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Sutton had intended to bring it up right away. Really, genuinely, hand-to-God, she had - she’d walked up the stairs to Parker’s apartment psyching herself up to say something as soon as she set the pizza down.
The door swung open to reveal Parker Parra, complete with a wide, toothy grin. “Sutton, my love! What a surprise.”
Sutton handed the pizza box to them and stepped inside. “Parker, we’ve been planning this for almost a week.”
“What a surprise!” Parker repeated from the kitchen.
Sutton smiled down at the ground as she toed off her tennis shoes. I’m gonna miss this.
Parker was already portioning slices of pizza onto plates when Sutton walked into the kitchen. They gestured towards the living room and the TV. “I just threw that on while I was waiting, we can pick something else.”
“What is it?” Sutton asked, taking her plate and moving towards the couch.
“It’s called Wet Side Story,” Parker replied. They settled on the couch next to Sutton. “It’s a musical. It’s like Romeo and Juliet but with gangs. And they’re on a beach. And nobody dies.”
“Hm.”
Parker laughed. “We can change it.” They reached for the remote, then stopped. “Wait, after this scene, I love this part.”
The screen showed the inside of a tropical-themed bar, complete with a pair of surfboards hung on one wall. There were two tall people leaned up against the bar, both of them dressed like impossibly well-put-together surfers. The first had sharp features and long brown hair, and the other had dark hair and eyes and-
“Does she have fangs?” Sutton asked.
Parker waved a hand dismissively. “Shhh.”
“They’re my old crew.”
The one with fangs arched a pretty eyebrow. “Val, I still can’t believe that a beach babe like you used to roll with the Crabs.”
They shrugged, smiling. “Well, things have changed.” The two of them looked up as a bouncy tune started to play. “Oh, I love this song.”
The other woman elbowed him. “You should go sing.”
He squinted, gesturing over to a little stage in the corner of the room. “Those Crabs are already-“
“And you’re gonna let that stop you?” The woman was smiling a challenging smile. “This is our place, not theirs.”
They shared a long look, then she sighed and walked to the stage, stepping up and putting herself between the microphone and an annoyed looking girl in a leather jacket. When they started to sing, it was with a warm, lovely voice, perfectly matched to the jacketed backup singers behind them. “The day started ordinary, boys walking by…”
Sutton swallowed a sip of her drink. “How come the rest of the band just kept going when they pushed that girl out of the way? Shouldn’t they be pissed?”
Parker sighed dramatically, flopping into Sutton’s lap. “It’s a movie, Sutton.”
“And now I’m falling for ya! Falling for ya!” The floor of the bar had filled with dancing people. Even the singer’s elegant friend from before had been pulled into it. Just about the only person who wasn’t was-
“Bartender’s cute,” Sutton said solemnly.
“You would think so,” Parker deadpanned.
She flicked the side of their head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Parker was laughing. “Only that it’s just like you to focus in on pretty extras instead of what’s going on.” Their laughs quieted as they noticed something on screen. “Okay, watch this.”
Between verses of the song, the camera panned away from the dancers and to the doors of the bar. A man with glasses came in, the world around him fuzzing out slightly. He was dressed in the same leather and red fabric that the other bikers wore, his dark hair slicked back.
A faint smile danced across the singer’s face. She moved slightly, turning her body towards the man with the glasses.
“That’s Pedro. He and Val, who’s singing, they were childhood friends,” Parker explained. “Val was in the gang with him, but they left for… I don’t know, some reason, point is they’re a surfer now.”
“They’re just friends?”
Parker laughed. “God no, they get together at the end. Wait, watch this part, it rules.”
The man had moved across the room to stand near the stage, his eyes trained. The singer was still looking at him. Clearly, she was playing up her performance - she took a dramatic spinning half-step forward and the camera cut low as her heel missed the edge of the stage. She tumbled, hair flying out, and the man lunged forward.
They landed perfectly in his arms, still holding the microphone and everything, not so much as missing a beat in the song. Parker let out a whoop.
“Okay, yeah, that’s cute,” Sutton said, nodding.
“Right?” Parker sat up, reaching for the remote. “Okay, what should we watch?”
“I mean, we can keep watching this if you want to.”
Parker waved dismissively. “I’ve seen it a thousand times.”
They ended up watching Top Chef. By the end of the third episode, Sutton was warm and curled up, her head leaned onto Parker’s shoulder. She sighed. “I wonder when the next time we’ll get to do this will be.”
Parker laughed. “Well, I’m off on Thursday.”
“No, like-“ Sutton cut herself off. “Shit.”
Parker was looking at her, face screwed up. “What’s up?”
Sutton took a deep breath, sitting up and turning so that she was looking at Parker more directly. “There’s, uh, something I haven’t told you.”
The look of concern on their face just got deeper. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes- I mean, not really, but-“ Sutton dragged a hand down her face. “I’m moving.”
Parker gaped at her. “Really? Wh- When? And Where?”
“Hawai’i. I got a new job. And, uh…” Sutton covered her face and braced for impact. “Next week?”
