𐂂 Denny

By midday the beach had become one endless stretch of gold and white, the summer sun bearing down hard enough that the sand felt molten beneath bare feet. 

The ocean glittered almost painfully bright beneath the cloudless sky, every cresting wave throwing fractured sunlight back across the shoreline. Somewhere further down the coast, music drifted lazily on the breeze, mingling with the distant cries of children and the occasional shriek of gulls circling overhead in search of something unattended to steal.

For once, nobody was bleeding, arguing over money, or planning a robbery.

As far as Cody family outings went, it was practically a holiday.

Craig had claimed the largest patch of sand available and was currently stretched across it like a corpse washed ashore, sunglasses crooked on his face and a half-empty beer balanced precariously against his stomach. Every now and then he would sit upright long enough to contribute something profoundly unhelpful to whatever conversation was happening around him before immediately collapsing again.

Deran occupied the shade of a battered umbrella nearby, one knee drawn up as he worked methodically at rolling a joint. The concentration on his face might have suggested he was handling explosives rather than weed.

J sat beside him, arms draped loosely over his knees, expression carrying the familiar detached look that suggested he'd rather be almost anywhere else.

You were sitting a little closer to the waterline, letting the occasional cool breeze cut through the heat gathering beneath your skin.

And Pope? Pope was trying very hard not to look at you.

The problem was that you kept moving.

You'd shift position, drag a hand through your hair, laugh at something Craig said, turn your face toward the ocean—and every single time, Pope's eyes found you before he could stop them.

He'd got better at catching himself over the years. Not remarkably good… but better.

Unfortunately for him, Deran had noticed approximately forty-five minutes ago.

"You know," Deran remarked eventually, licking the edge of the paper before sealing it, "if you're gonna keep staring, you could at least try being subtle about it."

Pope's head snapped around immediately. "I'm not staring."

The response came far too quickly.

J didn't even bother looking up. "Sure."

Pope frowned. "What?"

The younger shrugged. "Nothing."

"The ocean's over there," Deran continued, gesturing vaguely toward the water. "You've spent more time looking at them than the actual beach."

A muscle jumped in Pope's jaw. For a moment he looked genuinely offended, then his gaze flickered briefly in your direction before returning to Deran.

"The ocean's just water."

The silence that followed was immediate. J lowered his head while you pressed your lips together.

Deran simply stared, finally he barked out a laugh.

"Jesus Christ."

Pope looked irritated now, as though he couldn't understand why everyone suddenly found him amusing.

"What?"

"Nothing," Deran said, still grinning. "Forget it."

A few seconds later he lit the joint, smoke curling lazily upward into the summer air. The scent drifted across the small circle almost immediately.

Pope recognised that look.

The same one Deran always got right before deciding somebody else's business was about to become his entertainment.

"No."

Deran hadn't even offered it yet. His grin widened. "I didn't say anything."

"You were gonna."

"Maybe."

"No."

The joint was extended toward him anyway. Pope stared at it suspiciously.

Deran waggled it once. "C'mon."

Pope looked at the joint, then at Deran, then back at the joint again. The expression on his face suggested he'd been handed a live grenade. "No."

"You ever actually tried it?"

"No."

"Then how do you know you don't like it?"

"I know."

"That's not an answer."

"It's enough of one."

Deran leaned back in his chair, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

Across from him, J accepted the joint when it was passed his way, taking a hit before exhaling slowly toward the ocean. Pope glanced between the three of you, visibly annoyed that everyone seemed to be participating in a conversation he wasn't fully understanding.

Craig suddenly sat upright. "Anybody got coke?"

Nobody answered while Craig sat there for several seconds. A seagull landed nearby.

The bird stared directly at him. Craig stared right back.

Then, with complete seriousness, he pointed at it. "Don't."

The seagull remained where it was which made Craig all but narrow his eyes. "You know what you did."

The bird looked unimpressed.

A moment later Craig lay back down again. The crisis apparently resolved.

Pope watched the entire exchange happen. Then rubbed a hand across his face, "this family is insane."

