Chapter Text
“You look great, Jules,” Flynn says and Julie rolls her eyes before refocusing on the mirror in front of her.
Twisting back and forth, Julie puts her hands on her hips before dropping them down. She spins around to look over her shoulder at her back before facing front. Reaching for the ties at her hips, she tightens them, like they might just conspire against her and fall off for no reason.
Looking up into the mirror again, she takes a deep breath and then frowns. That’s the problem, right there. A deep breath and she looks...
Okay, objectively, yeah, the bathing suit looks good, as long as she squints and imagines it’s not her own body she’s looking at in the mirror. It’s more about the fact that she’s never worn anything like this before, not outside the safety of a store’s changing rooms anyway.
And it’s not like the bathing suit is super tiny. It had a little tag on it that declared it full coverage and it would be, at least it would be if Flynn or Carrie were wearing it.
On her, though? It’s...a lot or a little, depending upon how you want to look at it, ratio wise. Lots of her skin versus the stretchy bright yellow material. Even still, all the important bits are covered up, there’s just...more of her on display than normal.
Okay, a lot more.
And the color of the suit makes her skin glow, warm and brown even before really getting out into the sun this year since AP tests and finals and rocking out with the boys while they celebrated graduation.
It was touch and go there for a minute, especially after Luke told his parents that he wasn’t planning on going to college, at least not right away, but they worked it out, in the end. And maybe what made the difference was Julie’s dad letting Luke crash at the studio every once in a while and not even sending the boy a sidelong glance when he showed up for breakfast and dinner a few nights a week. Anything for the boy who helped bring his Julie back to him. That’s what he said when Julie asked him about it after Luke was worried he was overstaying his welcome.
“You can stay here as long as you need,” she said that night while they tucked the sheets she brought him into the couch’s fold out bed.
He stopped, then and looked at her, the way he did sometimes when they were writing together, like he might close the distance between them and kiss her. His eyes definitely flickered from her eyes to her lips and back to her eyes, before he looked away and mumbled a soft, “Thanks, Julie.”
And the way he said her name, soft and raspy, she almost closed the distance herself before she chickened out.
Just like she might right now.
When she’d bought this bathing suit, a couple of months ago, it was still kind of chilly outside. The idea of wearing it to the beach was a sort of nebulous what if combined with riotous butterflies at the thought of one person in particular’s reaction to it. Not that it should matter. If she’s going to wear a bathing suit like this it should be for herself, right? At least mostly.
Now though?
Now she feels exposed and like she’s going to look like…a word that she doesn’t think actually applies to any girl, but if she wears this are people going to think it?
“Jules,” Flynn’s voice interrupts her spiral, "if you’re uncomfortable….”
“I…” she hesitates and glances in the mirror again.
Is she uncomfortable? No...not exactly.
She looks good. She knows she does. No, she’s not all lithe muscle and long limbs like her friends, but a different sort of attractive. Not less, just different, curvier, softer.
It’s also kind of terrifying because she knows the kind of attractive she is means something different to some people. And Carrie and Flynn wandering around the beach in the bathing suit she’s wearing isn’t the same thing as her doing it.
Being a girl really sucks sometimes, that she even has to think about it this way is infuriating, but also, she looks good. She knows she does and she wants to wear this bathing suit and if one particular person also thinks she looks good, well then...that’s good too. Maybe he’ll look at her again the way he did that night in the garage and maybe he’ll close the distance and even if he doesn’t, maybe she’ll do it for him.
“I’m wearing it,” she says, finally and Flynn squeals, flopping back on Julie’s bed, before propping herself up on her elbows.
“Thank God because girl you look amazing and Luke Patterson is going to swallow his tongue when he sees you.”
“That’s not…” Julie starts to protest, but Flynn just raises one perfectly shaped and filled in eyebrow at her in the mirror.
“Are you really going to pretend like you didn’t spend all year doing some awkward ass musical mating ritual with that boy? I was with you at the store, Jules. I know why you bought it.”
Julie bites her lip and lets out a sigh. Flynn’s right. She’s always right about stuff like this. Luke Patterson, the senior boy who blew into her life like a tornado at her lowest point and through sheer force of will, managed to bring music back into her life. To make her feel alive again.
They’re friends though. Not even just friends. Nothing just about it. He’s her friend, maybe her best friend, aside from Flynn, of course. It’s just a different kind of friendship. They’re writing partners.
And if something in her stomach swoops every time he throws a casual arm around her shoulders or tugs on one of her curls to get her attention or...or the way he hugged her just a couple of days ago after his graduation ceremony, his arms completely around her, pulling her tight against his chest and murmuring thanks into her hair because he couldn’t have done this without her .
Well...yeah, she bought this stupid bathing suit because she looked good in it and back in that changing room she could hear her mom’s voice in her head telling her that she should wear what she wants, what makes her feel strong and beautiful and screw what other people think. But she’d be lying to herself if she didn’t admit to wondering what Luke would think of it. That maybe he would really like it and his stomach would swoop that way too.
All of those things can be true at the same time.
What? They can .
It does make her feel beautiful and strong and yeah, screw what other people think. Except Luke. She really wants to know what he thinks.
“Let’s just go, before I change my mind,” she says, throwing a white eyelet cover-up over the suit. Flynn flips herself backward off her bed and grabs her beach bag on the way out of the room with Julie right behind her before she dives back into her dresser to find something less…
...Itsy, bitsy, teenie, weenie?