“NEXT WEEK?” Sutton peeked through her fingers to find Parker, face slack with shock. “Sutton, babe…”
“I’m sorry,” she said reflexively. “I should have told you sooner, I just…” Sutton screwed her eyes back shut. “I didn’t know how. So I kept putting it off, and now I’m moving on Tuesday, and-“
“TUESDAY!? Nevermind, I just…” Sutton uncovered her face, watching Parker shake themself slightly. “It’s okay. I wish I’d known, but just…” Parker gave her a sad look, sad enough to make something ache in Sutton’s chest. “I am going to miss you like crazy, Sutton Dreamy.”
Nope, hand back over the face. “Stop!”
She heard Parker laugh, a little wet noise. “It’s the truth! You’re one of my favorite people on the face of the planet.” Sutton groaned, and Parker laughed again. “Y’know what we should do?” they said after a moment.
“What?”
“We should go to that ice cream place you like.”
Sutton looked up to squint at them. “Now?”
“Yes, now!” Parker said it like it was obvious.
“But isn’t it raining?”
“I’m not scared of a little rain,” they replied, chin raised. “And I’d rather get wet than not get to go get ice cream with my friend before she leaves me.” They grinned. “The power of love is stronger than the weather.”
Sutton giggled despite herself. “Okay,” she said at last, “but only if I can borrow an umbrella.”
The weather was already worse than it had been when Sutton arrived, and it only kept going downhill as they walked. By the time they were along the harbor, a couple blocks away from their destination, the rain was coming down in sheets, making the water twist.
Sutton’s borrowed umbrella had been no match for the wind - after a couple minutes she’d folded it and let it swing from her wrist. She cast a quick look out at the harbor before she turned her head back down against the downpour. “Should we really be out by the water when the weather’s like this?”
“It’ll be fine, we’re almost there,” Parker called back.
Sutton could feel the waves beating at the wood beneath her. It was empty out - the occasional car passed by, but other than that the two of them were alone. There was a loud creak and Sutton jumped. “Parker, I really don’t think-”
“We’re so close-”
“Can we at least walk further in-”
“Sutton, I can see it, we’re almost-”
Another creak, one accompanied by the shaking of the boardwalk. They both froze. “Parker,” Sutton called, “let’s just-”
A wave slammed against the boardwalk, tall enough to scatter spray onto Sutton’s soaked-through tennis shoes. She barely had time to notice it before the boardwalk was falling away beneath her.
She was half aware of Parker in front of her, scrambling for steady ground and slipping at the last second. Then, all she was thinking about was the fall, and the sudden splash into the freezing water of the bay.
~
It was hard to say how much time passed before Sutton’s head breached the water again. She was distantly surprised to feel the air, honestly, but there she was - treading water, kicking hard.
But not too hard. It took a few gasping breaths before Sutton had enough of herself about her to realize that that was strange. The water was calm and smooth, gently swaying her back and forth. It was warm, too, somehow, and so was the air, and the bright sun on her face, and, okay, the sun definitely hadn’t been out when she’d fallen in-
Focus, Dreamy. A spin. Sutton noticed a beach (a sandy beach, completely foreign, nothing like Baltimore) and resolved not to panic until she was, at the very least, not immediately going to drown. She swam out towards it.
The first brush of sand against her, Sutton exhaled. She walked the extra couple steps onto the beach, dropping herself onto it on her back, half-submerged. The ocean lapped serenely at her, pressing out to her knees and in to her waist in easy cycles. “What the hell.”
Not in Baltimore anymore, clearly. Still in her same clothes, as far as she could tell, but she’d lost a shoe, not to mention Parker’s umbrella.
Sutton bolted upright. “Parker.” She pulled herself to her feet, scanning the beach. She was in a little cove, rocks to one side with sandy paths leading out of her view. It was postcard-perfect and completely empty except for her. She spun around. The water was mostly empty, too - just a couple distant boats and a single figure swimming towards the shore. Sutton cupped her hands to her mouth. “Parker? Parker!!!” It wasn’t until Parker was pulling themself onto the beach and up to their feet that Sutton was sure. She ran out into the water, wrapping her arms around them. “Oh thank God.”
Parker was soaking wet and panting. “Oh my God, Dreamy, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She seemed to be, at least - not obviously injured, for one, and thinking more clearly by the second as her heart rate returned to normal. “Are you-?”
“I think so? Let me- I need to sit down.” Parker took the last shaky couple steps onto the beach, dropping themself down onto the sand. Sutton set herself down next to them. After a couple moments, Parker looked around. “Where are we?”
“No idea.”
They squinted over their shoulder at the rocky structure bordering the beach. “Sure doesn’t look like Baltimore.”
A laugh bubbled up in Sutton. “You’re not wrong.”
Parker looked back at her. “You don’t think we’re dead, do you?”
Sutton considered it. “I don’t feel like I’m dead?”
“Well how do you know what being dead feels like-”
“Let’s not, Parker.”
They gave her an apologetic look. “I doubt we’re dead. We’re probably just…” Parker waved a hand vaguely. “Somewhere.”
