A Starlit Summer by Kate Frost (best manga ereader txt) 📕

A wave broke, splashing water on to her chest. She gasped. In the sunshine, she could try to imagine they were in Greece, the warm shallows of the Mediterranean caressing their skin, but the Atlantic Ocean was still cold and the constant waves brought fresher, cooler water on to the shore. It was revitalising though. Finn dunked himself beneath the water, emerging dripping wet, his hair darker than before and plastered to his forehead. Water beads clung to his beard and he grinned as he wiped the water on his face away with his hand.

Jenna was only submerged to just below her waist but goosebumps pinpricked her skin and her teeth were beginning to chatter. The sun on her shoulders wasn’t enough to take away the chill of the sea.

‘Get it over with and go under – you’ll feel much better afterwards.’

Finn started wading towards her, his movement slow in the water. Jenna screamed and just before he reached her she closed her eyes and dived downwards, her whole body engulfed by cold. Below the surface, Finn’s laughter was muffled. She pushed herself upright, emerging in a shower of seawater, her blonde hair stuck to her face like Finn’s was to his.

‘I wouldn’t have dunked you under, honest.’ He caught her around her waist.

She slid her hands down his arms, firm and cold, goose-bumped just like hers.

‘Usually I’m in a wetsuit,’ he said.

‘Ah, I see, you’re just trying to act tough.’

Jenna slipped away from him, submerging herself in the sea again, allowing her skin to adjust to the cold. With the sun shining down from an almost cloudless sky it began to warm her up. Finn swam alongside her flipping between his front and back, the incoming waves rocking them closer together.

There were only a couple of other people crazy enough to be swimming. Two young boys were by the edge of the sea, furiously digging a hole with spades and screeching with delight every time it filled with seawater. Families camped on the sand were pulling picnics out of bags, and the thought of food made Jenna realise just how hungry she was. They’d been in the water for ages. She stopped swimming and tentatively touched the sandy floor with her feet. It was shallow enough for her to stand, the water coming to just above her bikini top. She held up her hands and waggled them at Finn.

‘My fingers are wrinkled and my stomach’s rumbling.’

Finn swam past her. ‘Race you back.’

He powered ahead, his strong arms slicing through the water. Jenna decided to enjoy the view rather than chase after him. He stood up just before the waves broke and waded the rest of the way, white foam splashing on to his back. Jenna swam a little way and followed his example, slowly walking out of the sea, pushed forward by the surf until she was padding after Finn across smooth damp sand.

‘That was lush,’ Jenna said when she reached him. He threw her a towel and she wrapped it around herself, shivering from the cool water running down her skin. Finn draped his towel across his shoulders and hugged her to him, the heat of his body making her instantly forget how cold she was. He brushed the damp hair stuck to the sides of her face away, tucking it behind her ears.

‘You’re beautiful.’ He leant closer and kissed her more passionately than the night before. Cocooned in the beach towels their damp bodies were pressed against each other. Finn’s hands slid beneath their towels and across her cold skin, brushing the sides of her breasts and skimming her hips. She moved her hands to his chest, making his towel drop away on to the picnic blanket, leaving them shivering and laughing together.

~

After drying off and having their picnic, Jenna pulled on her shorts over her bikini bottoms and they explored the beach together. Even in the middle of the day it was still blissfully peaceful, and they wandered over to a cluster of rocks on the far side. They picked their way across, finding small rock pools hidden in crevices and larger ones too, deep pools undisturbed by the tide, teeming with sea creatures.

Finn stopped by the edge of a large pool. ‘Me and my sister always used to bring nets and spend hours seeing what we could find.’

‘Shame we haven’t got one now.’ Jenna followed Finn and sat on the edge of the rock pool, her feet dangling, submerged in the cool water. Fronds of seaweed swayed beneath the surface from the movement of her feet. Tiny fish darted between rocks, disappearing into shadowed crevices. The water was warm where shafts of sunlight between the rocks created a green watery world.

Being here with Finn reminded Jenna of family holidays, the long days on the beach exploring damp caves and rock pools with her brother, screeching together as they ran into the cold sea and straight back out again. They’d often gone to Cornwall, although Jenna only remembered visiting her great aunt a couple of times. Perhaps she’d been too young. Her memories were hijacked by beaches, rock pools and making sandcastles, rather than cups of tea in a garden with an elderly relative she hadn’t really known. By the time Jenna was nine and her brother eleven, her mum, fed up of camping and the unpredictability of the UK’s weather, insisted they swapped campsites for a hotel in Spain. The excitement of staying in holiday apartments by the beach won Jenna over for a few years, but as she got older, she thought more and more fondly about those early camping holidays and the beaches they explored in Cornwall.

‘Look.’ Finn pointed to a rock not quite submerged by water and a small crab scuttling over it.

The longer they waited and the quieter they were, the more creatures they saw, hiding amongst the seaweed and zigzagging across the impossibly clear water.

‘I keep thinking something’s nibbling my toes,’ Jenna said.

‘A natural version of one