Title: The Essence of Life
Summary: Seth makes good on his promise of a romantic gesture and takes Summer sailing.
Author's Note: This is post-The Rainy Day Women and kind of AU from there. Alex is still around and Marissa is still living with her. Zach will be staying in Italy indefinitely, never to make an appearance in this story. I think you can pretty much tell from the summary that this story will be light, cheesy, and fluffy. And hopefully funny as well. I don't really know where I'm going with this, except to the dentist for treatment of the cavities I will get from this fic. Haha. You guys might want to make an appointment at your own dentist as well. :D
Chapter 1
"Cohen!"
Ryan heard Summer yell from the foyer, the front door slamming behind her. He winced and hid behind the newspaper, attempting to make himself look busy.
"Chino!" Summer walked into the kitchen and headed straight for the coffee maker. "Where's Cohen?"
"Good morning to you too, Summer," Ryan said dryly.
She glared at him.
"I don't know. I just got up."
"Is he still sleeping? I told him he's going shopping with me today," she frowned.
Ryan shrugged and went back to his newspaper.
Summer filled a mug with coffee. "I am going upstairs and I am pouring hot coffee on him if he doesn't get his lazy ass out of bed."
"Summer, wait!" Ryan called after her, trying to stop her before she went up to an empty room. She turned and looked at him expectantly. Shit. What was he going to do now? Seth had given him strict orders to distract her so she wouldn't go looking for him. "Uh…Wouldn't you rather go shopping with Marissa instead?" He asked.
"Can't. Apparently she has chores to do," Summer rolled her eyes. "And ever since she moved out of her Mom's place, Coop has done nothing but whine that she's broke."
"But…she's happy, right?"
"Yeah, very happy," Summer raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Nothing," Ryan looked away, suddenly very interested in his bagel.
Summer sighed. "Where is he, Chino?"
"Who?" Ryan asked innocently.
"Cohen! Where is he? I know you're trying to distract me. He's not upstairs, is he?"
"No."
"Where is he?"
"I have no idea."
Summer held up her coffee mug and grabbed a butter knife from the counter. "Ryan, I'm holding hot coffee and a knife. This is the last time I'm going to ask you. Where. Is. He?"
Ryan looked nervously from the coffee mug to the knife. He gulped, knowing from the menacing tone in Summer's voice and the gleam in her eye that she really could and would hurt him. "He's at the docks."
Summer put down her 'weapons'. "Why?"
Ryan shrugged. "He's fixing his boat, I guess."
"His boat? Is he leaving again?" She demanded.
"I don't know, Summer. He's already going to kill me for telling you this much."
"Not if I kill him first," Summer fumed.
Ryan watched her storm out of the kitchen and winced again when he heard the front door slam. Summer really was the epitome of high maintenance, he didn't know how Seth did it.
Seth swore he could feel her before he actually saw her. He didn't know how to explain it, Summer just had this very distinct aura about her that Seth could feel from a mile away. And right now he could feel…her anger. Directed towards him. Seth looked down at his boat, trying to figure out a way to hide in it. Or maybe he could just jump into the water and save Summer the trouble of drowning him.
"Cohen!"
Seth turned to see Summer standing with her arms crossed in front of her, glowering at him. He found her ridiculously beautiful at that moment and decided that death by Summer's hands would be the absolute best way to die. "Summer, hi."
"What are you doing?" She demanded.
"Uh…I bought back the Summer Breeze!" He gestured unnecessarily to the boat beside him.
Summer looked at it and narrowed her eyes. "Gimme Sex?"
"Uh yeah, the guy that bought it kind of made a few modifications. But I'm changing it back, I swear. It was supposed to be a surprise…"
"You were planning on 'surprising me' by leaving again?" She asked incredulously.
For the first time Seth could see past the anger in her eyes to the hurt she was feeling. She thought he was leaving her again. He stepped closer to her. "Yeah, I'm leaving…" he said softly.