Sutton took a steadying breath. “Somewhere.”
“You know what,” Parker said, pulling themself to their feet. “We can go look around. I bet there’s somebody here that can tell us what’s going on.”
“Okay, yeah, sure.” Sutton stood, pulling off the shoe she hadn’t lost, then both of her socks after a moment. Parker was already walking away, out to the little path running between the rocks and the water. Sutton watched them freeze. “What is it?” Parker started to laugh, first quietly, then growing louder, almost hysterical. “Parker, what?”
Sutton rounded the corner and stopped in her tracks. The stretch of beach in front of the two of them contained a large wooden building, with a hand-painted sign reading “JUICE’S BEACH BAR” in bright red. In front of it, a crowd of people dressed in shorts, swim-wear, and brightly colored patterned shirts were seemingly doing a choreographed dance routine, complete with beach balls and towels being moved around in sync.
Parker was still laughing, doubled over, gasping for air. “We’re, we-we’re in the movie.”
“What?”
“Sutton, we’re in the movie! We’re in Wet Side Story!” Parker took a shaky breath, grinning, the last handful of giggles sneaking out between their words. “I don’t know how, but we got transported into the movie when we fell into the bay.”
“There’s no way that’s- that can’t be-”
Parker spun out in front of her, singing along to the barely audible music. “Surf, surf! Surf surf crazy! Grab the perfect wave, say hi to the sky!” They danced around, half-imitating the distant group.
Sutton laughed despite herself. “How is that possible?”
“Beats me, Dreamy, but it’s better than drowning!”
“I guess!” Sutton looked out at the beach, and the building on the other side of it. “What do we do now?”
Parker came to a stop, thinking. “I guess just… try to find a way back out? I mean,” they laughed, “I know this movie inside and out. If we walk around I’d bet we’ll figure something out.”
Sutton blinked at them. “You seem excited to look around.”
They grinned. “Of course I am, Dreamy. And, hey,” they said, moving up next to her to swing an arm around her shoulders. “It’ll be like one last adventure before you go.”
Sutton felt something unwind in her shoulders. “I guess you’re right. A little extra time to hang out.”
“Exactly,” Parker said, bumping their shoulders together.
~
The inside of Juice’s was louder than Sutton had expected it to be. Parker was practically bubbling over with excitement from the moment they stepped in. “This is so cool.”
Sutton didn’t totally see the appeal - really, it just looked like any other kitschy bar in the world. It was smaller than it had looked on screen. Sutton could see the person who had sang in the part they watched in the apartment, leaned against the bar with their tall friend. “When in the movie is this?”
“Early,” Parker said. “A little before the part we watched. That was the opening number happening outside. I don’t think the Crabs are even here yet.”
“The Crabs?”
“The biker gang,” Parker explained. “They’ve been, like, away for a while, I guess? Like they travel around or something, point is they’re here now and they want dibs on the bar. The Fridays, uh, the surfers, they can’t stand them. Oh, wait, our timing is great, here they are.”
The doors to the bar had dramatically swung open to reveal a knot of people dressed in black leather (they must be hot, Sutton thought). It seemed like every eye in the room swung around to meet them as they walked in. At the front of the pack was a tired looking man with brown hair.
“That’s Ken,” Parker said quietly. “He’s the head of the Crabs.” Ken had walked over to the bar, tailed by a group of other Crabs. Sutton watched him say something quietly to the bartender (who, shit, yeah, she was still cute), then watched as his eyes strayed over to the pair loitering by the bar. Parker had leaned into Sutton’s shoulder, dropping their voice down to imitate Ken as he talked. “Hey, Val. Long time no see. Wasn’t sure I bought that you were a surf rat-”
Sutton giggled. “How many times have you seen this movie?”
Parker elbowed her. “Not important.” Ken had evidently finished his exchange with Val - he and his cohort had turned around, drinks in hand, walking in their direction. “I’m gonna talk to the Crabs, you,” Parker said gesturing them forward, “should go talk to the bartender. Don’t act like you weren’t looking at her, babe-”
“Should we really be getting involved in this directly, Parker?” Sutton hissed. “I mean, what if we mess something up-”
“It’ll be fine!” They pushed her forward, turning around to perch on a stool by a high-top table.
Sutton sighed. She crossed in front of Val and the tall woman (“They’re my old crew.” “Val, I still can’t believe that a beach babe like you-”) and stood by the bar, tapping her fingernails on the top of it. “Hi-”
The bartender spun around. She was a couple inches taller than Sutton, with brown skin and a round face. She gave her a broad smile. “Hi there, what can I get you?”
“Just a root beer, I guess.”
“Can do!” She spun around, and Sutton assumed that was the end of it until she spoke over her shoulder. “Are you new around here?”
Sutton cringed internally. She tried to ignore the beginnings of the bouncy music and the bits of Val’s loud conversation (“Those Crabs are already-“). “Do I stick out that much?”
