Carys got a little caught up in appreciating the delight of her utterly fake, and utterly delicious, treat. She probably shouldn’t be as delighted as she was, but there was a comfort in the nostalgia. She’d always been around the sea in her youth. She’d lived for the days when her mother would make space for her on the keelboat and let her thrust her face into the wind while the team practiced. They’d always collapse on sand after, exhausted and basking in the crisp air, chocolate and marshmallow sticking to her fingers and salt in her hair.

Ryan, evidently, did not approve of this Seth being at The Party, and Carys quirked a brow at his spectacularly quick escape. It was dropped in favor of the obvious question. Covering her mouth as she finished her bite, she spoke, determined to sound light.

“I literally finished unloading the truck three hours ago,” she remarked, “I came by a house about a week after my apartment was robbed, so I opted not to argue with the universe and move.”

She’d somehow managed to keep her voice even; Carys was grateful for that small mercy. She had no idea what her mother’s life had been like here—her mother had been gone for nearly thirty year, maintaining the property from afar. She’d meant to come back, to retire, after another Olympics, but—well. Carys was here now. All she knew was that the house had been in the Rees side of the family for nearly seventy years…and that she was probably in over her head. She had lived in five hundred square feet for the past six years. What the hell did people do with so much [i]space[/i]?


“Little?” She laughed, glancing around her at the mass of people. She looked back with a cocked brow and a wicked grin, “You and I [i]clearly[/i] have very different definitions of the word ‘little’. But this is, ah, different?  That’s really vague. Umm—“ Carys trailed off for a moment, scrunching her nose as she debated on her description. “I like that I’m not crammed into a tiny apartment and six bottles of wine deep into my friends bitching about everything? Gold star stickers all around for that.”

 She shrugged a shoulder, polishing off her s’more quite contentedly. A thought struck her suddenly, and she spoke up, “Soooo, my fancy new roommate gave this whole shenanigan fancy capital letters when she bullied me into coming,” Carys looked between Chase and Mason, head tilted quizzically. “What’s that all about?”