Today has been a good day so far.

We were all in a much better mood last night than we'd been all day yesterday, but today, things completely went back to normal.

I even have a stack of vouchers for awesome things to buy and do all over Summerfieds as a reward for my part in winning the boat race. Meals at restaurants, movies, skin and hair care products, surf shop vouchers. So many different things. I'll give some to Deli and Kira, my aunt and our parents.

I could use a few of them for dates with Kira.

I pretended to be really excited about the bikini wax voucher Jet insisted I should have since, according to him, I needed it the most. I enjoyed how sadistic my sister was being about it. She even encouraged me to make an appointment. Kicks gives me worried looks each time Delia or I refer to it, but I'm trying to see how far I can push my pretend ignorance before my sister steps in and saves me from myself. Sometimes, she cuts it a bit fine.

It might be when she's on to me.

Yeah, my relationship with Deli has always been a bit warped, but not nearly as warped as Marshall insinuated in the disgusting remark he shouted at me from the safety of the yacht he was on. I haven't run into him yet to ask him to explain the scenario he had in mind where I was the filling in a Kira-Deli sandwich... or whatever he was saying. Burlap and cream were somehow included in it too.

After we came ashore, I forgot about him while celebrating with my friends and hugging each other. Deli calls our bro-hugs burping; she says that guys need to burp each other now and then to feel connected and to get rid of emotional built-up. I burped her as a reward for her insight until she begged me to stop and promised to stop being a brat.

I stopped, though I knew that was not a promise she could ever keep.

Once we reached the beach and my girlfriend was done kissing me into Oblivion, we were herded onto the low stage with the third-place winners. There was a short ceremony to officially congratulate us, and then they gave us prizes consisting of all the cool vouchers.

None of the other participants (except Marshall and his friends... or actually, only Marshall) cared that we won the race today and didn't stick to our roles. In the past, many sailors have asked that Jet and Barn race just once as they wanted to test their skills against them.

The guys got a lot of praise from the usual winning skippers, who enjoyed the surprise challenge. I think they now appreciate that they would stand no chance of competing for anything except third place if Jet and Barn always took part. Still, they enjoyed having to pull out all the stops to at least try to beat them.

The third-place yacht wasn't that far behind Barn, but there was quite a distance to cover to catch up with them before they could be overtaken.

The six of us pooled all the vouchers and divided them according to our needs and likes. We played rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock to decide who should get any rare vouchers we all wanted. We all suck equally badly at the game, which always makes it the fairest way to decide things like that.

There were six copies of most of the vouchers, simplifying dividing them. Some of the unduplicated vouchers are for group activities like paintball and ziplining, which we can all do together.

It's gonna be awesome!

Most of the people who came to the beach for the yacht race and to play games at the stalls joined in a massive picnic on the beach for lunch. The majority of the people working the stalls joined as well. We were all lying on blankets and towels, stuffing our faces, and the atmosphere was buzzing with excitement and good vibes.

Days like today, hanging out with the people of the entire district, just chilling and having fun, make me even more certain that Summerfields is my home. I never want to leave the area.

If I ever left Egret's Rest, it would be to move to Palm Grove, where my aunt lives. Though still conveniently close to the ocean, it is much cooler there. The air is breathable since the humidity is much lower, although it is only a few minutes drive from here.

I love this place and the people. Even the guy I'm currently trying to drown in the shallow breakers swirling around my knees. Luthor works the checkout in the small shop at the petrol station near the school. He is always giving me grief when I go in there to pay for my bike's petrol.

He is convinced I'm the reason Wendy won't give him the time of day. It doesn't matter how often I tell him she is the original siren the vicious mermaids in Pirates of the Caribbean were based on. She just pretends to be human and has legs, but if he ever comes to the waterfall with us, he will realise that she is a vicious water devil that will rip him to shreds in an instant.

It's not my fault she is always telling him to piss off when he tries to ask her out. Just because she's often on my bike's back when I'm riding it doesn't mean I'm keeping her from him. Wendy doesn't generally date anybody.

