They noticed, after a minute, that her hands had clamped into fists at her sides.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t mean to make things complicated for us.”
“No, Dahlia—” London scratched at the back of their neck. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She swallowed and glanced over at them.
“We can still be friends, right? I don’t know how to be on Chef’s Special without you being my friend.”
God, London really wanted to disappear.
“Of course,” they said, and it felt like their throat was made of sandpaper.
Dahlia looked back out at the water. At length, she said, “I want to do something now.”
London straightened. “Okay.” Obviously, they should get the hell off this beach. If they didn’t get off this beach soon, in fact, London’s lungs might collapse. “We can—”
“You might not like it,” Dahlia interrupted. “You can close your eyes if you want.”
London blinked. “What?”
And then Dahlia Woodson took off her shirt.
London gaped at her as she quickly shed her shorts, too. She kicked off her sandals.
Dahlia didn’t look back as she ran, full speed, toward the ocean, her heels kicking up sand as she went.
“Fucking hell,” London said to no one.
Dahlia made a loud yip as the water hit her ankles, her knees, her thighs. London watched in a daze, unmoving, as she threw her body into the waves. Her head disappeared under the water, which was violently blue. They saw her gasp as she resurfaced, and then smile, the whites of her teeth unmistakable even from where London stood on shore.
She splashed around a while more, never going far enough as to make London truly nervous. The sun shone down on her head, on London’s face. They could feel their skin burning. They would have to stop somewhere to buy aloe vera. Oh god. Dahlia and London had to drive all the way back to Burbank together after this.
Eventually, Dahlia made her way back to shore. She stepped slowly toward them, squeezing salt water out of her hair. London wondered, distantly, if they were perhaps having a panic attack, if they were hallucinating this whole thing. Dahlia’s bra and underwear were a matching set, smooth, clinging, dark purple silk. Her bare stomach was liquefying London’s insides.
She reached them, and she smiled, looking shy. London couldn’t recall Dahlia ever looking shy. But then again, London had never stood in front of a Dahlia who was half naked and dripping wet. And London, try as they might, could not stop staring.
“The Pacific is fucking cold,” Dahlia said, trying to sound breezy. Even as she blushed, her skin, her smile, were glowing, everything looking more relaxed than before, the edges that had been there soothed by the sea. She had legitimately never looked so kissable, and Dahlia looked pretty kissable most of the time.
“Okay, now actually close your eyes.”
“What?” London asked again.
She leaned over and picked up her dry clothes from the sand.
“I’m going to change now. I can’t wear this wet stuff in the car the whole way back. I’ll chafe.”
London closed their eyes, cursing silently over and over and over.
A minute later, they felt something cold and wet slap their hand. They almost screamed.
“I am so, so sorry, but can you hold this for me? I don’t want it to get all sandy.” London closed their fingers around the soaked underwire of Dahlia’s discarded bra. The silent cursing in their head increased exponentially.
“All right, I’m decent. Well. Relatively, I guess.”
When London dared to crack their eyelids back open to the world, Dahlia was in her shorts and T-shirt again, underwear in her hand. She was doing a weird little dance, squatting up and down.
“Huh,” she said. “Unsurprisingly, this might chafe too, but it’s not too bad.”
“Dahlia,” London said, pained. “Can you stop moving around, please?”
Their brain had been short circuiting for long minutes now, but watching Dahlia squat around the beach, testing out how her jean shorts felt against her labia, all while they still held her wet bra, was going to actually terminate the functionality of London’s existence.
But when Dahlia did as they said and stood straight and still in front of them, hands on her hips, London knew they were wrong. They were ruined either way. Her soaked hair dripped from its melting bun onto her shoulders. Through her T-shirt, London could easily see her peaked nipples, the dark pink outline of her areolas. She was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen. London was head over heels for her, and they had just instructed her to not kiss them anymore, although they were having a hard time remembering why.