"You say that like you're not part of it," Deran replied, immediately offering the joint again.

This time Pope hesitated. Not because he wanted it. Mostly because refusing had somehow become more exhausting than accepting.

The heat had settled heavily across his shoulders. The distant crash of the waves blended together into a steady rhythm. Everybody else looked relaxed.

Even you.

Especially you.

Your head had tipped back slightly, eyes half closed against the sunlight, looking more content than Pope could remember seeing you in weeks.

Something softened in his chest at the sight.

And before he could think better of it, he reached over and took the joint. The reaction was immediate.

Deran sat forward. "Oh, look at that."

"Shut up."

J laughed. Even you looked surprised.

Pope glared at all of them before taking a cautious drag. The coughing fit arrived almost instantly. His shoulders jerked, his eyes watered.

Somewhere behind him, Craig let out a triumphant cheer loud enough to startle a flock of birds into the air. "There he is!"

Pope was still coughing. You were laughing now, just enough that the sound carried warmly over the noise of the waves.

And despite the fact that his lungs felt like they were on fire and Deran was already insufferable about being right, Pope found himself staring at you again anyway.

Because apparently even being stoned wasn't enough to stop that.

The beach had fallen into that strange lull that arrived after several hours of doing absolutely nothing; Craig had stopped arguing with wildlife and appeared to have drifted into a beer-induced nap, Deran was lazily scrolling through his phone beneath the umbrella, and even J had surrendered to the general mood, stretched out on his towel with his eyes half-closed.

Pope, meanwhile, was sprawled on his back in the sand, one arm tucked beneath his head and the other dangling over his stomach, the remains of the joint smouldering quietly between his fingers.

Whatever little experiment Deran had talked him into had clearly taken effect.

Pope wasn't suddenly chatty or giggling at nothing.

If anything, he looked more like someone who'd finally unclenched muscles he'd forgotten he'd been carrying tight for years.

His eyes tracked your movement lazily as you wandered back from the shoreline, seawater still dripping from your calves. The ocean had left a sheen across your skin that caught the sunlight every time you moved, and Pope found himself watching those droplets slide down your legs with the same concentration another man might reserve for a documentary.

The fact that he was doing a terrible job of hiding it no longer seemed to concern him.

You dropped down onto the sand beside him with a grunt, reaching automatically for the joint in his hand. "Pass it here."

The request was simple enough.

Normally, Pope would've handed it over without a second thought. Instead, the corner of his mouth twitched. You barely had time to register the expression before his arm lifted.

The joint disappeared upward, your fingers closing around empty air. For a moment you simply stared at him.

Pope stared back.

Then, to your complete disbelief, he smiled. Just a small, crooked thing that sat strangely on his face, softened by the sunlight and whatever remained of the weed in his system.

"No."

You blinked. "No?"

"No," he repeated, sounding entirely pleased with himself as he stretched his arm a little higher.

The movement forced you to lean further across him. Immediately you became aware of Deran watching.

The bastard was practically vibrating.

"Pope."

His smile deepened. "You don't need it."

"I don't need it?"

The disbelief in your voice only seemed to amuse him further.

The hand that wasn't occupied holding the joint drifted lazily toward your waist, settling there with such absent-minded ease that it felt less like a decision and more like instinct.

His palm rested against your side, warm from hours spent beneath the California sun.

Pope didn't seem remotely aware of the fact he'd done it. Or perhaps he was. It was difficult to tell.

The weed had left his thoughts written plainly across his face in a way that was normally impossible to read.

"No," he said after a moment, giving your waist a small squeeze as though emphasising his point. "You'll hurt your lungs."

A short laugh escaped you. "That's your excuse?"

"It's a good excuse."

"You're literally smoking it."

"Yeah."

Pope said it with complete seriousness, his brow furrowing slightly as though he genuinely couldn't understand why that was relevant.

The sight was ridiculous enough that you found yourself laughing again. "You don't seem too concerned about your own lungs."

"My lungs are different."

