Inviting Friends

Arabella's POV

Sean took my hand. We walked among the beachgoers who were still arriving until late in the evening, and then headed for the less crowded side of the beach that was littered with a few shells stuck in the sand.

"I found one here, Sean!" I smiled broadly, pointing out the shells with beautiful-looking shells.

The man approached, nodding approvingly as he took a long look at the shells I was holding before showing me the inside of the small bucket he was carrying. "Check out mine, Bella."

"Wow, why are there so many?" I looked at Sean in disbelief when I saw that the number of shells he had caught had already reached half the contents of the bucket. "One, two, three... ten? You cheated!"

Sean laughed. "I didn't cheat, the part of the beach I visited earlier did have a lot of them. I've only taken a few."

"I'll go there then."

I took Sean's hand, approached the beach that the man had explored earlier and shifted slightly to a place that he hadn't touched. He said that when