Summer is the worst.

It's Piper's own fault. She should have found some excuse to stay in Northampton again; she's managed double summer sessions the past two years, taking the minimal number of classes possible and staying in the independent bubble of college practically year round.

But now it's catching up to her, the summer before senior year; her program at Smith isn't one of the more extensive, and she's already had to take the fewest number of hours the last two semesters to avoid graduating early.

No way is she graduating early.

So this her punishment; two months in the beach house with her parents and Cal. They'd bought this place a few years ago, apparently tired of their house in the mountains, and Piper's happily snagged the keys for a few weekend trips with her college friends, but so far she's avoided this: the full summer, family vacation experience. She'd asked Cal about the past two summers - How was it really? - but he'd poker faced her and just shrugged like she'd figure it out soon enough.

Apparently the same families come every year, her mother says it's a wonderful little community, and in the car ride she's already chattering away about whether the McCormicks will even still be together, or if Patricia's daughter has gotten herself together, and how they should really offer to host one of the get togethers this year, the backyard is definitely big enough.

In the passenger seat beside her mom - her dad and Cal in the car in front of them, so Bill can occasionally drive back to the office during the week - Piper listens dutifully to the run down of gossip, a veritable Who's Who of wealthy vacationers, and thinks longingly of her backpack, buried in the trunk and packed with (hopefully) two months' worth of beach reading. When they get close, within the limits of the small seaside town, Piper stares out the window at ports and sand dunes and tiny ice cream parlors and arcades, thinking longingly of Northampton, with its bars and clubs and college town culture.

She sighs.

At least she'll get an incredibly thorough sun tan out of this.

Summer is the best.

It's not that Alex enjoys the seasonal influx of WASP-y vacationers, come to populate their second (or, in some cases, third) homes that are probably ten, twenty, thirty times the size of the apartment Alex shares with her roommate, year round. But it beats the off-season alternative: cold beaches and a deserted town, everyone competing for gas station and fast food jobs just off the highway exits, considering a gig to clean the empty houses an absolute windfall.

But summer fills the beaches again, opens the surf shops and the arcades and the ice cream shop, allowing the locals slide back into their long established gigs with utmost relief.

And Alex has the best one, even if she does say so herself.

She and Poussey have a four year monopoly on the most optimally located lifeguard stand, enviable in its close proximity to the stretch of pier where the surf shops and refreshment stands are lined up. Sure, there is still the oppressive heat and the threat of sunstroke, and she goes through nearly a daily bottle of sunscreen, but it is still sunshine and bathing suits and minimal effort.

Poussey, as usual, turns into an immediate zealot. "This is the fucking life," she declares, sitting next to Alex on their double bench lifeguard stand. "Just chilling out in the sunshine, collecting a check. Surrounded by beautiful people." She heaves an exaggerated sigh of contentment. "It's the dream."

"I was with you until the end," Alex says dryly. "The beautiful isn't exactly universally applicable."

"Sure it is. Look at 'em." Poussey nods at a group of women strolling by, all of them on the high end of middle aged and taking great pains not to look it. "You can tell they're beautiful cause they've paid to be."

Alex smirks. "Think they bring their plastic surgeons along for vacation?"

"Oh, sure. Never know how much of a touch up the tits'll need until they get a look at the competition." They laugh; making fun of the summer populace is an old habit. After a second, Poussey snaps her fingers, remembering something, "Oh, hey, speaking of obscene wealth, I got good news...the Nichols are back."

"Thank God, finally. I was starting to think we'd be stuck with Yoga's shit all summer." Yoga Jones has run the surf shop for something like twenty years, and she sells them weed out of the back room...until Nicky Nichols arrives for the summer. Somehow, she's able to consistently get her hands on some seriously premium shit, and thus becomes their benefactor, always waving away their perfunctory offers to pay. In exchange, they graciously pretend Nicky isn't one of the rich, snobby elite and accept her into their fold. "Did you see Nicky?"

"Nah, just saw the cars at their place when I went running this morning. They must've just gotten there, though...looked like the servants were unloading the cars."

Alex clears her throat, stiffens her shoulders, and affects a deep, uppity voice. "But, muffin, don't you think the help deserve a vacation, too? They are technically human beings, too."

Without missing a beat, Poussey volleys back in her high pitched, rich white lady voice, "Why, snookums, how could you even suggest such a thing? What kind of vacation would I have if there wasn't any help? That's worse than my day to day life!"

