The Beach By The Boardwalk, Monday Afternoon

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

It was the first day of break and Arden was going to spend it the way the goddess had intended it: out on the beach with the salt and the sea and the sun and the sand, sorry Anakin. She was sprawled out on a blanket with a towel or two next to her and a cooler of drinks and snacks. She had a book with her for later, but right now she was enjoying the warmth while sending out a text to all the usual suspects (and a few new ones for good measure) inviting them to come and spend the day out on the beach with her.

[Open to all! If you think you got a text, you did, or maybe you just happened to be wandering up the beach and decided to chill!]

Comments

[slothbabyproductions]

“Well, yeah, isn’t that obvious?” Kamala asked with a laugh. “We wouldn’t have had a group skate without you.”

[what_big_teeth]

"There'd still have been enough people for a group skate without me," Eleanor pointed, but her amusement was evident, even if it was also a little confused. "But I am really glad you guys brought me into it, too. That really was a lot of fun."

[slothbabyproductions]

“Well, without you I would have been a third wheel for Cal and Arden,” Kamala teased. “So while it would have been a group skate it would have been 50% less fun without you.”

[what_big_teeth]

Eleanor squinted a little, looking a little dubious as she seemed to be crunching those numbers in her head, and then came out of it shaking her head slightly. "I guess I can't argue with the math," she admitted with a small laugh. "So, I guess I'm just glad I could make it more fun for you, too."

And it was pretty nice, knowing you didn't just make something worse by being involved.

...yet.

[slothbabyproductions]

"Oh, my math is perfect," Kamala joked. "See Cal and Arden are each one percent. I'm about 48% and you make up for the rest."

[what_big_teeth]

"Geez," said Eleanor, very stridently continuing to ignire any heat or blushing that was filling her face right now, "what did Cal and Arden do to get knocked all the way down to just one percent?"

Because asking that was surely easier than contradicting Kamala's allegedly perfect math when it was pretty obvious it was flawed from the start with this clearly unbalanced overestimation of values.

[slothbabyproductions]

"Oh, Cal and Arden have this 'will they' or 'won't they' dynamic going on," Kamala jokingly explained. "Which when you take those factors into what I call 'fun algebra' it takes their fun level down quite a bit."

She paused for a moment taking a look at Eleanor. Then smiled. "So... speaking of fun. Occasionally at our house we have a movie night. Would you like to come sometime?"

Not to narratively undercut Eleanor's eforts of hosting a movie party or anything. Maybe she just needed to see how it's done!

[what_big_teeth]

Eleanor suffered from a condition known as Being Played By A Person With TOO Many Ideas and Not Enoigh Time-olitus, so there was no worry of undercutting there! Besides, she was in no rush to actually throw a party, considering what had happened the last time.

Granted, this one wouldn't involve being just a big trap for her evil grandmother, but, you know how things just sort of stick to you sometimes...

Eleanor's first blink was a little surprised, but by the time she got to the second one, she'd gotten over it. She remembered that she was going to try and enjoy it and make rhe most of it,and not let herself start to second guess anything about how, suddenly, she was finding herself invited into skate circles and beach hangouts and movie nights...

"Yeah," she said. "I think I would like that. If you guys don't mind, but why would you? If you did mind and you asked, then you'd really only have yourself to blame."

[slothbabyproductions]

Kamala watched Eleanor as she said all those things and gave her smile and reached out to put her hand on Eleanor's shoulder.

"I think you have some kind of mindset that we don't want you around us. I think we need to work on that. Because that's not true," Kamala said, earnestly. "I think you're nice. I think you're cute. Annnnnnd I think we need to hang out more often."

[what_big_teeth]

Kind of hard not to have that mindset, when your entire life had revolved around how much you weren't wanted around. And the few times someone did, it turned out they would either betray you, were manipulating you, or didn't have autonomy in the matter.

(Although she still liked to think that...some of what she and Arthur had was genuine, but it was impossible to ever know for sure).

The look she gave Kamala was complicated and troubled, especially when she couldn't blame anyone for keeping their distance when she considered what happened to people who got close to h--

Wait.

Was there an I think you're cute in there??

Eleanor opened her mouth to say something, stop herself, and closed it. She tried again, with pretty much the same result, no doubt making herself look even more fish-faced than normal.

But she finally managed to get a hold on something and finally get the words out.

"I..." She breathed out, relaxing a little under that hand on her shoulder and giving Kamala a tentative, wary smile. "Agree. I've never really done a whole lot of 'hanging out'"--if she had the cultural context for finger quotes, she would be using them heavily--"before..."

Hee next breath was sort of a laugh.

"I know, I know. I'm really good at hiding it, too. But..." She smiled at Eleanor, a little wryly. "No getting anything by you, huh?"

[slothbabyproductions]

"Oh, yeah. I'm like, super observant and stuff."

Any of Kamala's friends back home would be laughing hysterically if she said that aloud to them.

But she did try to give Eleanor a big smile. "Just know you're in a safe space with us."

Because no one else on the beach had werewolves or Eldritch horrors in their family with sneaky motives.