beaaaaaaaaaaaaaach

The sun was bright, the water was clear, and Rainer was.. Slightly embarrassed. When she got to her cabin and turned it upside down looking for something to wear, she realised. She doesn't have a bathing suit. So she rushed to the camp store, where the choices were less than disappointing. It was either a flashy florescent green bikini, or a maroon, unflattering one piece. The rest were even worse. The Aphrodite kids really don't let anyone get the good stuff. Rainer hadn't found a decent eyeliner pencil in months. Which was fine, she thought she looked fine without it, but she was starting to get sick of the bargain brand. 

So there Rainer was, clad in a bright green bathing suit, pink flip flops, and covered up by a huge purple towel. She brought her bright pink cooler filled with various sodas, as many as she could fit. Mostly Cokes, because hey, who doesn't love a good Coke? She looked around for Jerry, but was starting to get really nervous. The butterflies in her stomach were something serious. She decided it was better to wait somewhere he could find her easily. Setting down her cooler, she decided on a spot about ten feet from the waves. Some of the spray got her and she realised the water was really cold. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. Cold water is never good, cold water causes hypothermia, hypothermia causes death. Funny, she thought. Water wasn't usually a threat. Maybe she was just paranoid, nervous about.. Whatever this is. Is it a date? She didn't even know. Probably not, she only knew the guy for an hour, that doesn't even equate to an actual friendship. She just thought he was really cute, she couldn't deny that.

Jerry looked around the beach for Rain. He had decided to wear just his swimming trunks, which showed the scar on his left arm from his fight with a cannibal some years back. He was proud of his scars. Well. Two of them. His third one wasn't a big story, and was kind of embarrassing. Nonetheless, he wore them all proudly. As he scanned the beach, he finally found Rain. She was sat next to a cooler, likely for drinks, rather close to the water line.

Jerry walked over to her, barefoot, enjoying the feeling of sand between his toes. "Hey Rain." He said as he set his bundle of extra clothes next to the cooler. As he set down his shoes on top of the bundle, he notices her pink flip flops and says, "Nice flops," Before rolling out his towel and sitting on one side of it.

Rain smiled at Jerry, pulling the towel away from herself and spreading it out on the sand next to him. "Th-Thanks. I like pink, if you couldn't tell." God, this bathing suit was horrendous. Rain sat down next to him and opened the cooler. "Want one?" she asked him, pushing a strand of blond hair behind her ear. She should have gotten a hair tie, too. She pulled out a Classic Coke out of her cooler and cracked it open. "I've got lots, I've got Sprite and lemonade and even that Yoohoo stuff, that's like, canned chocolate milk? It's kind of really good." She fiddled with the straps of her bikini, frowning a little bit. It wasn't too bad, Jerry didn't seem to hate it. So that was good.

"I think I'll have a Sprite." Jerry says as he smiles at Rain. He notices that while Rain's flip flops are pink, her suit was more or less a neon green. A strange combination, to be sure. It must have been the only good enough option at the camp store or something. Regardless, he decided to ignore that fact, as Rain was still undeniably beautiful. "Unless you have tea in there, then i'll have one of those." He amends.

Rain digs through her cooler, hoping there was magically some sort of tea in there. "Nope, sorry." She pulls out a Sprite and hands it to Jerry. She takes a sip of her own soda and smiles big. "The day is beautiful, isn't it? I should have come here instead of the courtyard, it's prettier here. But if I hadn't, I wouldn't have met you!" She reached over and poked his nose softly with her index finger. She giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. She was trying to be cute, but she probably came off as stupid or something. Boys did that to her. This particular boy had an especially strong affect.

"It is a beautiful day" Jerry says as he takes the soda with a nod of his head in thanks. "The beach is a nice place to just watch and calm down." He smiles as Rain pokes his nose. It was cute, but he thought nothing of it. He wipes the condensation off the can and opens it, taking a quick swig. "Thankfully it's not alcohol," He mutters to himself.

Rain shrugged. "I dont drink to begin with, so. It's just, like, fermented plants. I love plants and all that but not rotten ones. I had a rotten strawberry once and I threw up my entire lunch and was sick for a few days. It was so crazy cause it looked fine but the inside was so bad and I just shoved the whole thing in my mouth." She made a grossed out face. "It definitely wasn't pleasant."

She slipped off her flip-flops and buried her feet in the warm sand. She loved how the grains felt against her toes. Everything at camp was so beautiful, even the sand. How crazy was that?

"Alcohol has a horrible taste. Some of my friends back before camp once switched my tea with a similar looking drink. Before I realized it smelled wrong, I'd taken a big swig of it, and I coughed it all out." Jerry crosses his legs and takes a sip of his Sprite. "That was the last time I'd hung out with those guys." Jerry looked out at the water while slowly spinning the soda in it's can. "And I don't regret leaving those ones one bit."

Rainer frowned. "That's horrible!" She exclaimed. "Good thing you left them, they don't deserve your company anyways." She set her soda down in a small depression in the sand, preventing it from falling. She touched a small seashell nearby, flipping it to the colored side, where it was a beautiful rosy color. "I've had alcohol maybe twice. It really burns and isn't really pleasant."

"No, not pleasant at all." Jerry says as he sets his own soda into the sand. "Some of the most disgusting drinks in the world, I'd say." Jerry looks around for something smooth close to where the two of them were sitting. Finding nothing except shells within stretching distance, he gives up trying to find something and thinks to himself, oh well. He does, however, pick up a rather colorful shell. "Were you tricked into drinking it?" He asks Rain.

