If this was a scene in a show, this episode would probably be called The Black Wolves Summer Special or some cornball shit like that.
Though, I couldn't deny that I was happy to see my girls there waiting for me.
As I made my way over, I felt the spray of water smack my face from the side.
When I looked to where it came from, Havoc was there, feet away with a soaker pointed right at me, wearing only green swim trunks.
Then from behind, another smack of water hit the back of my head.
I glanced sidelong, and there was Brand in red swim trunks, accompanied by Havoc's obnoxious cackle.
"Forgive me Captain! That hooligan over there told me to do it!" Brand proclaimed, bowing profusely to me.
"That so?" I said as I grabbed an unsliced banana from the platter I was still carrying, and chucked it toward Brand's face.
Havoc's guffaw became more annoying as he witnessed the scene. And that's when I turned back to him.
His laughter halted, sensing an ominous aura emanating from me.
"Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!" the girls sang as I crept closer.
He gulped. Then in a few beats, he dashed off into the water.
I gripped the edges of the platter, and readied my sprint.
"Fucker. Running away!?" I said as I bolted.
But right at my first step, the sand below my foot hollowed, and I fell into a deep pit.
The platter flew upward before falling back down, as a mysterious hand caught it, along with all its contents, catching a diced fruit and eating it effortlessly.
"Who's hungry?" Nash shouted as the girls raised their hands eagerly, followed by their cheer.
"Nash! What the fuck!" I yelled from below.
"Havoc's idea. Kill him later."
He walked off, flaunting his floral swim trunks that seemed a bit too short, but displayed his hard-earned thigh and calf muscles.
"Get me out of here you asshole!"
Before I could gripe any further, a slender hand reached down into the darkness I was in.
The moment was symbolic of that time when I had first laid my eyes on her after recovering my memories.
She was the light—the sun who's rays beamed down into my darkness.
"Need a hand?"
Belle's pretty eyes flickered at me as she replaced the sun for a moment.
I smirked and took it, then I was out.
"What are these pathetic snacks…? Code!?" Star bellowed just as I exited the pit.
"CAN YOU BE PATIENT FOR ONE GODDAMN MINUTE!?" he shouted back as he at last arrived through the double doors of the Den with an entire feast on a large serving tray. He looked even more ridiculous in his sun hat and sunglasses he wore along his yellow short-sleeved button-up, and pink swim trunks.
The bark of a large wolfdog followed as Yuna accompanied him, running circles around him until she was met with a spray of water from both Havoc and Brand, and then chasing them back down into the water.
Code almost tripped as they continued their shenanigans.
"You idiots! If I drop this shit, you make your own food!"
Belle snagged two drinks on the serving tray as he passed by, then handed one to me.
"Surprise!" she said cutely. "Well… sorta. You already knew we were coming here, but still!"
I took a sip from my Long Island Iced Tea.
"Hold on," I said as I whipped my head around, scanning the area; I only found vast trees and distant mountains that wrapped around this entire lake. But what surprised me most was the clear blue skies with only partial clouds. "We are still in the Mountain, right?"
Belle tilted her head and raised a brow. "Um… yeah. Tahoe Lake, remember?"
I kept scanning the area, scouting for any signs of danger or threat.
And then Belle sighed. "Keeper… Do you ever relax besides during sex?"
I returned a subtle incredulous look of my own.
"Daz and Alice have it handled. That's all you need to know."
Not sure why, but just hearing her say that actually did relax me a little. Even when Daz had said it earlier, I still couldn't stop stressing about it. There was a part of me that was constantly paranoid to no end. I admitted that. But against Belle's words, it was like I was not allowed to stress any longer.
I watched the group banter as Code arrived with their main entrées—mostly assorted sashimi, king lobstercrab legs, lobstercrab risotto, crispy skin eelsalmon, and pan-seared clamscallops.
"Now that's more like it!" Star crooned as she snapped a lobstercrab leg and went to town.
Near shore, Milo revved her jet ski and zoomed off, nearly hitting Nyx, who was on a yellow floatie nearby, drifting off into the water.
"Hey, watch it!" he said as he fixed his sunglasses and continued to sunbathe.
"Since when did we have a jet ski?" I asked.
"Since Milo made one from the scraps in the Den storage," Belle replied.
"Didn't take her for a mechanic… Uh… she didn't take apart 1st Exec's motorbike, right?"
"No, in fact, she fixed it, and is keeping it upkeep," Ulrich said from behind as he joined us, wearing a white tank, trendy blue swim trunks, and floaties on his arms, looking a tad sunburnt. "And speaking of storage… It took me forever, but I finally found it!"
I stared at him with the best thrilled expression I could make. Though it was closer to a scowl than anything else.