The words came after several seconds of intense consideration, as though he was carefully working through an incredibly complicated equation.

You waited. "So your lungs are different."

"Yeah."

"How?"

Pope's gaze wandered briefly, drifting out toward the ocean where sunlight fractured across the waves in glittering sheets of gold. For a moment he looked thoughtful.

Then his eyes returned to you and something softened there. Something that had probably been sitting beneath the surface all afternoon.

"Yours are prettier."

The silence that followed was immediate.

The waves were still rolling onto shore. Children were still shouting somewhere in the distance. A radio continued crackling faintly from further down the sand.

But within your little circle, everything seemed to stop.

Deran lowered his sunglasses, J opened one eye, even Craig somehow sat upright.

Pope, completely oblivious to the damage he'd just inflicted, continued looking at you as though he'd merely commented on the weather.

"What?" he asked eventually.

Deran made a strangled noise. "Pope."

"What?"

"You can't just say stuff like that."

The confusion on Pope's face deepened, his hand firmly on your waist.

The joint remained held stubbornly out of reach. "You asked."

"That doesn't mean—"

"You did ask."

The fact that he wasn't wrong only made it worse.

You rubbed a hand across your face. Somewhere beside you, J let out a low laugh. "You broke him."

"I didn't break anybody."

"You absolutely did."

Pope glanced toward J before immediately looking back at you again, as though everyone else on the beach had become significantly less interesting.

His thumb brushed absent-mindedly against your side, the movement small enough that you doubted he even realised he was doing it.

"I'm not giving you this," he informed you after a moment, lifting the joint slightly. The declaration sounded bizarrely possessive.

"Why?"

"Because."

"That's not an answer."

"It is."

You leaned forward again, making another attempt to steal it.

Pope reacted instantly.

His arm lifted higher while his hand tightened around your waist, anchoring you against him with a lazy sort of determination. The movement brought you close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his skin.

Close enough to see the faint freckles scattered across his nose. Close enough to watch his smile appear again. That same soft, unguarded smile, yhe kind nobody ever got to see.

Not really. Not Pope: infamously known as the man who spent most of his life looking perpetually one bad day away from violence.

Yet here he was, half-stoned beneath the summer sun, holding you close with one hand while protecting a half-finished joint with the other as though it were some priceless treasure.

And judging by the look on Deran's face, everyone else was just as shocked by it as you were.

The standoff over the joint continued for another minute or so, neither of you particularly invested in winning anymore.

At some point the argument had stopped being about the weed altogether.

You'd made another half-hearted attempt to steal it. Pope had blocked you with surprising speed for somebody currently operating on very little urgency. You'd complained. He'd ignored you. Deran had offered increasingly unhelpful commentary from beneath the umbrella while J watched the entire thing unfold with the detached fascination of somebody observing an unusual animal in captivity.

Eventually Pope looked down at the dwindling remains pinched between his fingers and seemed to reach a decision. Without warning, he placed the last of the joint between his lips and pushed himself upright.

The movement was slightly clumsy, his balance wavering for half a second before correcting itself. Sand slid from his shoulders and forearms as he stood, sunlight catching against skin that had grown warm and golden over the course of the afternoon.

You frowned up at him. "What are you doing?"

Pope didn't answer immediately. Instead he finished the last drag, exhaled toward the sky, and then flicked the remaining roach into one of the plates they’d had.

Then he held out both hands. 

You looked at them, then at him, then back at the hands.

"What are you doing?" you repeated.

A smile tugged faintly at one corner of his mouth. "We're going swimming."

The statement was delivered with the absolute certainty of a man announcing an unavoidable fact of nature.

You barked a laugh. "We've already been swimming."

"We're doing it again."

"Pope—"

"We're doing it again."

Before you could protest further, his fingers had already curled around yours.

The grip wasn't forceful. It didn't need to be.

Pope had always possessed a certain single-minded determination once he'd settled on something, and whatever barriers usually existed between thought and action appeared to have dissolved entirely beneath the combined influence of summer sunshine and weed.

