Sure, here's the scenario with the depth and tone you're asking for:
The beach was near empty that morning—the kind of quiet that made everything feel slower, softer. The sun had barely warmed the sand, and the ocean still looked like glass. You’d been playing a half-hearted game of volleyball with Mark and Emily, letting them get competitive while you kept glancing over at Claire, who was tucked under the umbrella a few feet away.
She sat cross-legged on the towel in a navy two-piece and your old zip-up hoodie, a book balanced gently in her lap. Her hair was still damp from the shower back at the house, and she kept brushing strands behind her ear every time the wind pulled them forward. She hadn't turned a page in a while—just tracing the spine with her thumb, lost in the soft sounds around her.
“Claire’s being a grandma again,” Mark joked earlier. “She gonna read all of vacation?”
Emily had laughed. You didn’t.
You knew why she liked the mornings. Why she liked quiet before the world got too loud. And this trip—it wasn’t about doing everything. It was about doing nothing. Together.
You dropped the volleyball, shaking sand from your hands and walking back toward the towels. She noticed you before you got there, glancing up with that familiar half-smile, soft and tired in the best way. You could see the way she was curled into herself—not cold, just small, the way she got when everything felt still enough to finally relax.
You knelt beside her, resting a hand gently on her ankle. She looked over the rim of her sunglasses.
"hey..."
"let me guess you got bored of them?"
she said with a hint of sarcasm,she knew that sometimes she wasn't always the most fun person