He slammed the object down in front of us as he fixed his gleaming sunglasses, and said, "Oh, this? This is the DragonGator DG20SF Seafoam 20 Qt. Rotomolded Outdoor Ice Chest! In custom baby blue…"
"So, a cooler."
"Not just ANY cooler! This baby is a state of the art, limited edition set, with pop out sides imbued with Dimensional Territory Space magic to allow for additional content holdings! It even has its own ice dispenser machine on the inside, so you don't have to constantly maintain it! AND it's coated with a bulletproof wrap; this baby is the definition of STONK! This is a beauty! Only twenty-five of these actually exist! And the fact that it was just gathering dust in the Den storage is utterly baffling!"
Why does a cooler need to be bulletproof…?
"Oh… I remember now. I bought that for Code back in the day, but he said he already had one. See?" I pointed to the 'state of the art' cooler ahead with the group. It was black with the engraved words 'Master of the Beach' on the front of it.
Ulrich's gasp could have receded the waves. His eyes were like stars as he beheld the… cooler…
"BY THE HOLY KEEPER! A CUSTOM, JET BLACK DRAGONGATOR DG20SF SEAFOAM 20—"
Belle and I left him, joining the rest of the crew ahead. He still beat us there, having jetted toward the thing.
Before I knew it, Ophelia had permeated from the ground, and sneaked in a hug from behind; her breasts pressed against my back. "Glad you could join us, Greedy," she crooned in my ear.
"How long was I out?"
"An hour and a half. We were already here for over thirty minutes before you finally woke up."
I glanced at Belle, and she held a cheerful smile on her face—eyes closed. But I noticed a twitch from her eyebrow…
"All right, Ophy, you need to get off," I said to her.
She giggled and passed through me. "Geez… So stingy now."
I glanced at Belle again, and her eyebrow stopped twitching, followed by a subtle sigh of relief.
"Anyway," I broke the slightly awkward tension. "How are both you and Raeyn out at the same time?"
I pointed to them both. Raeyn who was enjoying her drink on a towel next to Jo, with half her Black Wolves jacket on one shoulder, and Ophelia… who had managed to steal my drink without me noticing…
"That would be me," Alice answered, keeping to herself and enjoying a blue lemonade. "You know I can make clones, right?"
"Yeah, but how— and with her personality? She is real, right?"
"Sort of," Alice replied. "And technically, it's Ophelia who is the clone here. Raeyn is the real one."
Ophelia made a peace sign as she said this.
"Basically, I had her imagine her sister with her consciousness in my Pink Room, but since we're out of it, she will only last for a moment. Long enough for our stay, at least."
"Cool."
"If only we knew lil missy back in the day, huh? You, me, and Raeynie could have had TONS of fun…" Ophelia leaned forward to say; her cleavage exposed to us all, with me in dead center view…
Raeyn, Belle, and Jo's faces instantly turned red—their emotions synced.
"I might have let too much of her imagined consciousness slide…" Alice commented.
Then Nash's bellowing laughter chimed in as he pointed an obnoxious finger at them. "Look at their faces!" he said, then mocked them with a stupid expression of his own.
In an instant, he froze in a block of ice, but just as quickly, it shattered as he continued laughing like nothing happened.
"Grr! I'm gonna waste all those damn Lives of yours here on this fucking beach!" Jo barked.
Then Nash said, "Especially you Rae—"
Suddenly, a dark and ominous scythe hovered over Nash's head. "Not another word from you… Not. Another. Word." Raeyn warned him. "If there's anyone who can reverse your Adaptations, it's me."
"Wanna bet?" Nash threatened back with a wicked smile.
There was an awkward tension in the air for a moment. But then Nash broke away. "Sorry folks, but Nash has gotta dash!"
He brushed her off, pushing the blade of her scythe to the side gently with his index finger, and he walked away, pulling out his comm to start a live video. "What is good, my loyal followers! Today, we're taking a much needed unwind in a place you'd never guess! The fucking Mountain! Don't ask me how, just revel in the fact that we're out here!"
Jo ground her teeth as she made a popsicle for herself to cool off. Raeyn calmed as well, composing herself with eyes closed and a trail of nervous sweat down the side of her face like she had just dodged some kind of confrontation; her scythe had disappeared just as quickly back into her shadow.
The hell was that about… Thinking about it now; I haven't ever seen Nash and Raeyn interact before. Well, maybe they had and I just never witnessed it. I still pocketed that moment, regardless.
I relaxed on the blanket at last. From the girls' banter to Code and Star arguing that she's eating all the food, while Ulrich admired his cooler, and Kiki was subconsciously sorting all the beach items for no apparent reason aside from turning them all into her toon minions, to Nash streaming in the water while Havoc, Brand, and Yuna were chasing and shooting each other with soakers, and Milo in the distance, zooming on her crafted jet ski. I had the urge to pinch myself because days like these were few and far between.