Alex starts to continue the joke, but then she spots something out of the corner of her eye, toward the edge of the water, and she raises her voice, "Hey, Morello!"

Lorna glances over from pushing her frozen lemonade cart across the sand. Alex gestures for her to come over, and with colossal effort she redirects the trajectory of the cart, practically at a forty-five degree angle trying to push it up the beach toward the lifeguard stand. Her expression is suspicious when she approaches. "What?"

Poussey holds out a hand and waggles her fingers expectantly. "C'mon, girl. Hook us up."

Lorna puts her hands on her hips and squints up at them. "Why would I do that? You two don't even tip."

"Why do you get a tip jar?" Poussey demands. "We're making sure no one dies and we don't have a tip jar."

"Plus, why would we tip on something free?" Alex adds innocently. "Fifteen percent of zero is still zero."

Rolling her eyes, Lorna lifts both middle fingers at them and turns back toward her cart. "When you freeloaders got cash, come talk to me."

"Fine, we don't have money...but we have some information you'll want," Poussey teases out.

Lorna pauses, arching a wary eyebrow. "What information?"

Alex shakes her head. "Do people pay you before they get their product?"

With an excessive amount of grumbling and sighing, Lorna fills two cups about eighty percent full of frozen lemonade and passes them up. Alex and Poussey grin and clink the cups in gleeful triumph as Lorna orders sternly, "So, go ahead. Tell me."

Alex gives her a smug look, licking clean a generous spoonful of lemonade before stating, "Nicky's back."

The irritable expression falls instantly from Lorna's face. "You sure?" Her eyes are darting around, and her hands come up almost unconsciously to adjust her bikini top and smooth out her denim shorts, as if she's expecting Nicky to literally materialize.

"Poussey saw them moving in."

Poussey starts shimmying her shoulders, singing loudly, "Reunited and it feels so good."

Alex chokes back a laugh, affecting an innocent expression as she looks down at Lorna. "Did you two keep in touch? Carry on a beautiful courtship in the lost art of letter writing?"

Her eyes lighting up, Poussey slips into a decent impression of Lorna's accent. "Dearest darling Nicky..."

Alex picks up the thread, her own mimicry skills less polished. "...I'll never forget our magical drunken night under the boardwalk..."

"...I know I wasn't the first pussy you tasted that summer..."

"...but I do hope I was the sweetest..."

They're laughing too hard to keep going, and Lorna scowls up at them. "You're both giant assholes, ya know that?" She looks ready to vault up the lifeguard stand and pour their free frozen lemonade all over them.

Luckily, they're saved the vengeance by a customer, a slightly pudgy teenage boy, tentatively approaching her cart. "Uh, sorry, are you, like...open?"

Lorna nods, takes his money, and fills his order for two lemonades without smoothing out her glare even a little. When she's handed the cups over, she flips Alex and Poussey off one more time before turning her cart and heading off.

"She seems flustered," Alex observes.

"Too much sunshine," Poussey answers sagely.

Alex flicks a glance in front of the stand; the teenage kid is still standing there, holding a cup in each hand, completely failing to look like an idle bystander. "Hey, kid?" His whole body perks up and he lifts his face to her, like a dog catching a scent. "You by chance dying of sunstroke?"

"Uh. No."

She jerks her head and gives him a benign smile. "Then fuck off."

He scampers away. Poussey clicks her tongue in mock admonishment. "Damn. You cold."

Alex ignores that, leaning back against the bench and tilting her cup back, shaking free the last bit of lemonade from the bottom. After a few minutes of content silence, she gives a perfunctory scan of the water and then nudges Poussey, nodding her head toward the ocean, where two heads are bobbing much further out than the rest. "Got a few in too deep."

Poussey sighs lazily. "Shit." She holds out her fist, they do a quick, habitual rock-paper-scissors round. When Alex's paper covers her rock, Poussey groans and vaults off the stand, whistle already in her mouth, half jogging toward the water.

Cal flops back down on the towel beside hers, sending sand shooting over the pages of Piper's book, and hands over her frozen lemonade before declaring, "The lifeguards are two hot girls and it smells like pot."

Piper doesn't even look up at him, adjusting her book so she's holding it in one hand, using the other to eat. "And?"

"And I want to live at the lifeguard stand." He discards his spoon entirely, slurping the frozen concoction directly from the cup. "Wanna move closer?"

"Yeah, cause that's subtle."