You barely had time to plant your feet before he started walking. "Pope."

Nothing.

"Andrew."

Still nothing.

The grin spreading across his face only widened as he continued dragging you across the sand. Behind you, Deran's laughter erupted immediately.

"Oh, this is gonna end badly."

Craig sat up just long enough to point after the pair of you. "Take him under!"

"Thank you, Craig," J muttered.

The ocean rushed closer with every step.

Cool blue water stretched endlessly toward the horizon, glittering beneath the afternoon sun like shattered glass. The waves rolled in slow and steady, hissing softly across the shoreline before retreating once more.

The instant icy water splashed against Pope's ankles, he let out a surprised laugh. The sound almost disappeared beneath the crash of the surf.

You heard it anyway.

Pope rarely laughed, not properly. Most people spent years around him without hearing it.

The sound made something warm settle in your chest. Unfortunately, it also distracted you long enough for him to continue hauling you further into the water.

"Oh, absolutely not."

Pope glanced over his shoulder. His hair had fallen into his eyes, dark curls pushed messily across his forehead by the sea breeze.

"What?"

"We are not going any deeper."

"Why?"

"Because."

"That's not an answer."

The immediate use of your own argument against you was infuriating. "You don't even like the ocean."

"I like it today." The response arrived without hesitation.

Pope seemed entirely unaware of how strange those words sounded coming from him.

You stared and he stared back. Then he shrugged. "I like everything today."

The admission slipped out so casually that it almost caught you off guard.

For a moment all you could do was look at him. At the relaxed posture, the softened expression, the way his fingers remained hooked through yours as though letting go hadn't even crossed his mind.

Pope shifted beneath your gaze. "What?"

"You are ridiculously stoned."

His laugh returned. Soft and embarrassed. The corners of his eyes crinkled.

Before you could admire it for too long, however, a wave surged toward the shore and crashed directly into your thighs.

The cold hit like a punch. You yelped.

Pope immediately started laughing harder.

"There it is."

"Oh, shut up."

"There it is."

His shoulders shook with another laugh. The sight was so unusual you almost forgot to be annoyed.

Instead, you scooped a handful of seawater and launched it directly at his chest.

The reaction was immediate.

Pope jerked backward, staring down at his soaked shirt in genuine disbelief. For a second. Then two.

Slowly, his gaze lifted toward yours. "Oh."

You took a step back. "No."

"Oh."

The smile that spread across his face was all the warning you received.

"Andrew."

He lunged. You barely managed to dodge before water exploded around both of you.

The next several minutes dissolved into complete chaos.

Every time you splashed him, Pope retaliated twice over. Every retreat only encouraged pursuit. Waves crashed against your legs while both of you stumbled through the surf, nearly losing your footing every few seconds as the ocean shifted beneath your feet.

At one point you managed to shove him hard enough that he staggered backward into an incoming wave.

The look of betrayal on his face was immediate. You doubled over laughing.

Pope, soaked from head to toe and blinking seawater from his eyelashes, pointed at you. "You did that on purpose."

"Obviously."

His expression narrowed and then he launched himself forward again.

You shrieked as he caught you around the waist. Neither of you had enough balance to make the manoeuvre successful. A second later both of you crashed into the water together.

The ocean swallowed everything. When you resurfaced, sputtering and wiping seawater from your eyes, Pope emerged beside you.

His hair was plastered to his forehead. His shirt clung to every inch of him, and despite all of it, he was smiling.

Not the small smiles he'd been trying and failing to hide all afternoon, not the awkward half-smirks. A genuine one. Bright enough to transform his entire face.

For a moment he simply looked at you. The noise of the beach faded into the background: The shouting, the music, even Deran and Craig yelling commentary from shore.

None of it seemed particularly important.

Pope's expression softened as he stood there waist-deep in the water. Then he reached out and brushed a wet strand of hair away from your forehead.

The gesture felt oddly careful after all the chaos.

His hand lingered for a moment longer than necessary. "There," he said quietly, still smiling. "You look better."

