june 1965
-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-
narrator

        the time almost came to an end, the beautiful sunset had just begun. claire convinced vada to stay for a little more just to watch sunset and promised that she'd be the one driving home for vada to sleep in the car for the long drive.

        darry wanted to go home along with the others but soda noticed claire and vada were staying at the beach, he also convinced his friends to stay at the beach until they left, leaving out the last part.

        "i don't mind a beautiful sunset, especially when it's at the beach." ponyboy implied.

        "yeah yeah, i bet soda just wants to stalk claire until she leaves." steve jokes.

        "will ya shut up?!" soda snapped.

        "who pissed in your cheerios?" dally chuckled while grabbing a beer, "i'm on soda's side, i've been waiting to watch hot broads at the beach for a long time."

        "don't ruin the mood, please?" darry requests while trying to get himself busy by watching the sunset.

        soda's eyes landed on claire grabbing a camera from her bag, pointing it directly at the orange sun. snapping a picture with a little smile on her face as she waited for the piece of film to develop out of the camera, grabbing it and waving it around to appear.

        vada got up to get her toes in the cold water, dally decided to go down there with her, strike up a conversation or more since it's typical dallas winston. claire was now alone by herself in her spot.

        soda didn't want her to feel alone as the sky became darker, he made the decision to abandon his friends once again to go sit with claire who didn't mind his presence. in fact, she smiled and blushed when he sat next to her.

        "i didn't want to see a pretty girl like you sit alone." he complimented her.

        "again, enough with your comments." she shook her head, nudging him.

"this is the first time i've heard a girl turn down my precious comments." he smirked.

"my oh my!" she sarcastically gasped.

soda remained at her side during the whole scenery of the sunset, claire somehow felt safe with just him, only him. she's been so used to just the socs telling her to stay away from greasers otherwise they'd kill her, such a lie as her brother who is a soc is one of the few who like jumping greasers until they're black and blue.

as for soda, he had never felt this way ever since sandy left him. poor boy beat himself up on the inside for wondering why he was good enough for her, or why he quit school just to become a failure of a boyfriend.

claire spotted her friend throwing salty water at dally with a pure smile and a happy laugh, usually she would play hard to get in front of guys, except for dally who seemed to have an impact on her.

"your friend a big fan of greasers?" soda asked her.

"not until now i guess." she shrugged, taking a sip of the lemonade she bought from before. "want some?"

"i'm good." he declined the offer.

                    ❥•°❀°•༢

        the sun was completely out of sight, people from the beach were walking back to their cars. vada came back to help claire clean up their spot, dally did the opposite by letting his friends do all the cleaning while he went out to go smoke a cigarette.

        soda waned to see claire again but couldn't come up with an excuse as everybody was already heading towards the exit, he had to do what had to be done which was to run up to her one last time.

        "claire!" he calls out, claire turned around and slowed her pace.

        "oh hey, soda." she smiled.

        "was wondering if you're busy on saturday." he wondered.

"not at all, why?" she practically cleared her plans to sleep in all weekend.

"i don't know, just thought you and me could watch a movie at the drive-in." soda shrugged.

"why not, i mean what could go wrong?" she took the risk.

"i'll pick you up, saturday at your house, 6 pm." he planned.

"be there."