The bartender laughed. “Not that much. I just know everybody around here, when there’s a new face I tend to notice.” She spun around with Sutton’s drink, glancing down at her drying shirt. “Plus, honestly, you don’t look like much a surfer or a biker, and that’s pretty much everybody that comes around.” Something must have come over Sutton’s face - the bartender gave her an apologetic look. “I don’t mean to give you a hard time.”
“No worries, I’ve just…” Sutton gestured vaguely. “It’s been a weird day.”
The bartender nodded. “I get that, trust me. Look, my name is Juice, and-“
“Can you guys keep it down?” It was Val’s friend, the woman with the dark hair and the fangs. “Val’s gonna sing, I want to listen.” Sure enough, when Sutton glanced back, Val was extricating the microphone from the spiky-looking Crabs girl that’d walked in with Ken.
“No problem, Beck, sorry.” Juice - the bar owner, maybe, if her name was on the sign - gestured to Sutton’s drink. “We can talk more in a sec.”
Val sang, the chatter of the room seemingly falling away as they did. The floor of the bar filled up with people, dancing perfectly in sync to the song. Sutton found herself tapping her foot along, even if she wasn’t terribly interested in going out and trying to figure out the choreography.
After a moment, Val’s friend - Beck, apparently, stepped into the flow of dancers, along with most of the Crabs. The exception this time was Ken. Sutton could see him over the throng, apparently engrossed in a conversation with Parker.
A shift in light came as the doors swung open. Sutton watched Val’s gaze lock on the door and turned to see his apparent love interest - Pedro, if she remembered right - in the flesh. He looked around, spotting Val up on the stage in the corner. He took a couple steps forward, picking along the side of the crowd of dancers, and then he-
Pedro stopped. He said a couple words to Ken, and apparently introduced himself to Parker - they grinned, shaking his hand. Sutton turned back towards the stage, confused, and was just in time to see Val take a dramatic spinning half-step forward and lose her balance. She tumbled, hair flying out, and Sutton heard a thump.
The band cut off unevenly. “Oh, God,” Juice said behind her. The dancers slowed and stopped, staring down at Val or trying to peer over those between them and him. When Sutton looked over at the side of the bar, Ken and Pedro were craning their necks towards Val in concern. Parker, on the other hand, was looking right at her, eyes wide with panic.
~
“I had no idea he was gonna-“ Parker’s voice was low and frantic. “I mean, I just thought-“
The fall off the stage had apparently soured moods of a decent portion of the crowd. Val had been okay, thankfully, but she and some of her friends, Beck included, had wandered out. The remaining Fridays were drifting out too, in between casting dirty looks at the Crabs. Even some of them were leaving, though - it was mostly just Ken and a handful of bikers who seemed to be tight with him (Pedro included). Sutton knew that the gangs were fighting over the bar, but nobody seemed to have much fight in them tonight - mildly concerning.
“Parker, don’t freak out.” Sutton was trying her hardest to be calm.
Parker wasn’t. “How could I not freak out?” they hissed. “We just messed up the plot of the movie. Pedro was supposed to catch him. I don’t even know how we did it! Who knows what we’re messing up just by standing here!”
“Is everything alright?”
The two of them were by the bar, heads together (no sense in being too loud and giving someone an existential crisis). At the sound of Juice’s voice, Parker twisted back to look at her. “Peachy.”
Sutton gave her what she hoped was an apologetic smile. “Could I get another root beer?”
Juice smiled back. “No problem.”
Parker turned back to her, stress clear on their face. They dropped their voice to even lower than it had been before. “What’re we gonna do, Sutton? I mean, we don’t even know how to leave, who knows what this’ll screw up.”
“Do you think we could fix it?”
Parker’s face glazed over. “I don’t know, could we?”
“We could at least try!” Sutton’s mind was suddenly racing; she gestured broadly with one hand. “You know what’s going on. How hard could it be to get the two of them together?”
Juice appeared again, sliding Sutton’s refilled drink to her. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to eavesdrop but-“
Parker froze. Sutton sighed, running a hand back through her hair. “No worries, go for it.”
She watched Juice search for her words for a second, before slowly saying, “I don’t know exactly what’s going on with you two, but if there’s any way I can help, let me know and I can do it? I mean, it sounded like you guys were talking about something serious. I know we don’t know each other, but-“
“What’s going on with Val and Pedro?”
Parker let out a surprised noise. “Sutton, don’t just-“
Juice just laughed. “Oh, they’re so annoying. Val used to come in here with the Crabs all the time. Even then, they were all over each other. I’d assumed they were together, honestly, but apparently, they never were.” She chuckled to herself again. “Have you met Brock and Bertie yet?”
They both shook their heads.
“They’re that way, too,” Juice said. “The Crabs might just be like that, honestly. Point is, something happened with Val and she started hanging with the surfers instead. The Crabs and Fridays used to all get along fine, but around that time… I don’t know, things soured and they stopped coming around. I haven’t seen Val and Pedro say two words to each other in years.” She sighed. “And now their crews are, like, fighting over who gets to hang out here, I guess. I barely know, honestly.”
Sutton elbowed them. “Did you know all that?”
