ONWARD IMAGINES

Beach Day | Ian Lightfoot

sorry my updates are slow now but adult life is dumb and busy and annoying. i'm either making burritos at chipotle or doing online college classes and no i'm not happy about it

i'm going on a trip today so i won't be writing much for a week or so, but i am writing ahead of time to give you guys plenty of updates! this is for jarvisdropmyneedle07 because ian is her everything lol <3 and this is just a bunch of straight up fluff at the beach

/ / /

School was out for the summer, and you couldn't be more relieved to be on a break. Even though you had a summer job that you were starting in a couple of weeks, you at least had a few days where you could just breathe. And there was no one you'd rather spend those days with than your best friend Ian.

And today was your first beach day of the summer. Laurel had planned to take her boys and new husband to spend a day of fun with her family, and Ian asked you to come along too. And now Laurel's green car was parked in front of your house, and you were dragging your bag with your sunscreen, water bottle, towel, and a change of clothes and plopping it all in the back of the trunk. You wore your favorite swim suit and cover up, which was really Ian's t-shirt.

"Thank you for inviting me on your family beach day," you said as you got in the car. You smiled at Ian and slipped your sunglasses up to rest on your hair and away from your eyes. 

"H-Hey, you're wearing my shirt," he stammered.

"Oh, yeah," you said, glancing down at the front of it. It was his old grey t-shirt from chess club. "I was going to use it as a swimsuit cover, since you left it at my house for so long. But I don't have to."

"No, it's yours! I just forgot about it, honestly," he said, shrugging nonchalantly. But in reality he had been thinking about it since he left it purposefully on the chair in your room, hoping you would wear it.

You settled in your seat with a smile. "Okay," you breathed. Then, you glanced past Ian. "Hey Barley. What's up?"

/ /

The air was hot, the sand was blistering, but the water was so cool that you sighed in relief as it lapped against your ankles. Ian and Barley plopped their chairs on a good spot and you spread out your beach blanket to make a good area to hang out on.

You splashed around in the shallow for a bit, splashing Ian and Barley with saltwater as you all laughed and tried to dodge the waves and the spewing water. You and Ian looked at the small fish that swam around your feet. You found shells, collecting them and rinsing them to put in your plastic bucket. You sat on the sand and let the water wash over you. Barley disappeared to go read for a while, eating from a giant bag of chips. Laurel and Colt were taking a walk together.

"This is so fun," you said. The warm water washed over you, knocking you and Ian back only slightly. You both laughed and you sighed happily. "I'd forgotten how fun the beach was. It's been a while since I've been here for longer than a couple of hours. I never want to go home."

"We do this, like, every weekend during the summer," Ian said. 

"Really?"

"Yeah," he said. "It's a lot of fun."

"It sounds fun," you said. "I'm totally jealous." You lifted your hand out of the water, letting the wet sand crumble out of your hand. A couple of pink shells sat in your palm, shining in the sunlight. 

He smiled hopefully, thinking of you wearing his shirt again and you sitting next to him in the car and all of the fun that he had been having today. "You know... if you really want, you could come every time. I mean, it'd be fun. I think."

"You mean that?" you asked. "Oh, I don't want to intrude---"

"You aren't! You couldn't." He looked down and scooped sand with one hand. He spread his fingers and let it crumble to the ground. "I like that you're here with us."

You grinned, a fluttering feeling spreading through your stomach. "Then I guess I'll come around with you more often."

"Nice," he said, nodding.

"Hey, Ian! ___!" Barley had his feet in the water a ways past the spot you'd made. He waved his arms. "Come here and look at this monstrous crab I found! The thing is huge!" 

Ian laughed. "It sounds important. Should we go see?"

"Oh of course," you said. You struggled to stand up as the waves knocked against you harder. With a snickering laugh, you toppled right into Ian. He grabbed you by your arms and blushed hard as he gently pushed you back to where you could stand. Your hands locked around his for the briefest moment, and everything was almost silent for a moment, with only the sound of the crashing waves and the shrieking seagulls. 

"Guys!" Barley yelled, "If you wait any longer, you're totally gonna miss him and I promise you you'll regret it for the rest of your lives! Come on!" 

You looked away from Ian's softened eyes and nodded in Barley's direction. "You hear that, Ian? Barley says if we miss it, we're going to regret it for the rest of our lives. Come on, we can't mess around when there's something that important to see!"

Ian laughed, "I'm coming, I'm coming!" You ran through the water, splashing it all over as you hurried over to his brother. Ian followed you through the shallow water, feeling pretty sure that one of these days, he'd gather up the courage to kiss you right here on the beach by the end of the summer. Yeah, he'd definitely kiss you before August rolled around.