It takes us a while to get out on the water. We had to get our boards waxed, change into our wetsuits, get sunscreened. We also had to scrape the old wax off of our boards before we could even start, although Noah got to skip that step. The board that Raj handcrafted for him has never been used, so his deck was already glossy.

“Jesus, that thing is rude,” Aiden said, staring down at the beautiful board, the hand-painted snow leopard beneath the resin.

Noah had grinned widely, grey eyes warm and excited.

Melanie opted to relax on the beach with a book, explaining that she wasn’t about to spend her first vacation since becoming a mom doing something that would make her more tired. But she did help us get ready, so we could go out faster.

“Alright,” Noah had shouted, as we ran down the beach towards the water. “Let’s cut up some waves!”

And now here we are, out on the sea. The water is stunningly clear beneath us. I can see the soft ridges of white sand deep below, and the darker areas of the reef. The sunlight is pouring down onto the ocean. Onto us, where we sit straddling our boards in silence.

“Wow,” Raj finally says. “It is flat, huh?”

It’s true. I don’t know what happened to those wild waves we saw when we first got here, but there’s barely a ripple on the ocean’s surface right now. The biggest waves that come merely rock us gently on our boards. We met no resistance while paddling out.

“Ugh,” Noah groans, tipping his head back in frustration. “This is the worst!”

“Is it, though?" I lean forward to rest my elbows on my board, trailing my fingers through the peaceful water. “This is the ideal situation, if you ask me.”

“There’s always a lull between sets,” Aiden tells Noah. “This is a long one, yeah, but we probably just got out here at the wrong time. Bet we’ll have perfect rollers coming through, soon. Just be patient.”

Noah lets out an exasperated noise, and I look over at him. I’m relieved that the water has turned out to be so calm, but our mission is to make Noah happy. And he really wants to surf, not just lay around on his board.

I lean closer to Aiden, speak as quietly as I can while still being heard. “Can you make a wave?”

His eyebrows fly up. “Make a wave? No. What?”

“Well, you manipulate temperature, and that’s part of the-”

“Oh my god, Jamie. I’m not about to try and manipulate the temperature of the fucking ocean to try and make a wave. What happens if I fuck it up? You feel like eating an entire bay’s worth of flash-fried fish? Look - we’re over the reef, okay? It should make waves like clockwork. We just have to w-”

“This is your fault, Jamie,” Noah suddenly calls.

I sit up again, staring at him. “My fault? Just how the hell-?”

“You wanted to just chill on your board,” Noah says, pointing an accusing finger at me, “So you sent the waves away, bro. Somehow.”

“I didn’t do shit, dude! It’s not magic, it’s science, it’s - physical oceanography!”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean! You know science, and you got rid of the waves using your - psychic - Oxycontin - what did you say?”

“How do you think science works, Noah? It’s frightening that you handle electricity on a daily basis-”

“The waves will come, boys,” Raj cuts in, and then, as a tiny wave gently lifts our boards - “Look, it’s picking up a little.”

“Yeah,” Noah agrees. “Now that Jamie got busted for using his psychic science magic optometry or whatever to hold back the-”

“Okay,” I groan. “Raj, permission to insult your boyfriend freely?”

“No,” he says firmly, and I toss my hands up in the air.

“You just don’t want to get washing-machined, Jamie,” Noah says, pouting. “That’s why you did it.”

“I am not gonna get washing-machined - I would rather not surf gigantic waves, but I can handle a set, okay?”

Noah snickers, then points at me. “Irish Setter.”

I stick a middle finger up at him behind Raj’s back, then whip around to glare at Aiden when he laughs, too. He quickly bites his lip, trying to look innocent.

“Come on,” Noah complains, slapping the water. “I have this sick board now, I want to take it for a real ride, see what it can d-”

“Um,” Raj interrupts. "Boys?"

Something in his voice stops the conversation short. We all look at him. He’s twisted around on his board, staring behind himself.

Everybody turns as one to follow his gaze, and my blood suddenly runs cold.

I can’t read waves like the others can, guess their heights. But the one coming for us - it’s huge.

Taller than the ones we saw from shore earlier. Towering over us, getting bigger and bigger as it sweeps over the surface, glittering white foam cresting its fast-rising face. It casts a shadow over us that seems to blot out the sun.

“Oh, shit,” I hear Aiden say, and then everyone is moving and shouting at once.

I know that I can’t ride this wave. Not even close. For me, this is a guaranteed wipeout, probably with a side of head trauma and two complimentary lungfuls of seawater.