“Some of it,” Parker mumbled.
“Look,” Juice continued, “the Crabs may be intimidating but they’re nice, I wouldn’t let them hang out here if they weren’t.” She sighed again, rolling her eyes. “I wish them and the Fridays got along better, but, hey, what can you do?”
“So,” Sutton said. She stopped. “Ignore how this is going to sound from a stranger.”
Juice smiled wide at her, and if that made Sutton’s stomach twist then nobody needed to know. “Lay it on me.”
“If we were trying to get Val and Pedro together, what would we need to do?”
She watched Juice be surprised by the question, then saw her stop and think it over. “Honestly,” she said slowly, “getting them to talk to each other would probably go a long way. I don’t know that they’ve said a word to each other since everything happened.”
“They’ve been writing letters,” Parker said casually. They froze a second later, one hand subconsciously covering their mouth. “They might have been, I mean.”
Juice gave them a strange look, laughing faintly to herself. “Point is, I haven’t seen them interact in a long time. That’s somewhere to start. If they do really like each other, I mean.”
“Go on, shoo! This is our turf tonight, surfers!” Sutton turned to see the Crabs girl who Val had taken the microphone from, scaring off the last handful of beachwear-clad patrons. She could swear her teeth were filed down to points. The Crab bared them at her and Parker. “You two aren’t beach rats, are you?”
Parker started to stutter, “Ah, n-no, we’re just-“
“Cool it, Finn.” Ken shrugged nonchalantly behind her. “I was talking to Parker earlier, they’re cool. New around here.”
Finn leveled a skeptical look at them. “Alright, Ken, no worries,” she deadpanned.
She turned back around, and Parker took the opportunity to drop their head back towards Sutton, hissing in her ear. “This is so cool!”
Now the whole group of Crabs were looking at the two them. “I’m Sutton,” Sutton said awkwardly. “I’m a friend of Parkers. I’m, uh, new here too.”
Ken nodded. “I’m Ken,” he said to Sutton. “I’m the head of the Black Crabs Motorcycle Club. You met Finn, she’s my second in command.” Finn rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything. Ken gestured to a pair of guys, a short one and a tall one, who were talking quietly to each other rather than paying attention to what was going on. “That’s Brock and Bertie.” Then, he pointed to a tall, quiet woman, leaning against the bar. “That’s Silvaire… and that’s Pedro,” he finished. Pedro was sat over with Brock and Bertie - he waved with one hand.
“Nice to meet you.”
Parker cleared their throat. “Can I ask you something?”
Ken leaned back against a table. “Shoot.”
“What’s the deal with you guys and… god, what’s her name.” Parker snapped their fingers, looking off like they were searching for the words. Sutton wished she could pull them over and tell them to dial it back. “Juice, who was the person who got up and sang?”
Juice was fighting a smile (cute). “Val?”
Parker pointed at her theatrically. “Val! What’s with you guys, it seemed kind of, I don’t know, tense?”
Finn glared again. “That’s a pretty direct question to be asking somebody you just met.”
“Seriously, Finn, it’s fine, we’re cool.” Ken sighed. “Val used to roll with us.”
“And then she ditched us to hang out with surfers,” Finn bit out.
He sighed again. “Yeah.”
Parker tilted their head theatrically. “Any idea why?” Ken shook his head. “Hm!”
“I think they’re just flaky,” Finn declared. She’d jumped up onto a tabletop and crossed her legs at the ankles. “Flaky and disloyal.”
“That’s not fair.”
She gave a theatrical huff and turned to look back at Pedro. “You give Val too much credit.”
Pedro just shrugged. “Val can hang with whoever she wants to hang with.”
“But she shouldn’t’ve dumped us like that.”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I can’t argue about this again.” Ken strolled over to the table Pedro, Brock, and Bertie were around, producing a deck of cards from his pocket. “Finn? Parker, Sutton, you guys up for a game?”
“I’ll play next round,” Parker said, grabbing Sutton by the elbow.
Ken shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Parker pulled her back over to the bar, leaning close again. “Do you feel like Pedro has feelings for them?”
Sutton huffed. “We know he does, you’ve seen this movie-“
“But do you feel it, Dreamy?”
She sighed. “Yeah, I do.”
They nodded. “Me too.” Parker glanced back at the Crabs, then back to Sutton. “Do you want to go find Val and try to press her, see if she still likes them or if there’s, like, anything we can use? I can stay and talk to the Crabs more.” They rubbed at the back of their head. “Talking to them more might give me more ideas, and also, uh, there’s a throwaway line about Brock knowing theoretical physics that I want to ask about…”
Sutton wasn’t honestly sure there was more to get out of the Crabs, but she could feel Parker’s eagerness. She nodded. “Sure thing.”
They grinned. “Great. Hopefully, we can put things back in working order before we fuck anything up worse than we have.”
~
The Fridays weren’t hard to find. With the bar occupied, a group of surfers had congregated out on the little beach where Sutton had washed up. She got a couple strange looks as she walked up, but nobody seemed to want to press it - she supposed her t-shirt stuck out a little less with the surfers than it had with the bikers.