Rain looks up from her shell, turning her head towards Jerry. "No, I wanted to try it. My dad used to drink a lot at parties and stuff and he'd let me have a sip sometimes. But like I said, after a couple times I just refused." She smiled, showing the tiniest bit of teeth.

"He sounds like a very supportive father." Jerry says turning to look at Rain. "Did you two get along well at home?" He asks curiously. However, as he's looking at Rain, Jerry finds himself getting lost in her eyes, which sparkle marvelously. Rather similarly to the way the ocean sparkled when the sun hit it right. It was quite a sight.

"Uhm." Rainer set her elbow on her knee, and then placed in her chin in her hand. "He wasn't terrible if that's what you're asking. But he definitely wasn't the most supportive. The thing is, he's not like me at all. I mean, I'm a daughter of Demeter, right? So I'm all like, plants and rabbits and strawberries." She laughed a little bit and took a long drink of her Coke. "He's a hunter. Like, full out, Elk-head-above-the-fireplace sort of hunter. I have no idea how my mother could stand him. When I was younger, like ten, and this was a couple years before camp, I became vegetarian because it just felt better than eating lots of red meat, and he wasn't supportive at all. I lived off chips for a while before he decided to help me with it." She shrugged. "He's not a bad guy, just, really stubborn. And a killer but hey, it's his life."

"Just chips? Sounds like a fun diet," Jerry said before thinking. "Hmm. Then again, it would get old eventually. One of my friends took on a dare to eat nothing but his favorite food for a month. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He almost made it through the month before he started hating pizza like it was trying to kill him." Jerry picked up his Sprite and took a quick swig before putting it back in the sand. "Honestly, I'm not sure why he took the dare. But he broke the streak, and he owed his brother a hundred dollars." He chuckled at how absurd he was making his friends sound.

Rainer laughed aloud. "Your friends are weird. A month is way too long to live off of pizza. I'd do a week at most." She laughed a little more, and quieter. She moved a little closer towards Jerry so their knees touched

"A month of pizza. Nothing but pizza." Jerry said half to himself. "He did like a whole lot on his pizza, so it was two or three different kinds of pizzas. And he hated all of them by the end." He noticed that Rain had moved closer, although he wasn't sure why. "Some would probably think of it as a blessing, being able to eat their favorite food for every meal, but gods above, I don't think I'd take a dare like that."

"Pizza is really good." Rainer smiled towards Jerry and took another drink of her coke. Oh, it was gone. "I think I'd take the dare if it were like, a certain pizza place's menu instead of just pizza. Like, then some days you could have wings or pasta instead. Though that probably wouldn't be like the original dare at all. You could have lots of variety, and I guess the dare was just pizza." She bit her lip. "Yeah, nevermind, then."

"Well I suppose you could say that on certain days you'll have one kind of pizza, say a simple sausage pizza or something. And then another set of days you'll have something else, like Mushroom pizza. Then you'd fulfill the dare. But then you might get worn out on the cheese and sauce." Jerry picked up his can and swished it around, finding that it was almost empty. He sighed and downed the rest of his Sprite. "You have any bags in there?" He asks, indicating the cooler.

"Bags of what?" Rainer asked, starting to open up the cooler. Did he mean bags of chips, or like, Caprisun? She had no idea. She'd probably been at camp too long and bags was the new name for some new beverage. It happened a lot. Like, she didn't know what a "tumblr" is for a really long time. Without internet and few friends, she didn't know lots of modern things. That didn't bother her except in situations where everyone else knew, and she didn't know anything.

"Just bags to put junk in. Plastic grocery bags." He says as he upturns his can of Sprite. "Don't want to litter the beach with cans and soda." He says turning to watch Rain. Gods above, she is beautiful, he thinks to himself. He found himself admiring her. Not like his friends admired girls they found 'hot', but just admiring her.

Rain shook her head. "No, no bags. Didn't think about that. You can just set it down, I'll take care of it later." She ran a hand through her hair, shaking it out and trying to make it more voluminous. Boys liked that, right? "I'll have to take care of it anyway, if we didn't, I'm sure the naiads would tattle and we'd have to clean the whole beach by ourselves." She shrugged, crushing her can. "I wouldn't mind spending more time with you, but I'm not big on cleaning big things alone."

Jerry shrugged. "Oh well." He says as he sticks his can upside down into the small sand pit he had made to hold it up earlier. "Spending time with you is fun. But purposely getting in trouble isn't, that's for sure." He says with a small smile. Unlike a lot of the people Jerry had seen around camp in his days, he found Rain's beauty a lot more soft. Everyone else he had seen always seemed to be trying to be too perfect.

Rainer giggled. "I'm glad you enjoy my company!" She ran her hands up and down her legs, realizing she'll probably burn soon if she didn't do something about it. But she didn't bring any sunblock either. Oh boy, time to mentally prepare for days of peeling. Oh well. As long as it wasn't as bad as the last time.. Oof, she got blisters and everything.. Not pleasant.

Jerry smiled softly and said "Your company is better than most. Talking with you doesn't feel forced, and I just feel comfortable being around you." He thought he could feel his cheeks turning red, Though whether that was from being out in the sun on the beach or talking to such a beautiful girl, he wasn't entirely sure. He looked away from Rain and instead focused on his feet for a moment.

Rainer blushed a bit. A lot. She knew it was a lot because her face got a lot hotter than it was already. "I feel the same way. I hate talking to people I have to try around. But, you're easy to talk to, and that's great." She smiled, finding it endearing that he seemed flustered. She was nothing to be flustered over, she thought.