I paddle as hard as possible to get over it before it can curl and crash down on me. I can’t make out what Aiden is shouting at me, but I’d guess that he’s just telling me to move, and I’m already way ahead of him on that.

I fight as hard as I can to make it to the top before all hope of escape is lost. For one split second, my board is almost vertical, the wave is curling over my head, and then - it lifts me, and drops me over its shoulder.

My board races down the back of the wave and comes to a jolting stop behind it. I land hugging the nose of my board, gasping. I throw my drenched hair out of my face and knuckle saltwater out of my eyes, trying to locate the others.

Aiden made it over, too, and he’s already paddling towards me to see if I’m okay. Raj got swept further down from us, but I spot him as soon as I turn my head.

He’s sitting up on his board, looking around frantically, his brown eyes wide with alarm. Yelling something to me and Aiden, which at first I can’t make out over the roar of the wave.

“What?” I shout back.

Again, I can’t hear what he’s saying, but I do catch one word: Noah.

I twist on my board, realizing that I don’t have Noah anywhere in my sights. He’s definitely not with us, or - if he is, he’s underwater. My breath starts to come up short, but then Aiden points and slaps the water to get our attention.

All three of us turn to look at the massive wave - which has started to curl, slowly crashing down from one end towards the other, sending up immense clouds of white, glittering water as it falls - just in time to see something come bursting through the curtain of spray at the edge.

Noah soars out of the collapsing tube, one hand held out to trace along the face of the wave. The faultless, handmade skegs that Raj created for the shortboard slice through the water so perfectly that Noah is able to pivot, climb higher on the wave, glide down again - and it looks effortless.

He flips his long black hair out of his face and punches two fists into the air, still going. Even from here, we can hear his wild, victorious laughter.

Raj, now beaming, lets out a long shout of approval as Noah springs off of his board and does a little flip into the subsiding wave. I’m laughing, my hands clasped over my mouth, and Aiden is grinning from ear to ear.

Another wave approaches from behind us, not as gigantic as the first. This time, more prepared and better positioned, all I have to do is hold onto my board and let the wave toss me over its shoulder. I have just enough time to see Raj drop into the tube before the wave goes past.

Aiden has gotten closer to me in the meanwhile. He reaches out and grips my board. “You gonna be alright, Keane?”

I look back at the waves, which are coming in like clockwork, just as Aiden said they would. It looks like the first one was a freak. The rest are more manageable, if still above my skill level.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine!”

Aiden leans across his board to press a saltwater kiss onto my mouth, then glances back at the rollers coming in. I suspect he’ll skip this next one, since it’s much smaller than the others. But he kicks himself backwards, and - shoves the back end of my board, hard.

I find myself caught in the force of the wave, pushed forward. I gasp and let out a stream of curses, but start paddling to catch it, since it’s too late to do anything else. How the hell did Aiden push me so hard? Those ripped arms, I swear.

