It was the most perfect summer ever.

John sat high up on his wooden stand, umbrella tilted to the side so his chest could catch up to the tan on his arms, and a pile of pretty girls spread out at his feet on towels, tanned bodies glistening while they smiled up at him with gleaming white teeth.

He shifted in his seat, standing so he could stretch and look out across the ocean, sunlight sparkling all the way to the horizon, high walls of white-capped waves rushing to the shore. The job wasn’t so bad, he thought – better than spending the summer in the landlocked Midwest, and besides, it was the summer before his senior year, and it’d seemed like a good idea when a couple of buddies from the Academy said they’d come out to California with him (“Hot chicks, dude”) and he was packing up his dorm room and heading west.

So he’d gotten a house right on the beach with his buddies, who turned out to be better bar bums than lifeguards, and John usually ended his days sitting on a barstool with them, his body sun-tired and smelling like the ocean, the beer cool in his throat and the loud rumble of the drunk and oversexed filling his ears.

John wasn't going to tell his buddies that ‘hot chicks, dude’ wasn’t exactly the best slogan to entice him, but he figured where there were chicks, there were not-chicks, with just as equally tanned and glistening bodies, and if maybe one of those not-chicks wanted to let John give his not-chick body an Air Force salute, then the summer wouldn't be wasted.

He raised his arms up over his head and looked around. A family trudged down the dune toward the flat expanse of sand; the dad dragging a cooler behind him, stopping every few feet to mop at his brow. Mom, in a wide floppy straw hat and little see-through wrap around skirt thing that did nothing to hide the cellulite peeking out from the bottom of her suit, and beside her, the daughter – disgusted look on her face that screamed ‘Oh, if the ground would only open up and swallow me now’, shifting a chair under her arm.

Following about ten feet behind was a very pale, very pasty guy, probably John’s age, his mouth moving in – from where John was standing in his chair, staring, arms slowly lowering – extremely creative curse words. He was wearing an egregious floral print Hawaiian shirt and blue jeans (good Christ, blue jeans), a panama hat set crookedly over his sweat soaked hair. There were lines of sweat streaked across his face, but that didn’t stop his never-ending stream of chatter, to which his mom gritted her teeth, Dad yelled what carried to John as “Shut up or I’ll send you back to the car!”, while the girl rolled her eyes and started running awkwardly in an attempt to disengage any ownership of the people she was with.

Yep, John’d seen it all before, but this – this was something else. Sure, most kids his age who came out here with their families looked like they wanted to die and drown themselves in the surf, but none of them (and John felt pretty damn confident on this point) came bearing an umbrella, overstuffed bag from which no less than five bottles of sunscreen lotion peeked over the edge, and a folded Adirondack chair. John didn’t even know they made folding Adirondack chairs. Jeez.

Of course, they settled near his chair, the aura of family togetherness sending the sun-bronzed girls scattering in nascent fear. John sat down warily, and eyed the family as they unpacked, spreading towels and chairs and sunscreen in abundance vastly disproportional to the actual number of people supposedly using them. He vaguely thought about taking a break, maybe getting down and going for a quick scan along the edge of water.

“You are wearing sunscreen, aren’t you?” a voice below demanded. Good god, the guy was even pastier close up. “At the rate you are absorbing the sun’s rays, factoring in the probable amount of time per day you spend in the sun leads me to conclude – ”

“Rodney, shut up!” the dad bellowed, and John could quickly see this turning into a National Lampoon’s disaster.

“I’m just saying,” Rodney continued, and wow, the kid didn’t even stop to catch his breath, “that he should be using sunscreen – here,” he said distractedly, throwing up a bottle which bounced off the edge of John’s chair and back into the sand. “80 proof, made it myself, best stuff ever, and once the patent goes through, I’m going – ”

“I’m outta here,” the girl said, and snapped her gum. She looked at her family with disgust before turning a saccharine smile to John. “But I’ll be back,” she said, and grabbed a chair, sashaying (for John’s benefit, he assumed) down to the water.

Rodney just shook his head, and turned to look at John. “Amateurs,” he said, in a tone John wondered if he was supposed to agree with. He gave John a narrow glare. “Did you use some? God, just look at your chest! You’re burning already and it’s not even the highest sun of the day and – ”

“Rodney!” the dad bellowed again, and if anything was turning red, it was definitely Rodney’s dad’s face, “do you ever shut up?” which really, John thought, was a valid question. “Christ,” Rodney’s dad moaned, “I can’t – look Susan, if you want my help finding your shells, let’s go now. I’m not staying out here all day.”