Sutton hung on the edges, trying to chart out her moment, halfway feeling like the new kid at school. Most of the surfers were in little knots of two or three, drinking pop and talking as the sun set. She could see Val and Beck sat off on the far side. Sutton walked around the perimeter towards them, trying to look casual. She was trying to plan out how she’d interrupt them when Val noticed her. “What’s up?”
“Oh, nothing, I just-”
“You’re new around here, right?” That was from Beck, poking her head around Val.
Okay, so maybe she still stuck out. “Yeah, I am. Just, uh, got into town.”
“Well, if you’re not doing anything, you should sit down and hang with us for a second. I’m Beck, this is Val.”
Sutton nodded, and gave them a grateful smile. Holy shit I’m doing it. “I’m Sutton. Nice to meet you.”
“Where are you from, Sutton?” Val asked.
Shit shit shit. “Baltimore,” Sutton said, crossing her fingers that Baltimore existed in the universe of the movie.
“Really?” Val asked. “What a coincidence, I grew up around there. Have you talked to any of the Crabs? Most of them are from Maryland, actually, that’s where the name comes from.”
“Yeah, I was just talking to them!”
Val nodded. “That’s kind of how I met them in the first place. And how I ended up here, I guess.” Beck was giving Val and pointed look - they caught her eye and huffed. “Just say it, Beck.”
“I still can’t believe you used to hang around with those losers.”
Val pinched the bridge of her nose. “A lot of us don’t get along super well with the Crabs,” she explained. “I had a bit of a falling out with them a while back. Haven’t seen any of them in years. They stopped coming around here and I stayed, that’s all.”
“And now they waltz back in and want dibs on the bar.” Beck flipped a bottle cap into the air. “How rude can you get?”
“They’re not that terrible,” Val said. “I mean, they can be rude, there’s a reason I don’t hang out with them anymore. But they’re not all bad.”
Beck squinted at them. “ Don’t go so easy on them just because you’re mooning over that one guy-”
“I was not-”
“Don’t act like you weren’t!” She exclaimed. “I don’t think it’s any coincidence that you get all weird about the Crabs, and then topple right over the second a certain one of them walks in.”
“It’s nothing,” they replied. “It isn’t!” they insisted Beck gave them a skeptical look. “Even if it had been once-”
“AHA!”
Val sighed. “Pedro didn’t say a word to me. He barely even looked at me when he walked in. So it’s nothing. I haven’t seen him in years.”
“But he’s been writing you,” Sutton blurted. She clamped a hand over her face.
Val whipped around. “How did you know that?”
Beck’s eyebrows had shot up. “He’s been writing you?”
Sutton exhaled as she turned back towards Beck. “Sometimes? He- I mean, he was doing it back when I was with the Crabs, too. He just…” Val gestured vaguely. “He never stopped?”
Beck laughed. “Wow.”
“Can it-“
“No, I have to say it, that man better hope I don’t get my hands on him, playing with you like that. Some people will do anything for attention-“
“Seriously, Beck, can it.” Beck quirked an eyebrow. “At least until I’m done with my self pity,” Val finished.
Beck sighed, tipping her head onto Val’s shoulder. “Those freaks don’t deserve you, Val. Not your boytoy and not any of the rest of them.”
Val turned his attention back to Sutton, then, Beck still leaned against them. “How did you know about the letters? I haven’t told anybody about that, and, sorry, I don’t know who in the world you are.”
“I- I-“ Sutton wracked her brain for an explanation. “I-I was talking to Pedro just now, that’s how I know!”
Val’s jaw dropped. “He told you that?”
Shit. “Yeah!” Shit, shit, shit.
“That doesn’t sound like him, but…” Val shrugged. “It’s been a long time.”
“He, uh, mostly just said that it was nice to see you again!”
Val fought a smile. Beck noticed, clearly, because she knocked her shoulder hard against his. Val rolled their eyes. “Keep your thoughts to yourself, Beck.”
“I just hate to see you pining, honey. We’ll find you someone nice around here, I’m sure Yosh could handle one more-“ Val shoved Beck hard and she laughed loudly.
~
“So, what, is that it?” Parker was pacing a groove into the sand behind Juice’s. “Val loves him, Pedro loves them, we just have to, what, get them in a room together?”
“Alone,” Sutton mumbled. “Easier said than done.”
Parker stopped in front of her, hands on their hips. “Never knew you to be such a pessimist, Dreamy.”
“I know, I just…” Sutton groaned, tipping her head back. “I feel weird meddling.”
“We have to meddle to fix this. Our meddling is the only reason Val and Pedro aren’t already having, like, a secret lovers’ rendezvous-“
The door next to Sutton creaked open. Juice emerged, apron still around her waist. “So, what’s our game plan?”
Parker launched into their explanation. “Val and Pedro are both still into each other, but the Crabs hate Val and Beck from the Fridays thinks Pedro is just being a dick to Val, and…”
Night had fallen while Sutton had been bothering the surfers - the moonlight shone off Juice’s dark hair like it was the ocean. She glanced down at Sutton, smiling at her when she saw she was looking.
