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The late summer sun shines on her skin, turning her golden, and Percy thinks she looks like a goddess. Her blonde hair is tied up in a messy ponytail, and a long strand drapes loose over her shoulder. He has to hold himself back from reaching over and tucking it behind her ear.
It’s the end of August, just a few days after his birthday, and a week before the start of the school year. Their break is almost over, so they’re making the most of their last few days of freedom. Today, that means driving out to the coast as the sun rises and spending the day in the comforting heat of the beach. There’s nothing quite like a beach day with your best friend, Percy thinks to himself. It’s just the two of them, Annabeth having declared that inviting the rest of the group would have been too much, and Percy can’t bring himself to complain.
She’s building a sand castle now, her eyebrows scrunched as she focuses on the piles of sand in front of her. She doesn’t have many tools at her disposal, just an empty tupperware container and some sticks that make for poor shovels, but she’s never let something as small as lack of supplies stop her. And Percy has to admit, she’s doing a good job. The castle has a solid wall surrounding it, arcing around in a large circle. The inner section comprises two matching towers, both around three and a half feet tall, connected with a sand bridge compressed in between. Now, she’s carving a staircase into one of the columns, looping around and up along the side of the tower. He’s really got no idea how she’s managing to accomplish this, but he knows he wouldn’t understand any explanation about cohesion and suspension that she might try to give were he to ask.
Percy, for his part, is also working on a sand castle. Nowhere near as elegant or extravagant as Annabeth’s, his castle is a lopsided dome about two feet in diameter. He looks down at it, tilting his head. It looks more like a turtle than it does any sort of building, he thinks to himself. It’s not at all impressive, so he takes another break to sit and watch Annabeth while she works.
She’d been the one to suggest a sand castle building contest, and he had no interest in turning her down. Not when her face lit up with the idea; her mind already racing with plans. He watches her work now, focused and concentrated as she sculps the small steps out of the sand. It’s moments like this where he sees her future as an architect with full clarity; her vision and skill even in this medium make her innate talent shine.
She looks up now, lips rising into a smirk as she catches him watching her. It moves into a full smile once she inspects his sand castle. “Are you even trying, Perce?” she asks. There’s exasperation in her voice, but it’s light, and he knows her well enough to recognize when she’s just teasing him.
“It’s abstract,” he tells her, which makes her scoff.
“I’m not trying to win by default,” she says. “You have to at least make an effort.”
He shakes his head. “We both know you’d win either way. You’re just really good.” He gestures to her construction, and she preens at the compliment, knowledgeable enough of her own skills to know he’s right.
“I’m almost finished. Make yours look a little better and I’ll let you buy me ice cream,” she says.
“You’ll let me?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.
She nods, her smile smug. “Even though you’re throwing the competition,” she says.
“I don’t know why I put up with you,” he says, rolling his eyes and turning back to his sand castle.
“Because you love me,” she teases, voice light, and there’s no reason for him to argue with that.
He decides to commit to making his sand castle a turtle, so he scoops some sand into piles and molds together a head and legs for his creation. Once its limbs are to his satisfaction, he steals one of Annabeth’s sticks—she glares at him but allows it—and starts drawing out the intricate pattern of the shell. He gets a bit lost in the design, allowing the shapes to expand and multiply. It’s not super realistic—he took Marine Bio last semester, so he has a sense of what turtle shells do look like—but he likes it. He finishes the turtle off by using his stick to draw a smiley face onto its head, and then he stands up, stepping back to admire his work.
He feels a presence at his side, and he turns to see Annabeth standing by his shoulder. Her arms are crossed in front of her and her head is tilted as she looks at the turtle in front of them. “Not bad,” she admits. She’s got some grains of sand sticking to her forehead, and she raises a hand to brush the particles off of her face.
“It’s a turtle,” he tells her.
“Not really a sand castle ,” she says, “But it’ll do.”
He laughs. “I’m glad you’ll allow it, Princess.” She scrunches her nose at the nickname, and it makes him want to kiss her. He doesn’t, of course. He just wants to.
That’s been a feeling he’s had a lot recently, wanting to kiss her, or hold her close, or even just touch her hand. There’s something about her that just draws him in, makes him want to be near her. In ways that are more than what best friends should want to do. It’s just—it’s Annabeth ; the smartest person he’s ever met, who bullies him for his messy hair and choice of movies and who comes over for dinner with him and his mom more often than not. He knows that she’s beautiful—he’s known that for years, how could he not?—and now that senior year is just around the corner, which means college and leaving home aren’t too far away either, it’s just all the more obvious. But as much as he wants to kiss her, and run his hands through her messy blonde hair, and maybe fall asleep with her wrapped in his arms, even more than that he wants to keep their friendship. He doesn’t want to risk what they already have just because he’s gone and gotten a crush on her. So he’ll keep from kissing her or doing any other stupid or romantic thing if it means keeping her in his life. He can live with that. He has for nearly eight years at this point.