Summer's eyes widened and filled with tears. She looked like she wanted to slap him and Seth grabbed her hands before she could. "And I'm taking you with me."
"What?"
"Just you and me, Summer. We can sail to Catalina or Santa Barbara, or both. What do you say?" He asked hopefully.
Summer jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and burying her face in his neck.
"So I guess that's a yes," Seth laughed, wrapping his arms around her, trying to keep his balance.
"When do we leave?" She asked excitedly.
"We kinda have to wait until school lets out or my parents will kill me," he said. "And I was hoping to restore the Summer Breeze to her former glory before our trip…make her less of a slut."
Summer looked at the boat again and laughed. She slid down from his arms and tugged on his hand. "Come on."
"Where are we going?"
"I'm going to help. And we need supplies."
"But I already have some," he pointed to the newly bought bucket of paint and paintbrushes.
Summer rolled her eyes. "You call that supplies? Come on, Cohen," she tugged on his hand again.
Seth sighed and followed her, knowing better than to argue. "Ryan told you I was here, didn't he?"
"Yup."
"Why? How? He's usually good at keeping secrets."
"I broke him," Summer said smugly.
Seth raised an eyebrow, as curious as he was to know what that meant, he had a feeling it would be infinitely more amusing hearing it from Ryan.
"My boat is pink," Seth said flatly as he walked into the kitchen.
Ryan looked up from the comic book he was reading. "What?"
"Summer wanted to help in the restoration of the Summer Breeze and we spent the day painting it with pink paint that sparkles in the sun!" Seth fell heavily onto the stool beside Ryan. "She's going to make the sails pink and purple, and she wants me to draw Princess Sparkle on the side."
Ryan laughed.
"It's not funny! I have to spend the summer sailing on that monstrosity, and it's all your fault!"
"How is it my fault?"
"You told her where I was!"
"She came here this morning looking for you, what was I supposed to tell her?"
"You were supposed to lie," Seth said.
"Have you ever tried lying to your girlfriend, Seth?" Ryan asked.
"Wha-no," Seth was caught off guard with the question. "I can't lie to her, she always knows."
"Exactly."
Seth turned towards Ryan and studied him for a few seconds. "She scared you, didn't she?"
Ryan gave him his trademark sideways look and picked up the comic book again. "No."
Seth grinned. "She did."
Ryan put down the comic book again. "Man, she had a knife."
Seth burst out laughing. "She-she threatened you with a knife?" He choked out.
"And hot coffee," Ryan said somberly."Dude, Your girlfriend is scary."
"Ryan Atwood scared of a girl," Seth shook his head, still chuckling. "I never thought I'd see the day."
Ryan glared at him. "I wouldn't talk. You're the one with a Barbie dreamboat."
That got Seth to stop laughing. He put his face in his hands and groaned, still unable to fully comprehend the nightmare his precious boat had been reduced to.
Ryan patted him on the back. "At least you have Summer back. And she's obviously agreed to go sailing with you."
"I'm in deep shit, aren't I?"
"Yeah, you are," Ryan agreed. "But you obviously like it."
Seth didn't argue.
TBC
AN2: Yes, another one and it will be long again and no you don't need to read it if you don't want to. It's not really important, just me rambling my head off. :D
I said earlier that I don't know where I'm going with this fic, I'm kind of posting as I write. It's not the smartest idea in the world because I may want to revise stuff later on when I have an actual plot to go on. But its fun this way, and getting feedback from people and having that general awareness that people are actually reading this will keep me writing and updating. So what I'm going to do is post here on and wait until I have completed this story to post it at the UA fanfic archives (alongside my one-shots). So if ever I revise anything in this story, the revised version will be available at UA. So, yeah. End boring speech. You guys can wake up now. :D
I know I usually explain my sucky titles, but this time I'll wait until the end of the story to explain why I came up with this particular title for this story. But you guys might be able to figure it out beforehand so it doesn't really matter.
