"You're on," Abby says, her brief grin a flash of teeth, and to be a good sport she waits patiently until they've both rid themselves of clothes before she yells in one breath, "Readysetgo—"

Imagine what this could have been like: hot sand out at Santa Barbara, down on West Beach where they came in and moored the ship. She thinks about it for seconds, how stinking fucking hot it was, the endlessly blue sky, that afternoon spent trying to dig a massive hole while the tide was coming in and Lev laughing like crazy while he bailed the water out of it.

Racing Clarisse down to the water's edge while trying not to slip on rock? It's just as good as that.