Ugh, now that song is gonna be in her head all day. At least her bathing suit doesn’t have polkadots.
“I can’t believe we agreed to go to Venice,” Flynn whines as they drag their bags and chairs and the umbrella they managed to unearth in the studio’s loft over the sand. It’s still early and it’s a weekday so there aren’t a lot of people around, but the sun is climbing higher in the sky and it’s already pretty hot.
“Alex’s plan. He thinks Williie won’t think he’s cool if we go to Santa Monica.”
“Did you explain to Alex that Willie’s the kind of cool that doesn’t care about cool?”
“He was already stress strutting, so Reggie just sort of told him it was fine to keep him calm.”
“So really, Reggie’s the one I should kill? It’s a thousand degrees outside and we can’t even go in the water because,” Flynn gestures toward the ocean and wrinkles her nose in disgust, “it’s basically a sewer.”
“It hasn’t rained in weeks, it’s probably fine and you weren’t going in the water either way,” Julie says, laughing as she catches sight of the boys down the beach, halfway through setting up a spot.
“No, but the boys might have and mama needs her eye candy.”
Julie rolls her eyes and when she looks back over the sand, Luke is jogging toward them. His hair needs a trim, flopping a little bit into his eyes as he approaches, but Julie’s not focused on his hair.
She’s seen his arms up close and even on days when he’s tolerating sleeves, it’s hard to draw her eyes away, but she’s never seen him shirtless. His chest is pale, like most of them right now. He hasn’t been out in the sun much yet and there’s some sparse hair lining his chest. She doesn’t know why she didn’t expect that. He’s eighteen, fully grown.
And suddenly she feels...young and kind of stupid and...completely not ready to be anywhere near a guy who looks like that.
“Speaking of eye candy,” Flynn mutters under her breath and then, “Jules, you’re drooling.”
Julie closes her mouth and swallows. She’s not drooling. She can’t. Her throat is too dry. She knew he was ripped. You know, in theory. He goes to the gym all the time because he’s always going on and on about having to have the endurance to rock a festival stage in the middle of the desert heat, like they’ll be playing Coachella or Joshua Tree any day now.
“Hey,” Luke says, coming to a stop just in front of her, swim trunks riding low on his hips and the sun shining in his eyes, making them a brighter green than usual. Then he smiles and the ridiculously hot man in front of her morphs back into the boy she knows and the panic fades, replaced by that familiar swooping feeling in her stomach.
“Hey,” she says, back, licking at her lips and managing to keep her breathing even when his eyes flicker down to watch the motion.
“Hey,” he says again, his smile disappearing as he keeps staring and she bites her lip against a grin.
“Hey,” Flynn says, cutting her off before she can say hey again, which she definitely wasn’t going to do. “Strong boy. Carry our shit.”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” Luke says, his gaze finally moving away from her as Flynn starts to load his arms down with their stuff. Julie can’t complain too much though as his biceps and forearms flex against the weight.
Flynn, wingwoman that she is at heart, strides away immediately, waving to Reggie and Alex who are battling against an ancient looking beach umbrella.
“What does she have in here?” Luke grumbles hoisting the large beach bag over his shoulder, trying to keep his balance on the uneven sand.
“She comes prepared for everything,” Julie says, laughing and taking the small cooler bag off the pile in his arms before it falls.
“Like the apocalypse?” he asks, shifting the gear around again to get a better grip on the umbrella.
“Up to and including,” she agrees and they fall into step toward their friends. Alex is dictating to Reggie where the towels should be laid out and Flynn is surveying the sand around them, likely to find the spot with the best view of the surfers coming out of the water.
And they fall into silence, the comfortable kind, the kind they’ve sat in as hours ticked by while they worked on their homework together (or music...mostly music...okay, basically always music, but if her dad asks, it was homework).
They reach the others and Julie glances around before dropping the small cooler bag she’s carrying next to the towel where Luke’s guitar case is laid out.
“Is this okay?” she whispers when he starts to unload his armfuls of stuff beside her.
Luke lets out a small scoff. “‘’Course it is. We could get some writing done. If you want.”
“Yeah,” Julie says and grins at him, then digs through her beach bag, pulling out her towel as he gets started on the umbrella.
“Reggie, I swear if you start commenting on how I’m putting this umbrella in the sand, so help me…” Luke mutters when their friend wanders over to them.
“If you want to be chasing that thing down the beach later, none of my business,” Reggie says, shrugging and Julie giggles when she takes in the extra sunscreen he’s put on over the bridge of his nose.
“He’s not here yet,” Alex says, his eyes scanning the concrete walkway at the top of the beach. “What if he’s not coming?”
“He’ll be here, buddy,” Luke reassures him. “Willie’s just on skater time.”
“He probably got distracted by, like, a curb to jump or something,” Flynn says, rubbing the taller boys back. He spins around, bending over at the waist, and thunks his forehead against her shoulder, letting out a despairing groan. “You should put on some sunscreen before your lily white ass burns. You’re already a little pink on the edges.”
That’s actually a good idea. It’s only going to get hotter as the day goes along.
Julie digs into her beach bag and pulls out the sunscreen and she’s so distracted, by her friends, by the warm salty breeze, by the way Luke is grinning at Alex with exasperated affection that she doesn’t even think about being nervous when she pulls her cover-up over her head and folds it neatly back into her bag.