For adelate: "Nick/JC? And, um. Set on the beach. And I realize it'd be a bit AUish, but if neither were famous, that'd be great."

He'd been born near the water but the Chesapeake was nothing like the Atlantic, and when his father had been transfered to Orlando and they'd gotten a house thirty miles from the ocean, that had been the one thing that had kept him from digging his heels in and refusing to go with them. At first it had been for weekends only, taken him at least an hour and a half on public transportation to get anywhere near the ocean, walking the last two miles with his board strapped to his back and a flannel shirt tied over his wetsuit to keep away the early morning chill, but sixteen had come soon enough and the car with it and after that he'd seen sunrise over the Atlantic every morning before shaking the sand out of his hair and making his reluctant way to school just in time for the first bell.

Summer that year brought the usual flood of tourists, all seeking the genuine Florida experience, too stupid to realize that the best time to visit was in March or April, before the heat and the humidity started their annual war to see how many people they could drive inside or kill. JC ignored them with the ease of long practice as he threw down his bag and his towel, staking out his section of the beach near the tipped-over and not-yet-tenanted lifeguard tower.

"'Scuse me," came the voice from beside him, and he turned his head to see a young man, tall and lanky with an endearing smile and California surfer-blond hair falling in his eyes. He was wearing a wetsuit, a good suit, but it looked well-loved and scuffed up, not pristine and new.

JC was faintly irritated, because he hated to be interrupted in the morning, especially by tourists, and the kid was obviously new here, because otherwise he would have known not to bug JC. The regulars all respected him, respected his desire to be left alone. "Yeah," he said, with just enough of an edge of fuck-off to hopefully convey the message.

"I think you dropped this," the kid said, and handed him a piece of folded paper.

JC started to say that no, he hadn't, he hadn't been there long enough to drop anything, but the kid had already turned and walked away, picking up his own board as he went and hitting the waves at an easy lope. JC sighed and opened the paper up, then blinked at it, because it said in neat handwriting: "Saw you out here all last week. I just moved out here from Santa Maria. The guys say you're a loner, but you've got a nice smile and I like the way you ride a wave. Give me a call if you'd like to get coffee some morning; if not, no worries, see you around. Nick (555-2841)"

JC narrowed his eyes against the early-morning light and squinted at the waves. The kid had good balance. He tucked the paper in the cut-off jeans shorts shoved in the bottom of his bag, picked up his own board, and walked down to the water's edge to join him.

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