Aelin loved the sun, and the sun loved her. It was days like this that Aelin was especially grateful for the two month summer break she had until the fall semester began. Aelin never once burned in the sun, though that could be due to the fact she applied two coats of sunscreen and a generous layer of tanning oil before venturing out to the pool (always enlisting the help of whoever closest to help cover her lower back).
Aelin's eyes were closed behind her sunglasses, and she listened to the sounds around her as she lay on her pool chair. It was the best kind of sound: the wind running through the trees and the white noise that was her friends' chatter. Enjoying the sun's caress, Aelin fell asleep.
Her sleep, however, was short lived. No sooner had Aelin fallen asleep than a drop of water jolted her awake. More correctly, it was a lot of drops. Drops that soaked the cover of the book next to her and ruined her protective, oily coating.
Aelin sat up and glared beneath her sunglasses. She took them off with a snap and glared a bit more. The targets of her annoyance turned out to be what seemed to be some kind of splash-fest between her someodd removed cousin, Aedion, and her friend-slash-kickboxing partner, Chaol. The two seemed to be having a grand old time, taking turns cannon-balling and once they were both submerged praying each other in the face. They were making a mess.
One might argue that Aelin should not have situated her pool chair so close to the edge of the pool, but, well, then Aelin would be that much farther away from the lifeguard's tower, where a certain tattooed classmate sat. And wouldn't that just defeat the entire purpose of the four of them coming here on Rowan's shift?
It took a full minute for Chaol and Aedion to pause long enough to feel the daggers from Aelin's eyes.
Aedion caught her attention first.
"Oh, crap, did we splash you? Sorry," Aedion said, with nothing short of the most genuine smile on his face.
Aelin stood up from her chair and took a dramatic step towards the edge of the pool.
"Sorry? Sorry! You splashed my book!" She fumed. "How could you! Now the pages will be warped; it'll never close right. And the cover too. It's going to have water marks. It's my favorite book, too. Barbaric. That's what this is. Water belongs in the pool, not on me!"
Aelin would have gone on for hours, but Chaol made the mistake of cutting her off with a mutter about the problem couldn't possibly stem from someone insisting that her pool chair be mere inches from the pool, which was followed by a cough-covered laugh from Aedion.
Aelin went to take another step forward to begin her next list of reasons why that statement was stupid, except there wasn't really enough pool deck for her to step on and Aelin promptly fell in the water right between Aedion and Chaol. This, of course, set the boys into a fit of laughter. The look of sheer indignation and contempt that Aelin gave the water upon surfacing sent them into another set of chortles. Aelin, however, never one to take too long to get to her feet, quickly dunked Chaol while he was busy laughing. She lunged at Aedion to try and grab his head, but Aedion jerked away right as Chaol grabbed her leg and pulled her away. The trio spent the next few minutes splashing and dunking each other under the playful gaze of Rowan. At one point, a small chuckle escaped Rowan as he watched Aelin pull Aedion under after she herself got dunked.
Aelin glanced at Rowan, up atop his lifeguard chair. "And some help you are," she called. "These bullies have been trying to drown me, and I've been fighting for my life, while you just sit up there and watch."
Rowan snorted at that. "My job is to keep people in actual danger safe."
Aelin glared. Aedion and Chaol glanced at each other in amusement, secretly hoping Rowan would wind up in the pool with them so they could dunk him, too.
"Speaking of danger," the lifeguard drawled, "Sleeping Beauty seems to be in danger of burning. Much more dangerous that a certain princess getting a few drops of water on her, don't you think?"
Sure enough, Dorian, whose chair was farther out of the blast zone, had slept through all the fighting, a thick book split open over his face. Fleetfoot, their joint-custody pup, lay under the chair.
Aelin, Aedion, and Chaol shared a glance, grinning at each other with the same thought in mind.
"It would be a shame if he burned," Aedion mused.
"Indeed," Aelin echoed.
"Real friends would get him out of direct sunlight before that could happen," Chaol mused.
Quietly, they all slipped out of the pool and surrounded Dorian's chair. With one swift, synchronized move, they lifted him up.
"Mmmuhh… Bloody-!" Dorian sputtered in the seconds before he was promptly flung into the pool. The trio erupted into giggles.
Just then, the town clock chimed three, and the next tattooed lifeguard approached to signal the end of Rowan's shift. Aelin flashed a particularly mad grin at Rowan.
"You're off the clock now," she chirped. "Which means it's your turn."
Rowan gracefully hopped out of the chair down to the pool deck, eyeing the four (Dorian stood in the water with an easy but mischievous smile on his face) with amusement. He stepped so that they stood between him and the pool.
"No thanks," he said.
No sooner had Rowan finished the words than Dorian (curse the stupid dog training) whistled a two-note sound and a flash of gold erupted from under the pool chair, and Fleetfoot jumped, causing a domino effect. In a matter of seconds, the whole crew was in the water, Fleetfoot paddling between them as the next round of dunking and splashing commenced.