Cal's silent for a few minutes, and Piper focuses her attention more on the lemonade than her book. She'd wanted to at least start out somewhat high brow, but Anna Karenina isn't proving ideal beach reading. Shocker. She's already wishing for one of the embarrassing romance novels with their crappy watercolor painting covers. Maybe she can compromise, go for some Jane Austen.

"Hey." Cal thumps his knuckles against the book cover, none too gently. "Stop being boring."

"What did you do the last two summers when I wasn't here?"

"I didn't really come to the beach."

Piper sighs, and finally sets aside her book, acting like it's a much bigger sacrifice than it is. "You didn't make any friends? Cause Mom and Dad sure as hell did."

"None of them are the right age. Plus, they're all fuckin' rich kids."

"We're fucking rich kids."

"Maybe you are," Cal counters with a derisive snort, in the kind of condescending tone of a teenager who thinks he can disown his upbringing just by saying it.

"Sure, Cal." She picks up her book again, and Cal sighs ostentatiously, flopping facedown on his towel. Piper cuts her eyes at her little brother and smirks. She shoves the book down in a beach bag and pulls out a frisbee, which she taps sharply against the back of Cal's head. "Fine, c'mon, I'll save you from this sedentary lifestyle."

Cal grins and leaps to his feet. "Sweet! There's enough space down there, let's move." He points to a fairly empty stretch of sand, conveniently close to the lifeguard stand. Piper rolls her eyes but doesn't protest. There's only one lifeguard at the stand now, and Piper can't make out much beyond a messy black ponytail, glasses, and some sort of bright red tattoo on her bicep.

Cal jogs ahead of her, taking the end of the empty stretch of beach that's closer to the lifeguard stand, tossing the frisbee between his hands as though to prove his legitimate purpose. The lifeguard isn't having any of it, though, and has clearly had an earlier interaction Cal failed to mention. She snaps her fingers at him. "Oh, fuck, no, I know your deal." She points down the beach toward Piper, who's standing in place a good distance away, as frisbee tossing dictates. "Switch with her."

Piper snorts out a laugh as Cal turns tail, too embarrassed to think of a protest, and heads in Piper's direction. She passes him on her way forward, plucking the frisbee rom his hands and smirking. "Smooth."

He shrugs, already shaking it off. "See if she'll give you some weed, at least."

Piper gets an appropriate distance away and flicks a glance toward the lifeguard stand, intending to give an eyeroll and an apologetic smile, but the way the girl's looking at her throws her off balance.

Her lips are pursed in a curled up, smirk of a smile, and her eyes are narrow, dancing with both great mirth and great interest. Piper feels her gaze like its sweeping across her skin, hot and buzzing, the very first pricklings of sunburn.

She flushes for no logical reason, squinting into the sun, neck craned up at the stand. She smiles and it feels involuntarily. "Sorry," she blurts out after a moment, and her voice sounds like she's not sure anymore if she's apologizing for herself or Cal.

"No worries." The girl cranks her grin up a few notches. "This works out for me."

Piper's blush intensifies, and Cal's calling her name impatiently, so she turns around and hurls the frisbee wildly. It hits the sand way too soon, and she can hear the lifeguard laughing at her.

"You see what this bitch is reading?" Poussey's nodding toward the blonde girl, who for the past few days has been setting up her beach towel fairly close to their stand. Alex isn't sure if that's her preference, or her brother's (at least, Alex assumes he's her brother), but Alex knows what she's hoping for. "Fucking Tolstoy. At the beach."

When Alex doesn't comment, Poussey stiffens her shoulders and adopts her mocking voice. "Oh, it was ever so nice of Harvard to allow me time off to take advantage of Mummy and Daddy's third largest residence, but they only agreed if I promised not to clutter my mind with anything low brow." Alex is only half listening; the blonde girl's rubbing sunscreen on her legs. Poussey backhands her elbow. "Oh, what, now you ain't gonna play?"

"Sorry," Alex mutters, distracted.

Next to her, understanding dawns slowly on Poussey's expression, and she smirks. "Seen something you like, Vause?"

Alex gives a nonchalant shrug. "She is hot."

She doesn't let on what she's really thinking; Poussey would have way too much fun with it. Because, yeah, the blonde girl looks damn good in her bikini, but most of these prep school and university girls do. What's kept Alex looking is something else. Maybe that smile the girl had given her, that day with the frisbee; her whole damn face had participated in that smile.