She leans against him now, the warmth of her skin not unpleasant even in the late heat. “Buy me ice cream?” she asks, voice light. She’s always been open with physical affection, at least with him. He knows not to read into it, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate it.
He looks over at her sand castle again. She’s even carved windows into the two towers, and some of the roofs have little tiles laid on them. “Of course.” He gestures to her castle with his chin. “You’ve outdone yourself, you know,” he tells her.
She knocks her shoulder against his with enough force that he almost stumbles. “Don’t be jealous,” she says.
“Never,” he says in response.
There’s an ice cream shop only a few minutes away, back on the main road. They pack up their things, folding up the giant umbrella his mom had insisted they bring. He glances over at Annabeth as she puts her books back into her bag. She’s wearing a light blue one piece, the color of coral, or the sky before the sun has fully risen. It contrasts the tan of her skin beautifully, and the cut of it shows off her muscular legs. He looks away.
He busies himself with putting away the rest of their food. They’d had a wonderful picnic for lunch, and they’d eaten almost everything, but there are still a few remaining peaches and half a bag of potato chips that he can slide into his bag.
“Do you have a shirt I can wear?” he hears her ask, so he looks up again. She’s rummaging through her bag, and frowning, obviously not finding what she’s looking for. “I thought I brought a cover-up but it’s not in here.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” he says. He grabs his button up from in his bag and tosses it her way, watching as she pulls it on. It’s white and short sleeved, just something light he’d brought along just in case, and his heart nearly stops in his chest when she stands up wearing it. It’s big on her, which doesn’t make much sense because he’s not even that much bigger than her, and there’s something about Annabeth wearing his clothes that makes his brain slow to process things. “Oh, uh…” he says, blinking. She’s left it unbuttoned, and it drapes over her shoulders and down her side. She’s pulled on a pair of jean shorts, which manage to make her legs look even longer.
Annabeth misinterprets his stammering. “It looks silly, doesn’t it?” she says, frowning at herself and trying to flatten some of the wrinkles with her hands.
“No! No, it’s— you’re— you’re cute,” he manages.
There’s a beat of silence before she responds, and he hopes he didn’t cross a line. “Okay, weirdo,” she says, rolling her eyes at him. She slings her backpack over her shoulder and grabs the folded up umbrella. “You ready?” He nods, not quite able to find any words, and follows after her.
She orders vanilla ice cream, like she always does, and she hits him with her elbow when he calls her predictable. He orders chocolate moose tracks with hot fudge and rainbow sprinkles, and she pretends to gag at all the sugar. In the heat, both of their ice cream cones start to melt quickly, and they both end up with sticky and sugary hands once they’ve finished. She wipes her hands off by rubbing them on Percy’s arm, and he gets her back by pressing his cheek against her shoulder, smearing the chocolatey mess onto her skin. She shrieks and starts to push him away, but dissolves into laughter almost immediately.
“You are so gross,” she tells him through her laughs.
The sun is starting to set by the time they finish and head back to the car. Percy’s skin feels warm, from both the day in the sun and the contentment that fills him. They keep bumping against each other, shoulders knocking as they walk. A few times, the back of his hand brushes against hers, and he wonders if she notices it as much as he does. He’s sweaty, sandy, and still a bit sticky from the ice cream, and he knows he’s at least a little bit burnt, and he doesn’t remember the last time he felt so happy.
“This was really fun,” Annabeth says once they’re back in the car, buckling their seat belts and getting ready for the drive home.
He hums in agreement. “We gotta do it again before it gets cold.”
He rolls the windows down and they drive out of the parking lot, neither talking as they listen to the roar of the waves for a minute more. The sky, a brilliant blue not too long ago, shifts into pink and purple and orange. Percy looks over at her. She’s curled up in the passenger seat, legs tucked beneath her, and her smile is soft but full. Her hair is down now, out of the ponytail from before and curling around her shoulders; windswept and tangled. She looks back at him, and her smile grows. “I love you, Perce,” she says, like a promise.
He smiles back at her, ever fond. “And I love you.”
She reaches across the middle console and grabs his hand, squeezing it with her own. And just like that, they drive home together.