“Bicep Boy - Mr. Protein Shake - idiot!” I shout over my shoulder, and Aiden’s laughter chases me all the way down the wave, mixing with the laughter from Noah, from Raj, and from me.

~~~~

“Man, I wish we could go out again,” Noah sighs, looking out over the sea.

We had a full day of surfing, then a break to shower and recharge, then a long, relaxed dinner at one of the little restaurants in the beach town. Now it’s late, and we’re all sitting on the cold sand, staring at the nighttime ocean. The waves from earlier have subsided completely, and the lapping of the tide is slow, tranquil.

We’re all blissfully tired, languid, slow-moving.

“It’ll be too cold, now,” Melanie yawns, leaning back against Noah’s chest.

He gives her braid a little tug. “Yeah, I know.”

To my left, Aiden stirs slightly. I see some thought move through his blue eyes.

“You want to do a nighttime paddle out, Noosh?”

“Would be dope, man, but like Mel said, it’s gonna be freezing.”

“Nah, it’s..." Aiden shrugs. "It’s not that bad, actually. I - checked already. When we got back from dinner.”

Raj gets to his feet and starts down towards the water. Aiden casually turns his snapback to face forward, tugs it down lower over his eyes. Raj braces himself before he touches a toe to the water, wincing preemptively. Then he turns around, a surprised smile on his face.

“Noah, come feel this. We could def go out, man.”

And so we end up back on our boards. This time without wetsuits, just our boardshorts. Mel comes with us, to Noah’s obvious happiness. The water is, mysteriously, not all that cold.

I smile at my Heliomancer as we all head out into the sea.

We paddle out until there’s some depth beneath us, then leash our boards together. Mel between Noah and Raj, and me by Aiden’s side.

I think we all came out here thinking we would be messing around like we were earlier, but everyone quickly falls quiet. We lay stretched out on our backs, looking up at the vast night sky. The soft, slow lapping of the waves against the shore is the only sound in the silence.

The water is unbelievably flat. Perfect stillness. Clear like glass, and just as smooth. The sky is swirled with endless fields of stars, and the water makes itself a mirror, picking up the cold fire of their light, glittering with it.

It’s beautiful.

And we couldn’t see it from this angle, if not for Aiden. I tilt my head to the side to look at him, my eyes filled with love and admiration - and find him already looking at me. Beneath the surface of the water, his fingers find mine, and weave through them.

I open the connection just enough to give him some of the love I'm feeling. To use our secret language.

Aiden blinks at me, a smile slowly turning up his lips. He stares into my eyes, stares and stares.

“Whoa,” Noah says suddenly. “What's that?”

I turn my head to look at him, see that he’s flipped onto his stomach on his board. He’s peering down into the crystal clear water, his eyes wide.

There’s a bit of splashing as we all turn over to see what he’s talking about. But when the water settles again -

The ocean is glowing beneath us.

“Oh my god, what are those things?” Mel says, her eyes filled with wonder. “They're gorgeous.”

I don't answer, but I know exactly what they are.

Aiden must have accidentally let some fireflies escape from the fingers of his other hand, which was drifting beneath the water when I was silently telling him that I love him.

The fireflies have sunk down to the bottom and spread out, casting light onto the pale ridges of sand, the colorful coral. The stones softly furred with green saltwater algae, and the sharp, translucent bodies of tiny fish.

Little points of light, each with a halo of glittering gold dust. They gently rock and flow with the tide.

“Some kind of - jellyfish, maybe?” Noah suggests.

“If that’s what they are, they’ve got the same amount of brain cells as you, Noosh.”

Noah lifts his head to scowl at Aiden. “I have many brain cells, alright? I’m an evolved man.”

“Oh, yeah?” Raj snickers. “Let’s ask the science teacher. Jamie, where is Noah, in the timeline of human evolution? Neanderthal?”

“Mmm - aerobic bacteria.”

Noah reaches over to try and shove me off my board as the others begin to laugh. “Who are you calling a bacteria, you fucking-?”

“Choose your next words carefully, dude,” Aiden cuts in.

Noah sits up and turns his head, his voice full of laughter. “Mel, Raj, can you believe this sh-?”

He breaks off sharply, staring.

Mel is laying flat on her board, her fingers laced beneath her cheek. Raj is up on his elbows behind her, so Noah has an eyeful of both of them. They’re both softly lit by the golden lights beneath the water. It catches in Melanie’s eyes, gently lacquers Raj’s jet-black curls. Dances slowly over them, moving with the rhythm of the sea.

They’re both looking at Noah, waiting for him to finish his thought.

He seems to realize that, but it takes a moment.

“Believe, um…” He trails off, then flops onto his back again, staring up at the stars. “Nevermind.”

He rubs his eyes, lets out a quiet laugh, and murmurs something to himself in French.

A soft rain is beginning, feathering lightly down onto us, but no one suggests that we go back to shore. Everyone stays silent as the droplets begin to send their little ripples out, blurring the clear surface of the water, diffusing the golden light beneath us.

The minutes pass by in contented silence.

I smooth my thumb up and down the side of Aiden’s palm. I rock on the subtle movements of the ocean like a person might rock slowly in a hammock. I feel tranquil, relaxed, happy right down to my core.

But I remember suddenly that this is all about Noah, and I open my eyes to check on him.

He’s still on his back, one arm reached out to rest on Melanie’s board. She has her fingers curled around his, her other hand wrapped around Raj’s.

Noah is gazing up at the sky. The starlight turns his eyes a particularly pale shade of moon-grey. It illuminates his tattoos and pools in the deep dimples by his smiling mouth, which grow a little sharper when Mel brushes a kiss onto his knuckles.

He looks like he’s sunk deeply into fathomless serenity, the perfect picture of it.

“Are you having a good time, Noah?” I hear Raj ask, very quietly.

“God, man, yeah.” Noah turns his head, and now I can’t see his expression anymore. Whatever it is, it puts an immediate, intimate smile on Raj's angular face. “This was like, the best day ever."

Raj bites his lip. “Yeah?”

Noah breathes out a slow, peaceful breath. “Mhm.”

Raj lets go of Mel’s fingers, reaches over her. He adds his hand to the stack of Noah and Mel’s, so that they’re all three holding each other. “I - I’m hoping to make tomorrow even better.”

“Good luck with that,” Noah sighs happily. “Can’t see how anything could top this.”