A breeze pulled at the toggles of Kendra's hoodie, beckoning her closer to the waves. The frothy water crept closer to her toes, seeking to capture them and draw her into the small lagoon. Kendra's bare feet, though, preferred the warm sand and dug themselves in, rooting her to the spot until the water washed it away in jealousy. The wind pushed insistently towards the water, whipping the thick, loose braid of Kendra's hair over her shoulder. She folded her arms closer to her torso and sat on the beach, resisting the pull of the water and the push of the air and the droop of her eyelids.

The sun was just risen, crimson and gold dancing on the horizon, the gulls were flashing their wings in contrast to the lazy morning.

Kendra hummed.

The tiny girl sat on the beach, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped about her knees, her chin resting on her knees and her toes resting underneath the sand. Slowly, the rush of the waves tugged her eyelids closed.

Kendra hummed.

There were really only three good reasons to be up this early. Either you were having sex, you had been up all night partying, or you were about to have sex. Unfortunately for Stephen none of the above were happening or going to happen anytime soon. He was up this early on his daily jog.

He was clad in a run-of-the-mill grey zip-up sweatshirt. The sleeves were ripped off and the hood pulled up. His light cheeks were flushed lightly from a combination of running and the cold morning air. When he noticed another person on the beach he slowed down and stopped his jog next to her.

He could make out her dark skin and pretty facial features in the early morning light.

"Hey," He let out between deep breath; raising his arms up he laced his fingers behind his neck. "Aren't you in my history class?" When she said no he would say honest mistake and start hitting on her. It was a fairly foolproof plan.

The humming stopped. The crush of the waves faded into the background. Kendra opened her eyes and the world was blurry.

Oh right, glasses.

She pulled a pair of them out of the pouch in her sweatshirt. The frames were a happy, clear blue that brightened Kendra's day without fail. Her toes wiggled under the sand as Kendra leaned back to peer up at the boy who's voice had smoothly interrupted her improvisation.

From this angle, Kendra didn't really care that he was blocking some of her Sun. This boy was nice looking. But was it really history?

"No..."

But it was somewhere, right? Afterall, who could forget that smile?

Oh yeah, "I think it was Biology of the Brain and Behavior, instead," she grinned. Well if he was looking for a study partner...

"I like your glasses" He blurted out before he could switch the words to sound something other than dorky. They could have been flirty. They could have been mocking in a sweet sort of way, of course. No, they just fell out of his lips and hung geeky and awkward in between the wavelengths of the lake sounds.

"I get classes confused on occasion. You know, I learn what I need to and then forget the rest of the details. I think I had history last semester, but you know how it goes right?" He let out a laugh and brought his arms from behind his neck to start unzipping his shirt. He wasn't wearing anything underneath it but his skin and his ink. He was fairly sure she wouldn't mind. And if she did too bad. It was hot.

"I'm Stephen, in case you don't remember. I'm pretty unremarkable." He shrugged his shoulder offering his hand. His muscular stomach and tattooed chest were visible with the wind whipping the two separated sides of his sweatshirt back and forth.

"You're super short and sit behind me don't you?" Oh fuck. Strike two for Stephen. Maybe it really was too early to flirt.

She giggled a little bit, and her "thanks" was pretty much lost on the wind. Kendra liked her glasses too. It was why she bought them. No Toohey-ism for her, thank you very much.

She didn't really respond much to what Stephen said. The words weren't really coming to her brain. I mean, she knew of this guy (who didn't?) but never really pictured him talking to her. She was also sufficiently amused to the point where Kendra was content to allow him to make a slight fool of himself. Not to mention, when the sweatshirt became unzipped her throat momentarily went out of commission.

Unremarkable? Oh be still, dear beating heart...

...

"You're super short and sit behind me, don't you?"

Kendra's eyes narrowed.

"Yes."

"Yeah. One of the guys from the basketball team sat behind you so he could copy off of me. During that first huge test. That thing was killer." Stephen shook his head and laughed.

"I wouldn't feel too bad, he is six foot seven. You don't mind do you?" He was starting to fully pull off the sweatshirt and didn't wait for a reply. No one had ever minded before at this point it was just habit.

"Anyway. What are you doing up so early?" Taking the waded up cloth ball that was his sweatshirt he ran it over his face to pull off any excess prespiration before he finally seated himself down in front of her so he could keep eyecontact while talking.

He might have been blocking her view of the water, but it wasn't that much of a sacrifice.

Oh and he was so sure Mr. Basketball Player was copying off of him? Kendra succumbed to the urge to raise her eyebrow in skepticism. Maybe Mr. Basketball Player sat behind her to copy her answers. Conceited much?

"You don't mind, do you?" What, that he's just indirectly insulted her intelligence and her height? No, no, not at all. Every girl just loves to be put down like that. But she could forgive him. The shirt had come completely off.