"Afternoon, ladies." Alex turns to see Nicky approaching; she's wearing a boho skirt and a bikini top, spooning frozen lemonade into her mouth, no doubt purchased from Lorna's cart. "How's serving and protecting?"

"More like staring and drooling," Poussey counters. "Alex has a crush."

She nods at the girl, and Nicky tilts her head in that direction. "Oh, I've seen her around. Her family's place is near my parents'. Major fucking yuppies."

Poussey and Alex exchange a snide, amused glance, their usual response to when Nicky talks like she's not one of those people.

But they tolerate it, and she immediately reminds them why, craning her neck to give them an expectant look. "Wanna smoke?"

Poussey nods immediately, holding out her fist to Alex to rock-paper-scissors for who goes first; one of them has to stay to man the station. Alex waves her off. "You go ahead, I'm good here."

Poussey smirks. "I bet you are."

They head off, presumably to smoke under the pier.

The blonde girl glances over and meets Alex's eyes. She gives a sheepish sort of smile, like she's the one caught staring instead of the other way around. She lifts a hand, awkwardly waving.

Alex flutters her fingers back, coy. It's going to be a long, hot summer. She's not in any hurry.

A neighborhood clam bake sounds casual and easygoing in theory, but Piper isn't surprised when she and Cal follow their parents into the Nichols' sweeping backyard three houses over to find a fully catered affair, rented white tents lined up in the yard over the tables, naked light bulbs strung between them.

Cal gives a low whistle. "Damn."

"Language, Calvin," Carol admonishes.

With a shrug, he shoves his earbuds in, cranks up his iPod, and ambles toward the buffet. Piper starts to follow, but her mom lifts a hand to stop her. "Stay close, Piper, you still haven't met everyone."

Looking enviously after her brother, Piper nevertheless nods in agreement, and spends the next half hour following both parents around the party, smiling and nodding and thanking everyone who says she's pretty, listening to the constant, repetitive rundown of her resume as a daughter - "senior at Smith, English major, thinking about law school" - without bothering to jump in and explain that the last part isn't exactly true.

Her mom's got an arm looped through her elbow and is introducing her to the night's hostess, when suddenly the other woman looks away and calls, "Nicole! Come over here, I want you to meet somebody." Mrs. Nichols flicks her eyebrows at Piper and her mother, long-suffering. "My daughter."

The girl, around Piper's age, slouches over like it costs her a lot. Her eyes flick to Piper and she smirks slightly, looking amused for some reason; Piper's seen her at the beach a few times, hanging out with the lifeguards.

"Nicole, this is Piper." She gives her daughter a significant, pointed look. "She's a senior at Smith."

"Good for her," Nicole says, voice dead flat. She lifts her brows at Piper. "You like it?"

It's painfully obvious she's being sarcastic, just parodying interest, but both their mothers have expectant expressions on their faces, like this is a normal conversation, so Piper is forced to say, as noncommittal as possible, "Yeah, it's good." Still, the other girl intensifies her smirk as if Piper had walked into her trap.

"Piper's going to law school," Nicole's mother says, still with sharp, pointed significance, enough that Piper can recognize an unfavorable comparison is being made. She shifts uncomfortably, wanting an out.

"Oh, that's cool," Nicole says, tilting her head at Piper. "I may need a lawyer someday, right, Mom?" On that note, she grins and turns away, disappearing toward the buffet.

"I'm sorry about her," Mrs. Nichols says, sounding more martyred than embarrassed. "That girl hasn't been easy a day of her life."

Carol nods sympathetically. "My youngest is the same."

Piper frowns, loyally protesting, "No, he's not."

"Piper," Carol flashes her a warning look. "Why don't you go get some food, darling?"

She's not fond of being dismissed like a child, but Piper's not sorry to get away from the parade of introductions. She gives a dutiful smile at to Mrs. Nichols. "It was nice to meet you."

She piles her plate with food and finds Cal sitting at the corner of a table mostly filled with pre-teen boys, hunched over handheld video games. He lifts his eyebrows; she rolls her eyes. All the communication they need.

Nearly an hour later, the sun gone down, Piper circles the yard with a glass of wine, keeping an eye out for her parents so she can make her excuses and head back to the house. There's a group of little kids running around on the lawn playing tag, and Piper stops to watch for a minute, feeling a stab of envy. She probably would have liked it here when she was a kid, back when she loved family vacations and couldn't yet see how...just say it, how obnoxious her parents can be.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't Our Beacon of Success."