Maybe he will believe me now that I am clearly in a relationship with Kira. She kissed me in public twice today. That is as good as a love declaration. I was also openly feeding her ice cream earlier, and I don't care what anybody says; making sure your girlfriend's nose gets some large dollops of ice cream in the process and then licking it off for her is very romantic and not gross at all.

Even if she goes: "Ew! Ethan, that's gross!" and beats you with her cloth sun hat.

It's not!

I let Luthor break free since I don't really want to make him suffer. I even let him tumble me, triumphantly yelling his victory cry while I thrash around like I'm struggling to get to my feet. This is what life is all about. Laughing and playing with the inhabitants of your community.

After lunch, we all lounged around for a while, and I had a short nap with my head on Kira's lap while she reclined with her back against a stack of bags and towels, reading on her phone. After that, we participated in the senior division of the sandcastle building contest.

It went the way it always does, ending with everybody throwing sand at each other and destroying all the castles. They don't even bother having prizes for the seniors anymore. The after party is prize enough.

It consists of all the participants - who haven't fled - doing what Luthor and I are doing now, tumbling in the shallows. Some are having sandball fights, and others are trying to bury each other in the sand. The rest of us are hot and sandy and are multi-tasking, having a wash and wrestling in the water.

Building a castle with my family, the Crofts, Sy and Burlap, was fun, though... while it lasted. It felt like the last year or so after my dad's partner nearly destroyed the company never happened, and my dad was still the fun-filled guy he used to be. We messed with each other the entire time, which inevitably led to the destruction of our sandcastle and a brawl. My mom dragged Uncle Joe away to have some cold beer and cider at the beer garden, leaving us to scuffle in the sand.

After a few minutes of affectionate, sandy violence, my dad unburied himself from the pyramid I was building on him and pulled me into a tight hug, patting my back.

"I love you, Ethe," he said, rubbing a hand over my head, and before I could even tell him that I love him too, he jogged away. He was probably afraid that I would tackle him again and start piling sand on him. I told him earlier that I was planting a daddy tree, and he needed to cooperate and hold still.

Yeah, I definitely was going to do it again, but I was going to tell him I loved him first.

I yelled it after him, and he paused for a second, turning and waving at me with a wide smile before continuing his run. Yeah, I think Dad and I will probably be all right. We're finding our way back to each other bit by bit.

Our parents came by here a while ago to tell us they're leaving us a car and are carpooling home with Uncle Joe. They've had enough of the festival for today.

Uncle Joe especially needs to go home and get some rest. He is always on semi-stand-by after a project is completed, but he was confident that he could relax for the rest of the weekend and plans on doing a lot of that relaxing with his eyes closed this afternoon.

He will also use the time to hang Kira's newly mounted images.

I think Luthor and I are also going to be okay. He hasn't tried to bite me once and he also hasn't mentioned Wendy and her lack of romantic interest at all. Maybe he finally gets it. I've told him many times that he should ask out the cute girl working at the bakery next door to the petrol station. She likes him. I've seen her bring him tasty flops from the bakery to enjoy.

While I pat his back where he is standing bent over, trying to catch his breath, I see Kira leaving the war zone, heading back to where we left our stuff. She's had enough.

The poor girl is really sore and stiff today. I can only imagine how much since I'm a bit stiff myself, and I'm used to doing weird stunts. Deli and I covered her with thick layers of muscle cream. If I'm unsure where Kira is, I can just sniff around for the strong fragrance of eucalyptus, and I will find her.

I lost track of her in the chaos since she withdrew to the edges and was mostly just watching while tossing sand balls at passing brawlers. She wisely never becomes too physically involved in the fast-degenerating sandcastle competition after parties. As the level of chaos and violence increases, most people with common sense retreat.

"You okay?" I ask Luthor, and he grins at me and gives me a high five. Satisfied that he is going to live and is already charging at someone else, I jog away, dodging guys trying to tackle me and drag me back into the fray.

I've also had enough.

