FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Only the deceleration of the vehicle and the silence of the dead engine kicked Rye and Cloud out of their trance. Rye looked to the front of the car at Ariel who was unbuckling her seat belt, then he looked out the front windshield.

"Beach Lagoon?" Rye questioned, seeing the familiar glass building. "What are we doing here?"

"Come on, hurry up and get out of the car," Ariel said, ignoring the question and opened Rye's door for him.

Rye climbed out of the car with Cloud and looked at the parking lot. It was strangely quiet and yet the parking lot is completely packed. Something was out of the place. The otter looked to his boyfriend but Cloud was only smiling bigger than before. Arm-in-arm again, Cloud led Rye to the locker rooms where they stopped and Cloud finally let go of Rye. Slightly hurt by this reaction, Rye tilted his head and looked at Cloud quizzically.

"We need to get you dressed," Cloud said, grabbing Rye's shirt and pulling it over his head.

"Alright, I'll play along," Rye muttered. Cloud maneuvered behind Rye and put his paws around Rye's waist, unbuttoning his pants. "Alright what's going on?" Cloud yanked down Rye's pants exposing his boxers. "Hey, hey!"

"Oh come on," Cloud said with a grin. "I've seen you naked plenty of times before." Cloud grabbed a pair of swimming trunks and set them on the bench next to them.

"Yeah, but--"

With another swift motion, Cloud yanked down Rye's boxers and tossed them aside with his pants.

"--but I can undress myself." Rye couldn't help but smile in his blush. Not wanting to expose himself entirely, Rye kept his back to Cloud and put his swimming shorts on himself.

After Rye tied his shorts on tight, he turned to face Cloud who was still grinning. "Well, if we're going swimming, shouldn't you get changed too?" Rye leaned toward Cloud and grabbed his belt.

"Lucky for me, I'm already in my shorts," Cloud said lowering his pants to reveal his new pair of swimming shorts. He quickly took off his shirt too.

"No fair," Rye pretended to sulk.

"Come on slow poke," Cloud said grabbing Rye's paw and dragging him toward the pool's entrance. "Everyone's waiting for you."

It hit Rye then. "Oh no, you didn't." Rye's thoughts were retracted and he didn't realize Cloud was leading him straight out of the lockers, not even bothering to shower first.

"Sorry sweetie," Cloud said with a laugh. "Just know that it wasn't my idea." Cloud pushed Rye through the door and they were greeted by the bright spring sunlight.

"SURPRISE!!!!"

Rye blinked several times as his vision adjusted then he saw the wall of fur there to greet him. All of his friends were there along with most of the school. They were all cheering and the wall of fur started to advance on Rye. Still stunned by the shock, Rye was quickly surrounded by his laughing friends. Cloud held tight onto his paw.

"Welcome home Rye," Ariel said. She was already in her two-piece swimwear.

Rye finally recovered. "I assume that you're to blame for this," Rye yelled over the crowd.

"Hey, don't look at me," Ariel laughed. "I only funded the party."

"Who am I to blame then?" Rye asked in a joking matter.

"Oh shut up and enjoy it," Ariel said. "It's burning hot out here, so I'm going for a dip." The feline pushed her way back through the crowd until she reached the edge of the pool and jumped in.

"So who came up with the idea then?" Rye asked the white otter.

"I'm not saying," Cloud said and snickered. "It's not that big of a party anyway."

"Large enough," Rye replied and smiled at Cloud.

"Hey Rye," Aaron, a fox employee of Beach Lagoon, greeted the otter. "About time you got back."

"Hi Aaron, how's school?" Rye returned the greeting.

"College is kind of slow right now actually," Aaron answered. "Midterms just ended. Anyway, I just wanted to say hi. I'll let you catch up with everyone else."

Aaron unexpectedly hugged the otter, before he left back toward the lockers.

Many students came up to Rye and welcomed him back briefly before they went off to celebrate in other areas of the pool. The majority were friends of friends, so they didn't bother to welcome Rye back and just went for a swim. Soon enough, the crowd around Rye started to thin and the last of his friends welcomed Rye home.

"You both are still attached to each other like Siamese twins," a tall wolf said, walking up to the two otters.

Rye smiled. "You're just jealous Nate."

The wolf laughed. "Sorry, otter-boys aren't exactly my type. Welcome home Rye."

"Thanks," Rye said. "Do you know who planned this party?"