Piper whips around to see Nicole, a cigarette propped between her lips, bottle of champagne in her hand, smirking at Piper from the shadows of immaculate hedges. She's obviously been into the house to change, out of her dress and into short cut-offs and a T-shirt that hangs off one shoulder.

"That's what I'm here for," Piper says sarcastically. "To inspire." The other girl grins, seemingly pleased at this moderate flash of an actual personality. Piper offers a half smile. "Nicole, right?"

She shudders like she's been insulted. "Ugh. Nicky." She grins again immediately. "As my future lawyer we need to make that clear up front."

"Oh, I'm not going to be a lawyer. My parents just want me to."

Nicky's eyes spark with interest at that, but all she says is, "Excellent. I'll be sure to mention that to mother dearest when she asks why I can't be more like that Piper girl. I'll tell her that, hey, you may be a senior at Smith, but you aren't actually on track to be a lawyer. It'll make a world of difference."

Piper's not sure what to say to that, so, dumbly, she asks, "So you aren't in school?"

"Dropped out," Nicky says, completely unperturbed. "After one semester. They were pissed...pretty sure they had to donate a small fortune to get anywhere to even accept me, what with my stellar high school suspension record."

She delivers this information with unmistakable pride, and Piper can't help but smile a little. She likes Nicky. She's maybe even a little bit jealous of her, wondering what that would feel like: all that not giving a fuck, the way she'd walked away from her mother earlier like it didn't matter at all.

All appearances of the past twenty-one years have pointed to the fact that Piper doesn't have that in her. But sometimes, for some reason, she gets a flash of a feeling that maybe she could.

Nicky's studying her with interest, almost like she's reading Piper's flash of admiration and is trying to unspool it. "What about you? You just always play Dutiful Daughter?"

"No." The response is instant and defensive. "I already told you, they want me to go to law school and I'm not going to do it."

"But you haven't told them," Nicky counters, correctly. She smirks. "Not good enough."

"Fine, okay. I had a job last semester. At the coffee shop on campus. But I didn't tell my parents because they don't want me working and getting distracted from school." More like they don't want her doing any sort of work they consider beneath her.

"So...you're saying your big act of defiance was getting a job?" Nicky chokes out a laugh. "Stone cold rebel."

Piper scowls at her. "Well if you're so fucking rebellious, why are you here?"

"Are you kidding? Coming here is, like, the only perk of my parents being my parents. I fucking love it here."

"You can't love it here."

"Sure I can. You're just not experiencing the right parts." Nicky pauses, pursing her lips, looking like she's indulging in some sort of private joke with herself. "You know what? I'm gonna be your sponsor."

"What does that mean?"

"Meet me out front at, like..." Nicky glances at her watch. "Eleven or so. I'll show you where we keep the fun."

They've been back from the Nichols for about two hours; her parents are already asleep for the night and Cal's zoned out in front of the giant flat screen when Piper heads outside to meet Nicky.

Nicky frowns when she sees her. "What, you couldn't sneak any booze?"

Piper blinks at her. "You didn't tell me to."

"What do you think fun means, Chapman?" She waves a bottle of vodka for emphasis. "Oh, well, there's usually plenty there. You can mooch for the night."

"Where is there, exactly?"

"Don't ruin the mystery, geez."

The location itself isn't much of a mystery, as it becomes quickly apparent they're heading toward the beach, over the dunes and onto the sand, where they walk nearly a mile down. They don't talk much - they don't really know each other, there isn't much to say - but Piper doesn't mind. She's always preferred beaches at night: the emptiness, the salt scented breeze, the crashing hiss of waves not drowned out by chatter and screaming children. Nicky takes nips from her vodka, and offers it to Piper a couple times. Each time she obliges but barely consumes a mouthful; she's always found vodka vaguely antiseptic.

After awhile she spots the bonfire, the bright orange flames and crowd of people visible even before they're close enough to hear the hum of conversation and laughter and occasional acoustic strumming.

"Welcome to the real party," Nicky tells her, as smug as if the whole gathering was her idea.

There's a decent sized crowd gathered, sitting around the fire on low seated beach chairs or just sprawled out on blankets. Piper doesn't recognize any of them, and she's got a vague notion they wouldn't have been attending the clam bake.

Nicky leads her to the only surface standing more than a foot off the stand: a fold up plastic table crowded with bottles and cans. Nicky leaves her partially full vodka bottle among them, opting instead for a beer. Piper hesitantly grabs a Red Solo cup, mixing tequila with orange juice, swirling with her finger for lack of a better option.