Well he couldn't be the only show off here, that would ruin the point of flirting. In response to his flagrant, "let me show off my body"ness, Kendra leaned back a bit more, hoping to bring her chest a little more to his attention, and tilted her head slightly, feigning slight disinterest.

She glanced to the sky behind him, "Relaxing," and gave him an expectant look. What was he doing?

"Oh, don't give me that look." He flashed her a smile that has made it very hard for most people to ever stay angry at him. It had a mixture of sheepishness, impishness, and just the right amount of awkwardness to make him seem both adorable and nonthreatening.

"He didn't know you. So how was he to know he'd be copying correct answers?" He let out a laugh and let his body lay back so he could look up at the perfectly blue sky. He didn't bother to look at her chest; he had already looked when he stopped. It was best to pretend he didn't really care.

"Relaxing? Mm I prefer to do that in bed. I was exercising. Which is sort of the opposite of relaxing." Bringing up an arm he placed it on his forehead in hopes of shading his eyes from the emerging sun.

Wow. Kendra was in awe. Really. He was sooo smart. He knew about antonyms.

Oh and he noticed. He may not have looked but he noticed. He was a guy. A college guy. Of course he noticed. He would have to be asexual not to. Kendra noticed how he didn't look and, in her mind, that meant that he noticed. Really. Alright, so she was making herself feel better, but that's allowed.

"Oh," she started, "So you don't get enough exercise at night?"

She was teasing.

Mostly.

"Not really, I tend to sleep at night." What a weird question... Oh. She was trying to be clever and call him oversexed. Well it was a pretty easy recovery after this. He can pretend this entire thing was a large set up for a small joke.

"It's a lot more fun if you're not too drunk or too tired to remember it." He closed his eyes and flashed a smile despite the fact he wasn't looking straight at her.

"I also haven't been running into my type that often... By the way, they're nice you can stop trying to show them off." His smile grew a bit more and the corners of his eyes crinkled up in a show that the smile was fairly genuine.

Kendra could have scoffed. There had been plenty of talk among the female population that was acquainted with Stephen. She couldn't admit that any of it had ever been verified at all but talk was talk, it was sort of just a given, yes?

"Whatever," she slipped her arms from behind her and landed with a slight "thomp" onto the sand, spreading her arms out from her sides, closing her eyes happy to be laying on the sand. "At least I don't have to take my shirt off to get them noticed."

"...Well.." He cracked open one eye to look at her.

"I wouldn't personally be opposed to you taking it off to get 'em noticed." His body shook with a few barks of silent laughter.

"And I don't have to take of my shirt. Most of the time I just don't put on a shirt at all to begin with. It tends to make things a lot easier, but it was very cold this morning when I went out running so I had to put on something."

Kendra suddenly didn't feel like a whole hearted response was necessary. She muttered, "Mmm, and that's why you're shirtless now. I get it." Cold = shirtless?

Kendra's toes wiggled and she started humming again.

The humming stopped.

"You started that paper yet?"

"I'm shirtless now because my body temperature is raised from exercising. If you prefer I could consider putting a shirt on." Of course he says he could consider putting a shirt on, because it really was still too warm for him to put that sweatshirt back on.

"..Mm the paper? I have the first two pages. I think I'll have to cut out a few paragraphs because they just don't feel right. How about you?"

An eye winked open, "No, the shirt can stay off," he was a show off, but a pretty show off.

"Oh, I haven't started yet," she worked best under pressure, anyway.

"Good. It's still way too hot to put it back on." He let out a deep yawn.

"I usually start stuff late, but I had a lot of extra time and nothing at all to do. Usually I'm printing it about about ten minutes before I need to get to class. Do you do it all on the last night ?"

"Eh," vague, "sort of."

She fiddled with her hair. It was super frizzy and slightly filled with sand.

"I type it all last minute. Pre-work, though, I normally do before."

"Bah. It's either all or nothing for me. None of this... actual planning and thinking ahead stuff." He let out a half-laugh.

"It doesn't seem to be very hard. The professor tends to grade a bit easier on papers from what I heard."

"Well that's good."

She could really start to ignore him now. He's nice to look at but the conversation left a little to be desired.

The humming started again.

Stephen let his eyelids droop closed. He was still too tired for his brain to be working all that well.

He lets his ears focus on the sound of her humming and the sounds of the moving water. It doesn't take very long for him to fall asleep.

It was really nice outside, very calming. The whole reason she was there was to relax, anyway. And while she hadn't been working on her biology paper last night, she had, had a psych analysis to finish up the night before that ventured into oh-God-o'clock in the morning.

Kendra hoped that she didn't kick in her sleep because she was definitely drifting in that direction. Just while she was on the edge of sleep, a gull shrilled loudly and snapped her to attention, causing her to sit straight up.

"Jesus Christ," she cursed the bird. She looked over to Stephen to see if he'd seen her startled and noticed his state of unconsciousness. Aww.