out. She shakes her head slightly and smiles, rubbing the last remnants of sunscreen along the backs of Harry’s arms. “Maybe you only think you hate it because you’ve never been with me.” She leans in and gives Harry a kiss, and Harry thinks that maybe she’s right. Possibly. Hopefully.
“So...what d’you like about it?” Harry quirks an eyebrow and Louis springs up, pulling her shorts down and stepping out of them before offering Harry a hand up.
“Come with me and I’ll show you, Harold,” she says, her blue eyes lit up with mirth. Harry just has time to toss her sunglasses down before she’s being tugged along toward the water. Louis takes them directly into the wet sand just at the edge of the surf and stays there for a moment looking blissful. “You’ve got to start by squishing your toes, babe.”
Harry looks down and watches Louis wiggle her toes, moving them just so until her foot starts to sink into the sand. At that moment a wave breaks and sends water rushing toward them, shockingly cold against the warmth of the sun. Harry squeals and Louis laughs at her, telling her it’s not so bad. She’s right, Harry realizes after the water runs away from them, dragging sand along with it so that both of them sink in deeper.
“Are you feeling acclimated yet?” Louis asks. She waits for Harry to offer a hesitant yes and then starts walking forward into the water. “Alright, we’re just going out to waist height at first. I like to get used to the water before I go out deeper into the waves.”
The ocean is relatively calm according to Louis, so the waves that splash on them at waist height aren’t really that awful. Harry laughs to herself, reconsidering her earlier memories about a mouthful of salty water as a child. She was a lot shorter then, obviously. And the kind of kid who struggled to keep weight on, so the waves were probably much stronger than she was then.
It’s not like that now. She’s tall and muscular; she runs for fun. She’s probably as strong as a wave now. Besides, Louis is still holding her hand, and the way she raises it up when a wave comes makes Harry grin. Impulsively she turns and pulls Louis close to her, kissing her hard as a wave slaps against their sides.
“I like the beach with you,” she says once she’s let Louis take a breath. Louis beams back at her.
“Alright, so then we’ll go deeper.” Louis wades forward, the water going higher and the waves coming more steadily than they were before. “You have to kind of jump with the big ones so they don’t knock you over. And whatever you do, don’t turn your back to them. So...” Louis pulls up on Harry’s hand and tells her to jump.
And Harry thinks she did it fast enough, thinks she did it instantaneously, really, but it’s obvious that she didn’t when her jumping only earns her a wave directly to the face. She sputters, grateful that at least her mouth was closed and thinking it wasn’t so bad.
“Sorry, babe. That one snuck up on me a bit. I’ll tell you when to jump next time, yeah?”
“It wasn’t bad. We should dunk ourselves anyway. Who goes this deep in the water without--”
This time the wave takes both of them by surprise, because of course Louis broke her own rule and turned to look at Harry instead of keeping her eyes straight ahead, and Harry wasn’t even thinking about it, having just been hit by a wave only moments before. Unfortunately her mouth was open for this one, and she spits out salty water, her eyes and nose stinging with it.
“Sorry, babe!” Louis’ hair is wet but she mostly looks unbothered by the waves and the water. “Shit. I’ve got my eyes straight on now, we’re good. Ready?” Harry is not. But she nods anyway. “Jump!”
Harry jumps this time, and finds that the wave just sort of lets her bob along with it. “Okay, that was good,” she says, tucking her legs against her body and then splaying them out like a frog. “Show me how you do it.”
So Louis does. She shows Harry how to watch out for bigger waves as they build up and get ready to break, and then how to dive under them when they’re too big to ride by jumping with them. They wade out deeper until their feet don’t touch anymore, and the big waves come a bit less frequently, allowing them to kick and float near each other.
More than once Louis breaks her rule about keeping her eyes on the ocean to let Harry wrap around her like a koala. They kiss and Harry feels Louis kicking to keep them both afloat, her compact, muscular frame put to work. “I’m a mermaid princess and you’ve rescued me from my oppressive family to take me to your progressive kingdom where we can marry and rule together,” Harry says, squeezing her thighs tighter. Of course Louis agrees.