And with that, Rodney’s parents got up and left, walking down the beach not quite beside each other, and John was left with one very pale, very talkative, very ridiculous Panama-hat wearing not-chick. (who'd been looking at his chest: sign #1)

“So, blue jeans?” John asked, adjusting the waistband on his swim trunks to hang a little more comfortably on his narrow hips. Rodney’s eyes tracked his hands. (sign #2)

“What,” Rodney snapped, like some kind of tiny dog, “are they outlawed or something? I have very sensitive skin, I’ll have you know, and I burn easily.” Rodney looked down and plucked at his jeans, as if to prove it.

John'd been here for a month and could honestly say he hadn't met anyone yet as remotely out of place as Rodney. That was a feeling John understood, maybe a little too well. The guy had a mouth on him, sure, and his cheeks could use some color, but his eyes were wide and blue; like water lapping up to the white sand.

John nodded and scanned his eyes over the surf: all clear, for now. He radioed to the next chair over. “Going on break, cover me?” A laugh crackled back through the static. “Sure sure, go for it,” he heard, and he turned to see the tiny speck of Mary Ellen staring at his chair through binoculars. He gave her his best Air Force one finger salute and swung his leg onto the ladder.

Rodney stepped back when John jumped off the last rung, sand hot and familiar under his feet. He stuck out his hand. “John,” he said, and gave Rodney his best ‘I’m gay, I’m very gay, help me out and lemme know if you’re gay too’ smile. He even threw in a slow blink, just in case.

But Rodney simply reached out one sweaty palm and gripped John’s, squeezed once and released and said with a determined glare, “Rodney McKay, future brilliant scientist and inventor of the sunscreen, by the way, that you still have not put on.”

John just stared.

“I mean,” Rodney faltered, “you don’t have to put it on – it’s just that… no one else will try it out, because they’re afraid of getting a rash or something, and I’d sort of like to know if it – you know. Works.” Rodney picked up the bottle out of the sand and fumbled it into one of his many bags, and he looked so endearingly pitiful that John felt something flutter a little in his stomach, and he wondered if he was being played, or if this guy was genuinely as adorably socially incompetent as he appeared. 

Rodney straightened up and pulled his damp shirt away from his chest, fanning it out over and over. “Is it always so hot here?” he asked, and flopped onto the sand.

“Well,” John replied, and slid down next to him, crossing his legs, “it is the beach.”

“Yeah,” Rodney said, reflectively, like John had just imparted some great wisdom. “So anyway, my family is driving me crazy and I need to get away and do something tonight that doesn’t involved them or Gin Rummy or Trivial Pursuit or god forbid – oh,” Rodney trailed off.

John finished smearing the sunscreen across his chest and sniffed the bottle. “I’ll let you know if I get a rash,” he drawled, and was more than satisfied when a blush spread over Rodney’s cheeks.

Rodney visibly swallowed. “Uh – great.”

The funny thing was that up close, sure, Rodney's face was pale as a slice of the moon or something, but it was also soft and round, and his eyes were brighter than the sun-streaked water, his lips puffy from the sea air, and when he stopped talking, he was actually – really cute.

It should alarm John, perhaps, that he came all the way to California and was probably going to wind up making out with the only guy his age either a) brave enough or b) monumentally oblivious enough to wear a panama hat, but the dark mop of Rodney’s hair was ringed under the brim, the tips curled up with perspiration.

The radio above them blared out, “Hey John, you’re off duty! Mark’s coming to take over for ya!” and John leaned back on his elbows in the warm soft sand and let out a satisfied sigh.

“So um,” Rodney began, “you uh, are you – ” and John decided to spare the guy because a) John felt he’d read all the signs correctly, b) Rodney’s lips were looking more and more kissable and it probably was the sun baking John’s brain, but he really wanted to lick the salt off them, and c) well. John’s just a nice guy like that.

He turned to Rodney and smiled. “You wanna hang out tonight?” he asked while he pushed up on one elbow, brushing the sand off his arms. Beside him, Rodney’s head wagged up and down, and then he blurted out, “Sure, yeah – okay, yeah,” and his hands plucked again at his blue jeans, and really, John was way too manly to be feeling so ridiculously charmed by befuddled adorable future scientists.

He stood up and looked down at Rodney. “Cool then, meet me at pier eight – ” he pointed down the beach, “that one, three piers down, okay?” Rodney’s head looked out in the direction of John’s hand and then tilted back to look at John, hand shading his eyes as the sun lit up the side of his neck. “And um, bring the sunscreen.”

Rodney’s brow furrowed under his hand. “But, it’ll be dark,” he said.

“Yeah,” John agreed, and Rodney lowered his hand and looked at him, blinked his eyelashes rapidly up and down, in time with his Hawaiian-covered chest.

“Sunscreen,” Rodney repeated, mouth hanging open a little. “Sure, yeah – uh, okay, so um – ”

“Eight o’clock,” John called over his shoulder, turning to grab his towel off the chair. Rodney nodded his puppet head again, and John winked at him, snapped his towel at Rodney’s blue-jean clad knees, and strolled off down the beach.