I’d met Mr. Riley, briefly. My lord, what a build he had. I looked back at the boys—there were three of them, now. I didn’t know the last one, but I’d seen him with Coach before and figured he must be his son. Gay thought: Oh well, too bad, isn’t it always the best-looking ones?

I started out; I had climbed a lot of trees as a kid and hey, this should be easier, right, no altitude, lots of visibility, eye level, branches to…holy shit! Now, that was a wave worthy of the beaches out by La Push and Neah Bay. Oh well, so now my shins were wet. They’d been wet before. Oh, there came another, but I ducked; the branch hit me in the face.

From shore: “Go get him! Don’t quit! You can do it! Coach says that all the time!” Boy number three was crying now.

I’d much rather be a hero for a cute gay guy, but a human is a human, right? No prejudice here, right? Wait, was that a fish that just slapped me upside the head? This is not anywhere close to what I thought a nice, calm inland beach would be like. Which lake was it that never gives up its dead?

I was almost there. In fact, another foot and I could grab a foot; the shoe had been washed off but the sock was still half on, ew, soggy sock. But I got hold of his foot and worked my way up. The higher up his leg I got, the more I couldn’t help it. I snorted; I coughed, but nope, I couldn’t hide it, I was giggling like a little girl. What would I do when…oh, okay, he reached down and grabbed my hand and was able to pull me up alongside him. On top of him, actually.

“Oh, thank you, Tyler!” he gasped out. And then he kissed me! Another wave crashed over both of us and almost pulled us out with it. “Let’s get to shore,” he got out. I just nodded, unable to giggle anymore. This was seriously dangerous now, possibly in more ways than one.

As we were beginning to untangle and find our way to the larger, safer branches that led to shore, I could hear the boys singing. It made my heart warm, their cheering us on. Until I heard the actual words.

“Tyler and Riley sitting in a tree; k-i-s-s-i-n-g! First comes love, then comes marriage; then comes Coach with the baby carriage!” Followed by hysterical laughter and the littlest one saying, “Wait, they can’t do that, can they?”

But the rest was lost as we were swept butts over teakettle off the tree and into the swirling waves, which wasn’t a bad thing, because luckily, they took us right to shore, where we ended up like just two more half dead fish, lying on the wet sand, gasping for breath. And all I wanted to do, still, was giggle. But this huge hunk of half-naked flesh was covering me, dripping water everywhere, and I could feel every single muscle on his hard, wet, body.

“My kite! You got it!” screamed a tiny voice from above. Not very far above, as its full weight was pressing certain parts of Coach’s body more firmly against my own.

I couldn’t imagine how we would even be able to look at each other at school next week.