Dave gestured out to the scene in front of them. “This on a Tuesday night? Do we really need a toast?”
Julia grabbed the jug out of his hands. “That’s too long. Toasts have to be short and wise. Like Hemingway.” She thought for a second, then raised it up. “To the fire in our hearts,” she said, a line she remembered from one of her mom’s postcards. Then she took a long pull, wincing as if it were whiskey. She handed Dave the bottle, conscious of how their fingers brushed against each other. Her ears were ringing from the concert, and the slight chill in the air was completely canceled out by the warmth of the blaze. Dave set the bottle in the sand in front of them, smacking his lips from the sweetness. A car drove past them on the highway behind, just a whirr of tires on pavement. Not even the headlights reached them. They let the sound of the ocean rule for a while, and exchanged swigs from the bottle while giving the skewered sausages quarter turns so that they’d cook the whole way through. Every time one of them raised the bottle, the other would come up with a new toast that would fit Julia’s criteria of being Hemingway-esque.
Dave: “To another numbered night.”
Julia: “To small differences.”
Dave: “To being really thankful this isn’t alcohol because I’d be plastered by now.”
Julia: “To my friend’s low alcohol tolerance. May his life be blessed with cheap bar tabs and designated drivers.”
Within the hour, they were giggly from the sugar high. Skewers lay strewn about the beach, sand sticking to the pineapple juice that had run down their sides, little bits of sausage indistinguishable from the shadows cast by the fire. They were recovering from a laughing bout, though she couldn’t quite recall what had set it off. She reached for another log from their dwindling stack and placed it diagonally into the fire. Julia leaned back, feeling herself start to sweat.
“I think this is officially a night of good ideas,” Dave said, suddenly standing up. He was taking his shoes off, holding his arms out for balance. “We’re already crossing off one Never tonight, right? Why not take it further?” He grabbed the bottom of his shirt with one hand and pulled it swiftly over his head.
“What are you doing?”
“Number six: Never go skinny-dipping.”
“Seriously?”
He shrugged. “No one can see us. No chance of it going viral, unless one of us is the culprit.” He looked over at the ocean and unbuttoned his jeans. “I don’t know about you, but nothing sounds better to me right now than getting in that ocean.” A big grin spread across his face and he turned away from Julia, stepping out of his jeans and boxers as he ran out into the incoming tide, his ass pale, sticking out in the night.
Julia could barely breathe from the laughter, and with very little hesitation she slipped out of her shorts, leaving a trail of T-shirt, bra, and panties as she joined Dave in the Pacific. “This is so fucking cold!”
“The fire in our hearts will keep us warm,” Dave said, though his teeth were already chattering.
“The shivering brought on by hypothermia might do a better job.” They kept close to the shore, crouching on their knees so that the water would wash over them completely. Julia dunked her head under the water, feeling her lungs shout for air and warmth.
“Julia! Look.”
She wiped the salt water from her eyes and oriented herself until she spotted Dave pointing out toward the horizon. She followed his gaze and saw the moon, a duller replica of the orange ball the sun had been when it dipped below the surface a few hours ago. It wasn’t completely full, but it was bigger than she’d ever seen it, and, like the sun they’d watched just a few hours earlier, the moon was the exact shade of the oranges people sold on the side of the road. “Wow,” was all she could manage.