When she looks up, Nicky's ditched her.

Piper glances around, and her blood speeds up when she sees her, on the other side of the bonfire, talking to those lifeguards.

Specifically, the unfairly gorgeous, sexy, tattoo-and-glasses lifeguard.

The one Piper's been watching for the past two and a half weeks. Two and a half weeks of sitting pointedly, purposefully in her line of vision, and she still hasn't spoken to her since that first day. It's frustrating; much more frustrating than the situation logically warrants. A few times she's considered marching over to the lifeguard stand herself, but self doubt and fear of misinterpreting always tugs her back. It's not like Piper is an expert in the signs of flirting between women.

The lifeguard is stretched out in a low beach chair, her long legs sprawled in the sand, hands busy with something in her lap, and she's looking up at Nicky while they talk. Piper could walk over. She knows Nicky - she's, technically, here with Nicky - and it wouldn't be weird. Not at all.

But doubt grabs onto her again, and instead she goes and sits in the sand, slightly removed from the group, a full 180 degrees across from Nicky and her friends. She drinks, pouring tequila down her throat like it might fuel her courage.

"Yo, Vause. I brought you a present."

Alex barely looks up at Nicky, focused on rolling a joint on top of the magazine perched on her thighs. "Actually, for once, I'm all covered." She holds up the joint in triumph. "Your services aren't needed."

"Not that kind of gift, pothead," Nicky says. "Over there."

Alex's gaze follows Nicky's nod and lands on the blonde girl from the beach, currently mixing something at the drinks table and looking almost achingly lovely in a white cotton sundress and low, loose ponytail. Alex isn't sure what sort of weird sap she's turning into that she likes this better than the bikinis, but to be fair, that has been the constant for over two weeks now.

Not that the bikinis themselves are constant - it's a different one every day. Literally. No repeats. This girl must own a full catalogue's worth of swimwear.

"I met her at my mom's dumbass clam thing tonight," Nicky's saying, and Alex is too pleased and distracted by recent developments to question what it even means to have a dumbass clam thing. "She's actually...not the worst." Nicky sounds wholly and genuinely shocked by that fact.

"So..." Alex lifts an eyebrow, expectant. "Tell me more."

"Tell me more, like, does she have a car?" Poussey deadpans from beside them, where she's stretched out on the lap of the girl who runs the minigolf club rentals.

Either not getting the Grease reference or not caring, Nicky answers, "Oh, I'm sure her daddy's bought her some fancy ass ride."

Alex and Poussey burst out laughing, and Poussey splutters, "Bitch, you drive a goddamn Beamer."

"Hey, you. Anna Karenina!"

Confused, Piper's head swivels dumbly for a second, like she's trying to figure out if someone actually named Anna Karenina might be in the vicinity, before her eyes settle on the lifeguard. The lifeguard. She's at the edge of the crowd, still with her friends, including goddamn useless Nicky, and she's regarding Piper with obvious amusement.

"Sorry?"

The girl's grin widens. "I'm obligated to tell you that even though there are lifeguards present, we are all heavily inebriated. So swim at your own risk."

Piper's at the edge of the water, her sandals in one hand, the surf up to her ankles. She's on her third or so cup of tequila and orange juice, and it makes it easier to smile and incline her head solemnly. "I'll keep that in mind."

The blonde girl - Nicky said her name is Piper - does that thing again, that full face smile, the one that crinkles her eyes and scrunches her nose and gives her dimples like parentheses.

Goddamn it.

Alex walks over to her like she has any sort of choice in the matter. Like it's some spur of the moment decision, not something she's been building up to for weeks.

Finally, finally, finally the lifeguard breaks away from the crowd and moves closer, and Piper feels a thrill coiling in her gut that's both victorious and terrified.

"So you're the Ivy Leaguer?"

"No." The girl frowns, like she's been lied to, and Piper assumes this is false information courtesy of Nicky. "I mean. I go to Smith. It's not Ivy." When the other girl doesn't say anything, just stares Piper dead on with this frazzlingly expectant look on her face, Piper keeps talking, "It is one of the Seven Sisters though."

"The Seven Sisters?" The girl smirks. "Sounds like one of Aesop's fables. Either that or a really weird porno."

"It's just a group of seven schools that used to be exclusively women's colleges. The name is actually for The Pleiades. You know, from Greek mythology? It's - ." Piper cuts herself off. She's doing that thing she does. Spewing useless information, compulsively filling silence. This girl most definitely doesn't care.

