“Joel, everyone’s staring,”

“Maybe it’s because you’re a dude wearing a bikini.”

“But I go to the beach all the time and people don’t usually stare.  I’ve been flirted with by drunk guys before.  I think it’s because YOU’RE wearing like, a suit jacket on the beach.”

Joel put down his elaborate cocktail and flipped up his sunglasses (careful, he means business).  “I am trying to have some cliché movie moment with you here where I find you a girl and then you spend an hour and a half first having a good time with her, then something goes wrong, then you solve it before the end credits.  If only you would comply and stop being so shy, and just make EYE CONTACT with some girls it would help.” He picked up the cocktail and fiddled with it.  He paused in the fiddling.  “I don’t even understand why you have such little confidence.  You’re a man in a bikini, for crying out loud.” He made a face and looked down into his drink.  “Maybe it’s actually bringing down your confidence… there’s a fly in here.”

Mankini looked around on the beach.  He was the only dude with a bikini top on… as usual.  He sighed.

Joel stirred his drink and curled his upper lip.  “Ew.  I’ve been drinking this for… how long now…” He tossed it out onto the sand.  “And by the way, my wearing a suit jacket on the beach?  Not as weird as your bikini top.”

Mankini looked back at Joel, then looked back away.  He found it hard to focus on Joel’s eyes too long.  Joel was a little too confident for Mankini to do that… he felt like there was a snappy joke waiting for him every time he looked at Joel.  “I dooon’t wannaaa loooook at giiiirls.”

“What kind of male are yo- hold up,” Joel turned all the way around in his beach chair, jeans and sneakers flying across the sand, to look at a pretty brunette girl in a black bikini.  He stared, then turned back.  “See, was that not worth like, this whole trip?”

“One girl is not worth the whole trip.”

“Well, no, I was exaggerating, but she was really hot, huh?”

“I guess.”

“You GUEeeeh- okay, can I ask you something?”

No.  No.  “Yeah.”

“Why do you think the ladies won’t like you?”

That wasn’t the question he was dreading.  “I’m not… so hot.”  

“You’re a dude in a bikini top.  Girls will think you’re confident, a free spirit, a good partier, secure in your masculinity.”

He snorted (mainly at the last one).  “It’s really weird.”

Joel stared at him for a while, not getting eye contact in return.  Then Joel threw the recently emptied plastic cup he had been holding to the side.  He flipped his sunglasses back on and sat back in his seat, crossing his long legs and folding his hands.  

(Extended staring.)

“Why are you staring at me?!”

“Are you gay?”

“WHAT?  N… no!”

Joel got up.  His movements were bold and seemed somehow charged, as if he had just made up his mind about something.  

“Wait, what?  Are you leaving?  Why are you leaving?  I’m not gay!!”

Joel folded up his beach chair.

“Dammit, I’m not gay!”

“Shut up!” Joel grabbed Mankini’s hand and dragged him up, off his towel, across the sand, onto the sidewalk, across the street, past some random boardwalk shops, and into an alley.

“Jooeell…” He tried to say it with a warning tone, but totally out of nowhere (or not, depending on how your mind works), Joel pushed him against the wall (rather harshly) and shoved his tongue into Mankini’s mouth.

Mankini’s brain (figuratively) exploded.  HOYLFUCKINGOHMYGOOOOOOOOOD-

“Sheesh!” Joel stepped back and fixed his blazer.  “Are you, like, confident yet?”

“…What?”

“Are.  You.  Confident.  Yet?”

“You mean, did that make me confident?”

“Sure, did it?”

Mankini hadn’t moved from his position against the wall.  “I don’t know.”

Joel waited for a more sure response.

Mankini didn’t blink.  “…Let’s try again.  Practice makes perfect.”

“I rock at this.”