"Teddy, try this!" Star said as she shoved an enormous deshelled lobstercrab claw in my mouth.
"Vrry gud…" I muttered, chewing a mouthful.
As I ate it up, Ophelia grabbed a volleyball that Kiki had turned into toon. "Oooo Alice, manifest a net, please!" The toon ball chuckled.
"You do realize the more things I manifest outside of my Room, the quicker your time limit to be present is, right?"
"Stick-in-the-muds say 'what?'"
"What?"
Ophelia giggled just as Alice realized and scowled.
"Come on! Don't be a party pooper!"
"I warned you…" Alice said as she reluctantly obliged, manifesting a large volleyball net from the ethers before us.
Before I knew it, they had their teams: Ophelia, Alice, Kiki, and Brand vs. Raeyn, Jo, Ulrich, Havoc, and Star, with Code as the reluctant referee, and Nyx as the cheerleader for Jo's team.
"Check it out, tubs, we're on the same team!" Havoc said.
"Y-Yeah…"
"You stay in the middle, if we need assist, your belly will be the rebound!"
"That's not how you should be stationing positions! That's also not a legal move!" Ulrich shouted as they bantered on.
"Hey, no fair! You have Raeynie, Annie, AND Star? Talk about overkill," Ophelia whined as Raeyn stood there with a dull nervousness, Jo looked as bored as ever, and Star was practicing illegal swings in the background of Havoc and Ulrich's relentless back-and-forth.
"Not to worry, Lady Ophelia, I am here!" Brand declared.
"Pfft, Lady?" She giggled.
"And when Milo gets back from jet skiing, I claimed her as well! She's ruthless at Boko!" Kiki added.
"Boko's a different sport, Miss Kiki," Ophelia replied.
"It's similar! Look, you just hit the ball like this—and like this—and like this—haya!"
"We need substitutes asap…" Alice commented.
"I'll play," Nash called, heading back to the scene.
Both Raeyn and Jo gave him intense scowls as he waved back ironically, and their teams were finally even.
"No time to waste! Let's go!" Ophelia threw the ball up, leaping up afterward and smacked it, initiating the game.
I spectated with Belle still by my side, grinning at it all.
When I looked up at the main Den balcony, Daz was up there, enjoying his tea and book as usual in casual beige beachwear. He raised his cup to me when he saw me from below.
It was then that I wondered how this day could get any better.
And that's when Belle asked, "Wanna go for a swim?"
My smirk told her everything she needed to know as I followed her into the water shortly after.
Belle was always beautiful. But seeing her here, like this. Free. There she went, raising the bar on my standard of beauty once again.
"You coming?" She looked back just as we were thigh deep in the shallow waves, and her hair glittered a kaleidoscope of colors under the gracious sun. "The weather's great today!"
I took her hand, and she pulled me closer to her as we both dove. The sounds above muffled in water as we remained just below the surface, staring intently at each other.
The light that entered underwater with us danced on her face as she smiled so easily.
What did I do, I thought as I marveled her. … to deserve this?
All of this?
My mind blanked as she swam closer and kissed me, pulling me in with her hands on the back of my neck and head, hands caressing, interweaving in my flowing hair.
So I did the same, embracing her waist as she drew near, and we floated for a time. Like life stopped so I could catch up to this feeling.
This moment.
I ingrained it as a core memory.
She mouthed something to me when we pulled away for a second. It didn't take a genius to figure out what she said, because when the lips were read, it could only be three words, eight letters…
As we surfaced, we wiped the water from our faces and swept our hair back—hers radiated when she did.
"I love you, too," I replied at last.
Her brow raised, and she studied me.
"Something on my face?"
"Silly wolf," she teased as she splashed water at me. "I said 'colorful'…"
I gave her a playful, incredulous look before splashing her back and taking her back down. She squealed in glee as I tossed us back into the water.
For a moment. I supposed I would allow myself to enjoy it.
***
**Milo's location**
Milo zoomed on her jet ski, hitting a wave that took her up, letting her catch air.
She did this a few times, scanning the waters for the best ones as she leaped from them one after another.
"Hell yeah!" she shouted.
She was quite far from the group, having gotten carried away with her embark across the water.
Suddenly, she heard a muffled boom from behind the mountains to her near left.
Milo stopped for a moment, standing easily atop her floating jet ski while still gripping the handles, navigating her green eyes were that sound had come from, and witnessing the flock of birds in the distance flying upward away.
The look on her face was solemn as she kept her gaze in that direction, waiting for more.
But nothing else happened.
She revved her jet ski, eyes still locked toward the mountain where that sound had come from, and zoomed away at last.