Page 32 of Meet You in the Waves
Dane left for home to phone Dee, calling out a goodbye as he walked by us on the beach and I waved back, not really wanting to move from exactly where I was.
“I promised you those sparkly thingos,” Nick suddenly recalled, sitting up and looking around.
“You did. I am most disappointed,” I pretended to pout.
“Well, I am nothing if not a man of my word,” he returned. “I just can’t remember where I put them.” He jumped up to look around where we had managed to scatter a whole heap of stuff before returning triumphantly with a packet of sparklers and a lighter.
“For you,” he said, holding a single sparkler out for me. I took it from his hand, smiling like a kid as he lit it up for me. I watched him through the little sparkles of fire as they sizzled between us, his eyes on me until it became too intense so I waved the stick around, painting golden stripes in the air like I used to do when I was a kid. Nick watched the whole time until I started to feel self-conscious, pausing as the sparkler fizzled out.
“You didn’t make one for yourself,” I noted, nodding towards the full packet in his hand.
“Sorry. Got distracted,” Nick replied, shaking his head as he pulled out two more sparklers. He lit them up and we both stood there, watching the sparkles flicker and flare until they were nothing but ash.
“I’ve always loved sparkly thingos,” I said quietly.
Nick just laughed at that, laughed so hard until I joined in until neither of us knew what we were even laughing about anymore.
Rob and Mateo joined us then and I realised most of the others had gone home already and the band had stopped playing. I hadn’t even noticed. There were still small gatherings of other groups along the beach and the foreshore but it was just the four of us still here from Nick’s group.
“Here’s to another year of hijinks, a mountain of good fortune and hookups too plentiful to number,” Rob announced, handing what I could only assume was a marijuana joint to Nick. They both lit up the ends and we all lay back down on the sand which had gone a little cold in the night air.
“Have a try, Tassie,” Rob offered, holding a fresh joint out to me.
“Peer pressure’s not cool, dude,” Nick spoke up from beside me and I looked his way. “You ever tried it before?”
I shook my head. Nope, I’d been a good boy all my life but something about the way Nick lived his life called to me in ways I had never expected. I was envious of the way he approached life. How he approached everything really.
“You want to?” Nick asked, eyes intent on mine. I nodded, waiting a little breathlessly as he shifted closer to me, holding the joint he had been sucking on up to my lips. “Don’t inhale on your first go.”
I sucked on the tip, immediately coughing when the smoke went straight down into my lungs.
“I told you not to inhale,” Nick laughed, patting me on the back while I tried not to choke.
“Let me try again,” I said, holding his eye as he held the joint back up to my mouth. His fingers touched my lips where he was holding the joint and I sucked in a lot more softly this time, managing not to cough. Nick watched me with a soft smile on his face as I lay back to rest my head on my arm beside him, the air warming from his proximity.
He shared the rest of his joint with me and I started to feel a nice light buzz as I looked up at the sky full of stars, contentment settling in my bones.
“Where does your name come from, A-jaaay?” Nick asked from beside me, looking up at the stars as he tried out my name.
“From my sister actually,” I told him. “The story goes that my parents spent the whole nine months arguing over my name. My dad wanted Andrew and my mum wanted James. Emily was four at the time and couldn’t say the names properly, so she started referring to me as Ajay.”
“And it stuck?”
“Well only after I was born. Apparently, Mum took one look at my head full of ringlets and decided she couldn’t give me such a serious name. So Ajay it was.”
“I love that,” Nick mulled. “She was right too. You’re way too cute for a serious name.”
I laughed, the sound nice and mellow in my ears. “What about Nick? Is that short for Nicolas?”
“Nope. Just Nick. My parents weren’t all that creative.”
“I like it. It suits you.”
“Funny how names always seem to grow to suit people.”
“Right. That’s totally a thing.”
A breeze whipped up from the sea and I involuntarily shivered, kind of wishing I’d brought a jumper with me.