And yet she's still grinning, eyes dancing with a curious mix of amusement and fascination. "So what do they teach you at The Seven Sisters? Besides the origin of the name?"

"Um. English literature, mostly." Piper takes a nervous sip, draining the rest of her cup. "That and binge drinking."

The lifeguard's smile tilts crookedly. "Oh, yeah? I'm self taught." She lifts the wine bottle in her hand up in a silent cheers before taking a generous swig. She takes a few steps closer, kicking her shoes haphazardly across the sand. "Piper, right?"

"Yeah." Piper gives her a pointed look. "Not Anna Karenina."

"Hey, you're the one who's been reading it all month."

Piper waits, and when she doesn't say anything else, prods, "So are you going to tell me your name, or should I just pick a literary character at random?"

That earns her a short, genuine laugh and Piper feels it in her chest.

"My name's Alex."

"Alex..." She repeats the name for no real reason. Alex is right in front of her now, her eyes tracing Piper's face like looking is all she needs to figure her out.

"I haven't seen you here before this year. Parents just upgrade to new vacation digs?"

"They were here the last two summers...this is just the first year I haven't been able to get out of it."

"Awwww." Alex laughs at her in a way that should probably seem mean but somehow doesn't. "Poor little rich girl doesn't like beach vacations?"

Piper bites her bottom lip, grinning sheepishly. Then, giving silent thanks to the alcohol buzzing in her system, she looks at Alex and says, "I'm liking it a little better right now."

Alex's eyes flare, pleased and smug. Piper finishes the last of her drink, and Alex silently offers the wine.

When she hands the bottle back, Alex is still studying her. "So. Piper. You go to Smith - which is not in the Ivy League, but is apparently some sort of sister. You're really slow about reading Tolstoy. You suck at frisbee. You're nice to your brother...or, at least, I'm making an educated guest that's your brother, and not your teenage boyfriend." Piper makes a face, confirming that assumption, and Alex's smile dials up a bit. "Excellent. So." She cocks an eyebrow. "What else do I need to know about you?"

They're sitting side by side on the sand, Alex's wine between them, having one of those first flush conversations the goes everywhere, highways and backroads, big autobiographical information and small useless rants about the ice cream shop's lack of flavor variety, when Nicky strolls over yelling Piper's name. Alex levels a glare at her, but of course that only makes Nicky look more cheerful.

"Yo, Chapman, I'm heading back to the homestead. You walking with?"

Before Piper can answer, Alex shoots Nicky an innocently curious look. "What, no Lorna?"

Nicky's face darkens slightly. "Morello and I are having a difference of opinion about whether a certain boyfriend in college actually exists."

Alex clucks her tongue sympathetically. "She probably has the authority on that one, huh?"

"Supposedly," Nicky says skeptically. She shifts her gaze back to Piper. "So. You ready?"

Piper glances at Alex. "I'm okay. I'll probably hang out for awhile."

Nicky looks back and forth between them, smirking. "Not past curfew?"

"I'll walk her home, Nichols," Alex says firmly. She catches Piper smiling out of the corner of her eye. "You're more than free to go."

Nicky meets Piper's eyes and winks. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do, Rebel."

Alex waves sardonically at Nicky's retreating back, then turns to Piper. "Feeling up to a swim?"

Piper's eyes go wide. "Uh, the drunk and ocean combo might actually be something even Nicky wouldn't do."

Alex grins. "Wasn't talking about the ocean."

"It's closed," Piper blurts out as soon as they get to the public pool, its chain link fence padlocked.

"That's kind of the appeal." Alex has already found a foothold and is starting to climb. Shockingly fast, she's over the top and grinning at Piper from the other side of the fence. "Coming?"

"Um." Piper hesitates, eyeing the plethora of signs warning against unauthorized, after hours entry.

"Hey." She looks at Alex, who flashes her a reassuring grin. "The reason no one's allowed in after it closes is because there's no lifeguard on duty. But..." She waves a hand at herself, expression smug. "Problem solved." She lets her fingers drape over Piper's hand clutching on the fence's links, and Alex winks. "I'll keep you safe."

Piper grins and rolls her eyes, giving in. She lifts her leg awkwardly to climb the fence. By the time she's on the ground on the other side, Alex has tossed her V-neck aside and is stepping out of her shorts. It pulls Piper up short, though it really shouldn't - she's spent a lot of time recently covertly staring at Alex in a bathing suit, and she rocks even the lifeguards' red, standard issue one piece as if it's not sacrificing anything.