Harry isn’t sure how much time has passed when she starts to feel restless and ready to go back to the shore, but she knows that Louis sees her change in mood quickly, because she asks if Harry’s ready to go back. They make their way back and the moment they start to leave the water Harry’s body feels like lead. She’s thirsty and tired and wants nothing more than to be dry, so she wrings her hair out as they wade in the rest of the way, the waves barely registering for her now.
It’s not until they’ve reached the wet sand that Harry realizes she’s going to be covered in dry sand any second now. Her brow wrinkles as she considers it. She’s made peace with the ocean, but the sand? The sand could disappear and she wouldn’t be angry.
Louis must notice that too, because after they’ve sat down and had water and opened the cooler to eat slices of watermelon, she says, “We’re tackling sand next,” with a mischievous yet determined note to her voice. Harry just shrugs and smiles. She’s probably not going to love sand, but there’s no use ruining Louis’ fun over it.
Once they’ve been in the sun long enough to dry off thoroughly (and after Harry has reapplied sunscreen all over because she’s really hoping not to burn to a complete crisp), Louis gets on her knees and digs into the sand next to their blanket, rubbing it between her fingers lightly. “It could be wetter, but this should work.”
“That’s what my date said,” Harry replies automatically. Louis rolls her eyes but laughs, then moves so that she’s sitting on sand instead of blanket.
“That’s a lie, I’ve never had to say that about you,” Louis says as she wiggles back and forth, leaving a butt print in the sand. It’s Harry’s turn to roll her eyes and laugh, and also to blush a bit because...well. True. She’s about to ask Louis what she’s doing when Louis motions her over. “Alright. Sand castles are fun, but we can’t really make one without all the right equipment. So we’re doing something you might like even more. Burying me in the sand.”
Harry frowns at the thought of being covered in sand. Itchy, stupid, sandy sand. Louis ignores her in favor of shoveling sand over herself.
“C’mon. The fun part only happens after you get me covered up!”
There’s no use fighting it, of course, so Harry kneels over Louis and starts pushing sand toward her legs, piling it up around her and then knocking the piles over so that they cover her body. Eventually Louis tells her it’s enough, and Harry sits back to look at their-- or her own, really --handiwork. Louis’ head sticks out from one end with big mounds of sand over her chest and tummy and slightly thinner ones over her legs and feet. Her arms are buried too, of course, but they were tucked so tight to her sides that they got covered with the rest of her body.
“Okay. Now you sculpt me.” Louis smiles brightly, her eyes hidden behind her sunnies but obviously lit up with childlike glee.
“Into what?” Harry asks, trailing her finger through the sand over Louis’ tummy.
“Anything! Surprise me. I’m going to nap while you do it.”
She’s not lying; Harry hears her soft snores a moment later, and while it’s possible she’s faking it’s just as likely she’s not. Harry’s certainly not going to wake her up if she is. So Harry begins to move the sand around, forming shapes and then changing her mind a moment later, smoothing them back into soft lumps.
In the end she makes Louis a mermaid that’s not unlike the one that Harry has tattooed on her arm, a swirly thatch of pubes carved in above the beginning of her tail and breasts that sag down onto her stomach a bit. She looks good enough that Harry ends up taking a picture and posting it to instagram with the caption: “my little mermaid” #loustagram #beachbabe #mermaid #mermaidgirlfriends
Louis wakes up when Harry is taking a selfie with her. She sticks her tongue out and Harry laughs as the timer she has set up goes off, leaving her making odd faces in every selfie. Not that she minds. Louis asks if she can get up and Harry tells her of course, and as she shifts forward Harry watches the sand crack and slide off of her like she’s some god rising up from the earth.
She steps away from the blanket and shakes off like a dog, sand spraying all around, and then she runs to the ocean at full tilt, diving into a wave as soon as the water is deep enough. Harry still has her phone in hand and she takes a burst of pictures, happy when she catches the moment that Louis bursts out of the sea looking happy and golden.
It’s possible that maybe, actually, Harry loves the beach.