My stitches are pulling and throbbing something fierce. I want to go home and ask my mom to clean the cut and put a new dressing on it. I probably shouldn't have been so wild since I got the cuts, but how am I supposed not to be wild?

Kira looks up, startled, when I plop down beside her on the towel she's seated on. I smile at her and lean back on my hands. Closing my eyes, I enjoy the cool breeze stirring my hair and drying the seawater from my skin.

When I open my eyes again, I laugh, seeing my sister chase Simon into the ocean. She giggles and screams when he turns around and picks her up, throwing her over his shoulder while he wades in deeper and dives into a breaker with her in his arms.

The sun will soon lose its rays, and then it will be time for the Founders' Day dance. I've never had a date for the dance before. It's going to be awesome to go to the dance with Kira. She usually opts out of going but promised to go with me tonight. I'm really happy.

Sitting here on the beach in the shade of an umbrella, watching the chaos with my girlfriend beside me, I can imagine us growing old together. We'll be sitting right here, but on beach chairs because the ground would've become too low to get up from.

We'll hold hands and drink... what do old people drink? Sherry? Yeah, we'll drink sherry while we watch our grandchildren - little Fay, Alistair, Ethan and Kira - acting like hooligans on the beach while their parents are drinking beer in the beer garden. Every now and then, one of them will run to us for a kiss on a boo-boo or a sweety for energy.

I can hardly wait!

"Ethy, go play with the guys; there's no need for you to sit here," Kira speaks, interrupting my fantasy, causing miniature Fay, Alistair, Ethan and Kira to disappear into seafoam and sand.

Why is she chasing me away?!

Doesn't she want to watch our grandkids with me? I turn my head to look at her, but she doesn't seem to be annoyed or fed up with me. Why does she want me to leave? I'm not doing anything to bother her right now. I'm being very mellow.

"What?" she gasps, seeing my frown.

"Am I not allowed to do what I want?" I ask, somewhat irritated about being told that I should go play with the boys and am not allowed to sit with her, watching our grandkids... or... well... my sister and our friends.

"Of course you are!" Kira exclaims, surprised by my question. "That is why I'm saying you should go play with them."

"Stop being so bossy," I grumble, my frown growing deeper. She is still telling me what to do. "I want to sit with you. Now, shush and scratch my head. It's full of sand, and it's itchy," I demand since I'm allowed to be bossy too, if she is. I lie down on my side, putting my head in her lap.

"Now, who's being bossy," she growls, pulling my hair the way she has done for 12 years every time I made her mad and I was in a position where she could reach my head.

"Ow," I laugh, rolling onto my back to look up at her. "I know you're just looking out for me, Kicks, but right now, I really want to sit here in the shade with you. I've spent enough time brawling with the guys; I'd rather brawl with you now," I grin, poking my fingers into her side, laughing when she yelps and squirms.

"Stop it," she giggles, grabbing my hand and weaving her fingers with mine. "I didn't mean to tell you what to do... I'm just tutoring you... like I'm supposed to."

I close my eyes with a frustrated moan. There she goes again! She cannot seriously be this thick, can she?

I finally know she loves me.

Sometimes, I see it so clearly. It becomes more and more obvious every day. Just when I think we've crossed the bridge and are in the territory where we can start planning for our old age and all those grandchildren-watching activities, she tells me to go play with the boys, or she becomes my tutor again.

She is making my head spin.

I want to pin her down on the sand, look her in the eyes and tell her: 'Kira Croft! I love you, and I don't mean in the same way I love Deli, my parents, my pets and my friends. I mean in the way Deli loves Simon, and guess what! You love me too! Now shut up and kiss me!'

Well, probably not like that. She will beat me up with the umbrella, but still, she might finally face facts. Why is it so impossible for her to admit that she loves me? Is the idea of loving me unthinkable? Is she ashamed of me?

No, that's dumb. Everybody can see she loves me. Right now, she is gently scratching my head and brushing sand from my hair with her fingertips. If she were ashamed of me, she wouldn't do things this tender and loving in public. In the past, she would've told me to go scratch my own head with the steel BBQ brush.

