A/N: Special thanks to

Poseidon's Favorite Girl

Thanks so much for that review! That meant a lot to me : )

SO I have ABSOLUTELY no idea what to write about with the topic stripes, so… No clue… Let's see what comes out.

18. Stripes

It was a sunny day outside and today our group of friends were going out to the sea. After teaching a sword fighting lesson to the beginners, I ran to my cabin and changed into my swimming trunks. I grabbed a towel and ran to the beach.

I didn't feel it until I was dashing through the sand, but the biggest smile was played on my face. I reached the beach and I was late.

"Seaweed Brain! I saved a place for you!" Annabeth said, she was sitting on her striped towel, rubbing her skin with sun screen. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders in golden waves. Annabeth looked really pretty in her blood red swimsuit.

I laid out my towel next to hers and matched the stripes up so the colors switched up when the towels were lined up next to each other.

I looked at out other friends while Annabeth helped me put sun screen on my back.

Grover was laying out on his towel. The Stoll brothers were splashing each other and Katy was trying not to get wet above her ankles, but the mischievous brothers got her wet. She joined in. Clarisse and Christopher were even out here. They were walking up and down the shore, soaking up the sun. Leo was flying a special kite that looked as if he had modified it to do something weird. Knowing Leo, it probably had some special weapons or mechanical modifications. Piper and Jason were racing each other on the beach.

I felt Annabeth's fingers slide over my shoulders.

"All done." She said.

"Thanks." I said and started to get up. She pounced on her knees and shoved me to the floor.

"First one to the sea wins!" She screamed and took off, kicking sand out from under her feet. "No cheating!"

I lunged up and ran after her. We waded out to the deepest she could go until I had to drag her back to where she could touch so she didn't get sucked out to sea.

We participated in Grover's "Marco Polo" game until Connor dropped off the reef and I went after him.

Eventually, we got tired and everyone went back to lie on the towels.

I turned on my side to look at Annabeth. She opened her eyes and looked at me. The sun streaked across the sky so I had to squint to see her clearly.

"What are you thinking about?" She asked. I shrugged. Annabeth lifted her fingers and had two of them walk across one of the stripes on her side. I met her in the middle with two of my fingers, walking on an adjacent blue stripe.

Her finger guy shifted his weight onto one leg and with the other, kicked my hand.

"Take that." She said.

"Oh it's on, Wise Girl." I said and did a forward kick.

A/N: Okay, well that's over!