"Don't tell him Nate," Cloud quickly intervened. "He doesn't like surprise parties."

Nate chuckled. "I don't know why it's such a big deal, but very well. Just keep guessing otter-boy. Anyway, we're starting a game of laser tag. I'd like to see how all that training pulled off."

"No, no, no, no," Ariel yelled approaching the otters again, dripping wet. "That's not until later. Time for the tournament."

"Tournament?"

"Ryan had a great idea for the Amor Games," Cloud explained. "Now for every time we're here, there's going to be a tournament with about a dozen events and several teams. We're still coming up with the rules and prizes; today we're going to try out the tournament."

"Every Game, he adds something new," Rye commented. "What event is first?"

"Diving," Cloud answered. "Our team is . . ."

For several hours, the pool was used for this new tournament, with events ranging from swim races to tug-o-war. Ryan, the pool manager, and several on-duty lifeguards monitored the events and began creating the point system.

It was near midday when the tournament finally ended and casual games of the events were being hosted. Rye and Cloud, holding each other's paw, were drawn toward the crowd that developed near the deep end of the pool.

"Dylan, Greg and Rose, you'll be on team two," Ariel said pointing to the three students. "Nate, you'll be on team two also."

"We want to play," Cloud announced while he and Rye approached the crowd.

"Well, it'll be totally unfair if you two are on the same team," Ariel said.

"It can be us two verse you. . ." Rye counted the people waiting to play. ". . . thirty-seven."

"Finally, I get to play against Rye," Nate snickered.

"You're crazy," Ariel laughed. "Everyone, you're on team one, except the otters. You two go to the far end."

With a nod, Rye and Cloud walked around the pool. "Don't worry, I'll make sure nothing happens to you," Rye said.

Cloud laughed. "Don't think that I just sat around home waiting for you to come back. I've become quite the expert at this game. We were equally good when you left but if you didn't receive any training, I'd be better than you now."

"Is that so?" Rye challenged with a smile. "Well, it'll be a difficult mission to beat all 37 of them."

"With you at my side we can defeat hundreds," Cloud commented with confidence.

Rye laughed.

They finally reached the end of the pool, where they waited for the game to begin. The lifeguard finally fired the signal flare and the game began. Rye and Cloud dove in the pool at the exact same time.

Several hours later, when the pool was no longer lit by the sun but artificial lights, Rye and Cloud were talking by a fire pit laughing about the games they just played. They were both dripping wet still, but they shared a chair, and kept each other warm near the fire.

"I really thought they had us when seventeen of them ambushed us at once," Cloud laughed. "But you were great, you saved my life a dozen times."

"I couldn't have defeated them without you," Rye also laughed. "I was getting worried when the whole pool seemed to want to take us two on. One hundred and twenty-six against two. We sure got lucky that match."

"You guys suck," Patrick's voice came from behind them. A stream of water fell onto Cloud and Rye and Patrick laughed.

"Hey!"

"Stop that!"

Rye and Cloud tried to get the excess water off of them and they looked up to see Patrick laughing, holding his now-empty water bottle in his paws. Ariel was giggling beside him, along with a crowd of six behind them.

"You guys are just jealous," Rye said with a smirk.

"Oh come on Rye," Patrick said taking a different seat around the fire. "You can't expect to believe that nothing exciting went on while you were at camp, especially after those games. Come, tell us the stories."

Ariel joined Patrick in his seat, and more of their friends sat around the fire expecting a story. Cloud looked up at Rye with pleading eyes.

Rye sighed with a smile. "Okay, there might be a thing or two I can tell you guys about my training exercises." Rye leaned in the chair, so that he was parallel to the back of the chair, while Cloud rested on Rye's chest, listening to his heartbeat.

Rye kept one arm around Cloud, and used his other paw to grab a stick out of the fire and he poked around the coals, thinking. "Well, I guess I'll start with the first day. We were arranged into six different teams, and our objective was to get through the obstacle course faster than the other teams. The record overall for the course was one minute and thirty-nine seconds; my team scored . . ."

As Rye told his stories, occasionally poking at the fire for affect, Cloud fell asleep on Rye's chest. The hour was still early but Rye didn't bother Cloud as he continued to tell the story. A large crowd of all of Rye's closest friends and admirers gathered around the fire to listen to Rye. Time got lost as hours went by and the fire was often replaced with new logs to burn.