Fine! I'm gonna tell her all of that now! I'm officially out of patience. I know Deli said to let her be the one to tell me, but I'm sick of this. Will she really still run away if I told her that she loves me? We've come such a long way now.

I take a deep breath to start all those love declarations, but a sea demon has just ascended on us, falling down beside me and punching me in the chest hard enough for me to feel it.

"You broke my boyfriend!" Delia growls, glaring at me when I open my eyes to see what crawled up her butt and bit her. "I handed you a perfectly civilized, intellectual being, and you turned him into that!"

I push myself into a sitting position and watch Burlap riding Simon's shoulders, laughing while Sy fearlessly trash-talks with Barn. That guy would just have to sit on Simon to squash him. Simon is not small, and I saw on the yacht, and during a couple of skirmishes with him in the months, I've known him that he is pretty strong.

It's just that Barn is a beast. It's a good thing he is a benevolent beast and not an aggressive one because just playing with him often makes me feel like I'm taking a walk on the edge of death.

"Sorry to burst your bubble, Deli, but I think that dude has always had a savage buried inside him, begging to come out," I inform my sister, thinking about Sy wielding the boat hook, threatening to perform a tonsillectomy on Marshall via his back passage. Yup, the guy is a savage. "Why do you think today's race turned out the way it did?"

"What do you mean?" Delia asks, frowning at me. She didn't see the boat hook waving defender of her honour. It still makes me grin. I've been keeping an eye on Simon, making sure he doesn't run into Marshall and his friends without any of us to back him up. Marshall is known for fighting dirty, and Simon might be steadfast in protecting my sister, but I don't think he is generally prone to violence and used to fighting.

"I mean, your boyfriend incited Jet to take Barn on and actually participate in the race for a change instead of making it more challenging for others," I tell Delia, laughing at the surprise on her face. Simon took to sailing with passion. Jet called him a natural and he can be finicky when it comes to who gets to be his crew. He generally tolerates people; he doesn't praise them.

During our picnic, he and Barn were making plans with Simon to take him out after the weekend's closing ceremony on Monday to teach him how to sail. Sy grew up about seven hours inland from here. He said the closest he'd ever been to sailing was windsurfing on a small dam. He is extremely excited about getting free sailing lessons from two experts.

"He single-handedly changed the history of Egret's Rest's origins," I assure my sister.

"I thought Mr. Pravin already did that with his story," Kira laughs, making a good point. Last night, I showed her the video, and she couldn't stop laughing. She agreed with me that it was the best version ever. We will be sad when Mr. Pravin no longer tells the story.

"Right... I forgot... he had some help."

Delia smiles, her face gentle and filled with love while she watches her boyfriend team up with Lurch, Barn and Burlap to try and catch Jet. It's a futile mission. I know that from experience. Jet is freakishly fast and agile. He is too blinking stubborn to give up and let four strong guys give him a bath in seawater.

"He really is having the time of his life, isn't he?" Delia sighs, clearly happy to see Simon becoming a fully entrenched member of our extended family.

"Yup."

"Well, so am I!" she shouts, leaping to her feet and running to the boys who have given up on catching Jet and are now dunking each other instead.

Sighing, I lie down again and close my eyes. My fingers find Kira's free hand while she starts playing with my hair again. If I could have one wish, it would be that I could be like this with Kira for the rest of my life... even if her current fragrance is making my eyes burn.

I would love this girl even if strong eucalyptus becomes her permanent scent. I would love her even if her skin were made of chilli peppers and burned me whenever I touched her, and made me sneeze when I kissed her.

I like chilli in mince, though. Especially when that mince is smothered with sour cream and cheese and guacamole... and it's covering a bowl of succulent french fries...

"Loaded fries!" I shout when the first stirrings of real hunger course through my stomach. It's been a while since our picnic lunch, and I've been active. It's time to feed the engine. I sit up, turning to look at Kira, who is watching me with large, startled eyes.

"I want loaded fries. How about you?"

♂♀

Thank you, @K_Blackwood, for teaching me about the beauty of men burping each other. 😜🤣😂