But still. This is different. Now she has a name, and they've talked, and it's just the two of them.

Now she's actually close enough to touch.

Alex glances over her shoulder, a self satisfied look streaking across her face when she finds Piper staring. She takes off her glasses last, leaving them on top of her clothes on one of the many plastic beach chairs. Then she turns back around, stepping quickly down the steps into the shallow end, ducking underwater when she's all the way in.

She rockets to the surface, smoothing wet hair back on her head, and shoots Piper an expectant look. "C'mon, Pipes." The nickname rolls out like it's the most natural thing in the world, like she's said it a hundred times before. "Get your ass in here."

Piper peels off her dress, well aware her bra and underwear don't remotely match - she'd had no reason to wake up this morning and think anyone else would see them.

She throws Alex a teasing look and walks the perimeter of the pool to the deep end, climbing up the diving board.

"Show off," Alex teases.

Piper just smiles before diving in gracefully. The water thrums around her ears, warmer than she'd expected, and she doesn't pop to the surface until she's beside Alex, chest deep in the shallow end.

Alex's smile is the softest Piper's seen it. "Hi."

Piper's every nerve comes alive in anticipation. "Hey."

In the second before Alex's mouth covers hers, Piper has the absurd expectation that she'll taste like ocean. Instead it's wine and weed and something else, something vague and sweet that must just be Alex.

Alex holds her hand and walks her home at nearly four in the morning.

The next day on the beach, Piper climbs the side of the lifeguard stand to kiss her while Poussey laughs at them and ostentatiously covers her eyes. When Piper returns to her beach towel, Cal is bug eyed and muttering something about dibs.

Nicky calls her a lifeguard groupie for the next two weeks before even she gets sick of the joke.

Alex takes her to the arcade and laughs hysterically when Piper gets mad enough to kick the skeeball machine.

She goes to every bonfire, which turns out to be an almost nightly occurrence, sitting in the sand in front of Alex's beach chair, leaning against Alex's legs while she winds her fingers through her hair.

The summer cracks wide open, and suddenly Piper doesn't want to go back.

On Piper's last night, they end up at the pier at two in the morning. It's empty and quiet, and they can barely make out the orange pinprick of the fire, far, far down the beach.

Alex sits down on the wooden bench, built into the pier's perimeter and pulls Piper onto her lap, facing her. "So." She smiles teasingly, gently tucking a strand of hair behind Piper's ear. "You regretting those last two summers of academic responsibility?" She gives a mock sigh. "You robbed us of so much time, Pipes."

Piper groans, nothing mock about it, tilting her head forward and burying it briefly against Alex's shoulder. "Don't remind me."

Alex waits until she looks up again, the teasing fading from her face. "So what about next summer? After you graduate?"

"Next summer I'll be here." It may be the only tiny semblance of a plan she has post-college, but right now it seems like plenty.

A smile blooms across Alex's face, and she leans up to gently capture Piper's lips in hers. It's a long, leisurely kiss, done under the illusion that they have all the time in the world.

"God..." Piper breathes out when she pulls away, her hands still cradling Alex's face. "I'm going to spend the whole year just...waiting for summer." Alex lets out a soft, surprised laugh at that, and Piper's eyebrows knit together in confusion. "What?"

"Nothing, just...that's kind of life here." She kisses Piper again, soft and quick. Habitual. "Always waiting for summer."

Piper winds her finger around a strand of Alex's hair. "But more this year, right?"

Alex grins, the smile Piper's started to recognize as just hers: all soft, pure affection even when tinged with amusement. Alex's lips brush the curve of her jaw. "Definitely more this year." She kisses Piper's cheek. "Waiting for summer." On the lips, impossibly soft, and then Alex's eyes settle on hers. "Waiting for you."

A/N: I'm taking a month or two off from lengthy fic (which essentially means I'm putting off the next YB sequel for that long, since it's next on the docket) so I can make progress on some original projects I have going on. But I want to keep doing some short AUs, excerpts from other 'verses of mine, whatever else people want to prompt. I've got several lined up already, but feel free to message me on tumblr (alxvse) or leave them here (but if you do prompt in comments, be sure to let me know what you think of this one, too). I won't necessarily get to everything immediately, but if I think I can do it justice, I'll store it for sure. It's a long hiatus.