“…Right, Dreamy?”
Sutton jolted back into herself. “Right.”
Parker had an eyebrow raised and a smirk on their face. “What did I just say?”
“Uh, just that we need to get them together?”
They snorted. “Lucky guess.”
“We could host an event?” Juice suggested. “Like, hold a dance or something and invite the Crabs and the Fridays both separately.”
Sutton watched Parker turn it over in their head. “That’s not a bad idea,” they replied. “Do you think we could pull something like that together for tomorrow night?”
Juice blanched. “Tomorrow?” Parker nodded. “I-... I think so. With the three of us working on it, I think we could. I’ll, uh, have to close the bar tomorrow, probably-”
Sutton interrupted, “I mean, if it’s too much trouble-”
“It’s not,” Juice said firmly. “If tomorrow is what you guys need, we can figure it out.”
“Thanks, Juice,” Parker said with a nod.
Sutton stared up at her. “Thanks.”
Juice gave her a little smile. “Don’t mention it.” She gestured back inside. “Let me grab some paper, we can start making a list of what we need to do.”
~
The next day was a rush of activity. Juice kept the bar closed like she’d said she would, and the three of them took it over, planning out the things they’d need. Parker spent most of the morning on flyers, and then blew out the doors to post them up everywhere they could find. Sutton stuck with Juice for the most part, tagging along as she called in a favor to find someone to play music at their little dance, then helping her make punch, then helping her round up the decorations she had hidden somewhere in the bar.
And talking. Sutton had talked more that day than she had in years, not to mention to someone other than Parker. She had expected spending that much time around just one person to be awkward, or get boring, but the more they talked the more it seemed like Juice had to say, and Sutton never stopped being interested.
The last task of the night was decoration hanging. Juice had scrounged up a bundle of string lights, which had to be carefully draped in the trees up on the little hill by the bar that they’d picked out. When Juice spoke, Sutton was up on a chair, hanging a strand of lights around the branch of a tree. Juice was next to her, holding the chair steady. “You guys are leaving after this, right?”
That was still in question, of course - it wasn’t like there was an obvious way to get out of a movie. Still. “That’s the plan, yeah.”
“Sutton, I know we only met yesterday, but…” She sounded nervous. Sutton fought the impulse to look at her. “It’s been really nice hanging out with you. I’m glad we met, even if it was just for a couple days.”
Sutton could feel her heart beating. She glanced at her, smiling. “I am too. You’re, uh, pretty great, Juice.”
Juice blushed. “Thanks.”
Sutton looked away after a second. She leaned forward, adjusting a strand of wire on the tree. The chair stayed steady, but she felt something in the sand shift, and suddenly her heart was dropping out of her stomach as she fell.
But she didn’t hit the ground. Instead, she found herself perfectly in Juice’s arms. Juice smiled down at her. “Careful.”
Sutton gaped. “You caught me.”
She laughed, under her breath. “Should I have just let you fall?”
“No, I just…” Sutton stood, but she didn’t move away. One of Juice’s hands stayed on the side of her arm.
“I just hope you keep in touch when you go,” Juice said softly.
Her heart ached. “I want to,” Sutton replied, and she meant it.
Juice’s smile had a sad edge to it. “Why does that sound like a no?”
“Hey guys!” Sutton whipped her head to the side to see Parker coming up towards them. They raised their eyebrows. “Bad time?”
Sutton shook her head hard and took a step back. “No, uh, not at all.”
Parker looked skeptical, but they nodded. “Everybody’s coming up. It’s go time.”
The Crabs and Fridays slowly filtered in, each new arrival seeming slightly annoyed to see that the other group was there. Juice intercepted Val when she showed up, pulling her over to help set up the sound for the band. That left Parker and Sutton watching for Pedro.
“Do things feel… I don’t know, tense to you?” Parker asked.
Sutton looked out at the growing group of people. There was a decently even spread of bikers and surfers, but they were looking at each other distrustfully. She nodded. “I expected neutral ground to make it better, but…”
Ken’s squad appeared around the corner, Pedro in tow looking anxious. The two of them walked up to the group of Crabs. “Hey guys! Do you guys have drinks yet?” There was a round of slightly-confused negatives. “Okay!” Parker continued. “Pedro and Sutton, do you guys want to go get a round of punch?”
“Okay!” Sutton replied, grabbing Pedro’s arm and starting to steer him away.
Bertie, the tall Crab with the long hair, leaned over. “I could go instead if Pedro doesn’t want to?”
“NOPE, PEDRO’S GOT IT!” Parker shouted.
Sutton cringed as she quickly pulled him the rest of the way out of the group, leading him towards the snack bar.
They were almost at the snack table when Val popped out from around a tree. “Band’s all set up, Sutton, do you need anything-” They locked eyes with the two of them and froze. “Hey, Pedro.”
Sutton felt Pedro tense next to her. “Hey. Uh, long time no see.”
