Monthly Bonus Content #2—Beach Trip (Part 2) (Patreon)

“Who’s up for a sandcastle?” I suggest after an hour of relaxing in the warm shade.

“What’s a sandcastle?” Felix asks.

I glance over at him, his body stretched out beside mine. He hadn’t returned to his own recliner, so we remained squished up together on one.

“You’ve never made a sandcastle?” I ask, my mouth falling open.

“I have to admit I have also never made a sand castle, though I’m eager to try now,” Nat admits, making my jaw fall even further.

I frown. “I’m guessing it wasn’t a childhood right of passage for you guys then?”

They glance at each other before shaking their heads.

Felix shrugs and balances on his elbows. “It’s not exactly like I lived at the beach where I came from, you know.”

“And my family didn’t really permit such…activities for children,” Nat explains with a slightly sheepish smile. “Did Rebecca often do these kinds of things with you?”

A slight tug strains at my chest but I brush it off with a cough. “No, my mother wasn’t really one for family trips. I did it during a school trip to the beach.”

Quiet interrupts the previous relaxed moment, Nat thankfully breaking it as she stands from her towel with a bright smile.

“Well, you’ll have to teach us both now seeing as you’re the expert here,” she states.

I chuckle. “I wouldn’t say expert.”

She walks on ahead, turning for a moment back to us her, opaque sarong flowing around her legs. “Are you two coming?”

Felix and I end up trying to stand at the same time, the recliner almost folding up around us as we do, but we fight our way through it and stumble onto our feet.

“What about you two?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder to Ava and Mason.

“I’ll stay here,” Mason says through a stream of grey smoke as he drags the cigarette out from between his lips. “The sun isn’t exactly my favourite place to be.”

I move my gaze to Ava. “And you?”

“I am more than happy as a spectator, Detective.”

“You sure?” I spread my hands out. “We could always make it a little friendly competition, if you want?”

Her lips twitch at the corner.

“No, we won’t!” Felix shouts back. “Fun only. No competition. Stop enabling her, Detective!”

I roll my eyes but release a light laugh. “Sorry. I tried.”

“Honestly, I am just glad to see you all enjoying yourselves.” A true smile creases her features, even adding a warmth to her pale green eyes. “It is enough for me.”

“All right then,” I say before turning and taking off across the sand, my feet sinking into its soft depths as I try to push through.

I drop to my knees beside where the others are already getting started. I pause when I look over at Felix’s construction.

It’s already partly finished…and has turrets.

“Are you kidding me? I thought you didn’t know how to build sandcastles?” I groan, piling some of my own damp sand up into a pathetic pile.

“The name was kind of self-explanatory, plus I’m a quick learner,” he comments with a grin that washes away my moaning.

Thankfully, Nat’s is about as simple as mine as we continue to build.

After a couple of hours, we end up with a small village of block-shaped sand houses, overseen by Felix’s castle, which now includes a detailed moat.

“Shame it’s all going to be washed away soon,” Felix says, his shoulders drooping.

The sea is already playing at our ankles, biting into the side of one of my sand houses and eroding away the kitchen.

“But we’ll always have the memory of it,” Nat adds, wrapping an arm about his shoulders. “And this moment.”

He brightens instantly. “I guess I can’t argue with that.”

And so, I stand, basking in the warmth of the summer sun, presiding over a crumbling sand town I built with Nat and Felix, watched over by the careful, loyal gazes of Ava and Mason behind us.

I’ve never felt more included. More loved. More wanted.

More like a family.