As though you hadn't both just spent ten minutes trying to drown each other.

For a moment neither of you moved. A gull wheeled overhead. The world carried on exactly as it had before.

Yet somehow everything felt quieter.

Pope's hand remained lightly against the side of your face where he'd brushed your hair back, seawater dripping from his fingertips. His smile had faded into something softer now, something smaller and infinitely more dangerous simply because it was real.

He was looking at you in that way he'd been looking at you all afternoon.

No, longer than that. Weeks. Months, maybe. The difference was that today he didn't seem particularly interested in hiding it.

You watched his gaze drift briefly toward your mouth before immediately returning to your eyes.

Then it happened again. A quick glance, barely a second.

Pope swallowed. The movement was visible in the column of his throat.

His hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck, not pulling you closer, simply resting there as though he needed somewhere to put it.

"You got salt all over your face," he said quietly.

The excuse was terrible. You both knew it.

A smile tugged at your mouth. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"You gonna do something about it?"

Pope stared at you and the challenge hung there between you.

For a second and then another.

His expression shifted into something almost boyish, the last remnants of his usual caution finally overwhelmed by sunshine, seawater, and whatever chemical courage Deran had managed to get into his system.

Before either of you could overthink it, Pope leaned forward.

The kiss itself was brief, barely more than a peck. Just a quick press of his lips against yours before he immediately pulled back again.

It was over almost as soon as it began. The sort of kiss that might have gone entirely unnoticed by anybody not paying attention.

Unfortunately for both of you, the Codys were paying attention.

A roar erupted from the beach. "Holy Shit!" Craig's voice carried over the water like a foghorn.

Pope physically flinched.

"What the hell?" Deran shouted, already on his feet beneath the umbrella. "FINALLY."

"Oh my God," J muttered, though the grin spreading across his face suggested he was enjoying this significantly more than he wanted anyone to know.

Craig was practically beside himself. He'd somehow managed to spill half his beer while celebrating. "Let’s Go, Man!"

Several nearby beachgoers turned to stare. Craig pointed at the pair of you from across the sand. "I called it!"

"You did not call it," Deran shot back.

"I absolutely called it."

"You call everything."

"And I was right!"

The argument immediately dissolved into shouting.

Pope closed his eyes, a long, suffering sigh escaped him. The reaction only made things worse.

"He’s blushing!!"

"Oh my God, he is."

"I didn't think he could do that." The commentary was relentless.

Pope looked moments away from marching back to shore and drowning all three of them personally.

You, meanwhile, were trying, and failing, not to laugh.

The sound escaped anyway.

The sight of Pope standing there soaked to the bone, glaring at his family with the expression of a deeply betrayed man, was simply too much.

His eyes immediately flicked back toward you. The irritation vanished almost instantly.

"There is literally nothing wrong with any of them," you managed.

Pope stared.

Then he looked toward the beach again, where Craig had started pumping his fist in the air like somebody had just scored the winning touchdown at the Super Bowl.

His expression deadened. "They're insane."

"You are related to them."

"I know." The words emerged with genuine despair.

That only made you laugh harder.

A reluctant smile began tugging at the corners of his own mouth in response, despite his best efforts to suppress it. The expression lingered there as he looked at you.

Painfully, hopelessly fond.

As though the kiss hadn't actually changed anything. He'd already been carrying all of this around for so long that putting it into action had simply felt natural.

His hand found yours beneath the water.

The movement was subtle enough that nobody on shore noticed.

While Craig and Deran continued arguing and J shook his head in resignation, Pope intertwined his fingers with yours and squeezed once.

The gesture felt strangely intimate compared to the kiss. His gaze never left your face.

"They're gonna be annoying about this for months."

You glanced toward shore. Craig was now attempting to convince Deran to place bets on when the wedding would happen.

"Months?"

Pope considered this, then groaned. "Years."

The laugh that escaped you was bright enough to draw another smile from him, and for the first time all afternoon Pope didn't seem particularly concerned by the fact that everyone could see it.