“I got your letters,” Val said softly.
“I’m glad. I’m glad you did.” A pause, then Pedro started to speak again. “Val-”
Before he could say anything else, Pedro was interrupted by shouts from down the hill. Sutton spun around to see Beck in Ken and Finn’s faces, the three of them shouting at each other. “Oh god, excuse me, I have to go.” Val set off down the hill, Pedro close behind her.
“Shit!” Sutton groaned, then set off after them.
She got close enough to hear the words coming out of Finn’s mouth. “-best friend’s willing to drop anybody at a moment’s notice!”
That seemed to be Beck’s limit - she lunged at Finn, fist raised. Parker and Dreamy managed to get between the two of them with the help of some bystanders, pushing them to either side even as they still struggled out towards each other.
“Stop!” Val ran in between them. She had her hands up, placating. “Stop fighting with each other!”
Beck tried again to push past Juice. “Val, babe, I’m not just gonna let them talk bad about you like that-”
“Seriously, Beck, it’s fine. I ditched them out of nowhere, they have every reason to hate me.”
“You did!” Finn crossed her arms. “For no reason.”
Val rubbed at the back of her head. “I had a reason.”
“Then why?” Ken asked.
Val spun around to look back at Pedro. He was staring at the group of them, brow knit - when his eyes met Val’s, he shook his head faintly. “What, Val?”
Val turned back around. She rubbed at her forehead, closed her eyes, spoke loudly, loud enough that everyone could hear. “I had feelings for someone. And I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I ran away.”
Ken, Finn, and Beck were all gaping at them. “Really? For who?” Ken said.
Sutton watched Val take a breath, then turn back around. “Pedro,” he said, “I’m in love with you. And I have been for a long time. I thought that if I left I wouldn’t care as much, but-” They took a shaky breath. “But it didn’t work.”
“Really?” Pedro was staring at them hard, mouth open.
A laugh bubbled out of them. “Really.”
Pedro was next to them a split second later, kissing them hard. The beach broke out into cheers and whoops, plus a full-on wolf whistle from Beck.
Sutton felt Parker sidle up next to her. “Looks like we got it done after all.”
She nodded. “Glad it worked out. I like those two.” She ran a hand back through her hair. “We still don’t know how to get home, though.”
Sutton felt a tap on her shoulder. When she spun around, the short Crabs guy Brock was there. “We have a portal,” he said nonchalantly.
Parker gasped. “Oh fuck, we forgot about the mad scientist subplot.”
“The WHAT?”
They gestured vaguely. “There’s this whole thing with this mad scientist who’s got a weather ray and, like, real estate developers, and-“
“We handled it,” Brock said. “While you were setting up the party.”
“Really?” Parker asked.
He shrugged.
Sutton rubbed at her forehead. “When we get home you need to give me a full plot summary of this thing because it’s apparently way different than I thought it was.”
Brock gestured towards the ocean, just visible from where they were. “If you go back out in the water it should take you away. It seems stable enough to get you back to whatever universe you came here from.”
Sutton stared at him. “How did you know we were from another universe?“
Another shrug. “Theoretical physics. And you stick out a bit.”
“Okay, well… great!” Parker said. “We can leave then. I don’t know about you, Dreamy, but I could use a night in my own bed-“
“Would it work in reverse?”
Brock squinted at her. “What?”
“If I wanted to come back,” Sutton explained. “Is the portal solid enough to bring me here again.”
She watched him think it over. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t be?”
Sutton could feel her heart race. “I- uh, give me one second,” she said, spinning around.
It didn’t take Sutton long to find Juice. She was by the entrance to the bar. She looked up and smiled at Sutton when she approached. “What’s up?”
“I’m leaving.”
Juice froze. “Like, now?”
Sutton nodded. “But, uh, I’m coming back. Probably. Definitely. I don’t know when, but I will.”
She smiled. “Great. I’m, uh, looking forward to it.” There was a pause, and then Juice stepped forward, wrapping Sutton in a hug. It didn’t last long before she stepped back again. “I’ll see you soon, then?”
Sutton nodded again. “You absolutely will.”
Then, Sutton and Parker said the rest of their goodbyes, and disappeared back into the ocean.
~
6 MONTHS LATER
Hawai’i was good. It was hot, unsurprisingly, and rainy a lot of the time, but Sutton liked it. The time difference was the real killer - she spent half her first day on the island wiped as hell from the flight, and calls home were hard to find the time for. Lucky for her, she didn’t just have to rely on phone calls.
Sutton flicked her TV off, knocking out the sound of music. She walked outside, walking down the sidewalk. When she got to the beach, she took off her sandals, leaving them neatly in their usual spot on the sand. She padded across the sand, then into the water, wading in and then lying back.
In the first couple months in Hawai’i, she’d done this enough that she could tell when she switched over. It was something in the cast of the sun, in the blueness of the water - it was perfect in the way only fiction ever was. Sutton swam to shore, that same little beach she’d landed on the first time. She walked over to the edge of the little beach, and could faintly see Parker and Juice, standing out front of the bar.