Cinderella in the Surf (10 page)

My actions barely register on Petey and Brock's radars, which is perfectly fine by me. I haven't come to like either one of them in the last half hour or so, but Walker gets to his feet and leans over to me.

"Don't," he says, laying a hand on my arm. I look down at it, then back up at him. "Stay."

"You know who that is," I hiss.

He shrugs. "Yeah, and?"

I stare at him through slowly-narrowing eyes and fight the urge to put one hand on my hip. "And?" I repeat, the word coming out of my mouth nice and slow. "So what?"

"So," he says with an emphasis on the word, "What are you gonna do? Let her ruin your night?"

"Nope. That's why I'm going home."

Walker rolls his eyes. "Come on, don't be difficult."

I pick up my purse and push my chair back from the table. "Look, I had a good time today, but I know me, and I know I don't want to be in the same place as Piper Monaghan."
 

Part of me wants, and maybe even hopes, that'll he suggest he leaves with me and we can go somewhere else. After all, it was his idea for me to come hang out tonight.
 

But he doesn't.

"You should stay," he says one more time, but half-heartedly now, like he knows he's lost the battle and doesn't really want to fight one more round.

This bums me out more than I really feel like admitting.

I don't say anything else as I walk away as quickly as I can out to the patio, hoping Piper won't interrupt my great escape.

I don't exhale until I'm safely on the boardwalk outside the Sand Dune.
 

I make it about three blocks away when I stop, turn and look out at the ocean.

What am I doing?

I don't want to go home right now. I don't want to be away from Walker. And I definitely don't want to let Piper control me like this.

So why am I leaving?

It's easy, that's obvious enough.

But is it right?

Because we all know easy and right go together.

Who is Piper to get to come to my town from thousands and thousands of miles away and get me to act the way she thinks I should? I've only bent that way once before in my life, way back in middle school, and the only reason I got out at all was because of Alex.

He's not here to work me out of another jam. It's on me.

That's the thing about what happens when someone dies. You've got to figure out how to make all the parts of your life that used to move along so easily work again with them gone.

You've got to rely on you.
 

So I do the only thing I can think to.

I turn around and walk straight back to the Sand Dune, push my way in the front door and march out to the patio, ready to tell Walker how stupid it was of me to leave like that.
 

The table we had all been sitting at is empty. It takes me a second to process this. I haven't given any thought to what I'd do if Walker left, too.
 

Only then I hear the laughs.

The first is high-pitched, girly, feminine and sounds like 100-proof evil.
 

But it's the second one that sends chills racing up my spine.

I swing my head around and zero in on them without any effort at all, like my instincts know exactly where to find him.

Sure enough, in the corner of the patio by the fireplace, I see Walker leaning up against the railing, beer bottle in hand, talking to Piper, who's clutching a short glass with a wedge of lime on the side, nervously swirling whatever she's drinking with the tiny red straw, and smiling up at him.

It's enough to make me want to throw up the hot dog he bought me.
 

I stand here, rooted to my place, mouth hanging open, eyes wide, unable to move.

Even though I really don't want to do anything else but run.
 

It doesn't matter, though, because I'm too slow. From somewhere behind me -- it sounds far away but I'll find out later it happened just a few feet to my left -- someone crashes into a patio chair, sending the metal falling to the patio brick and startling everyone outside.

I'm still watching as Walker reacts to the noise. His eyes meet mine before he can figure out what's happening, before I realize I'm too late.
 

He knows I've seen him.

The look of horror that etches itself on his face says it all. I want to turn around and run straight out of here, but it's like I'm standing in quicksand, sinking deeper and deeper.

Walker says something to Piper, who immediately looks in my direction. She quits playing with her drink as her eyes narrow to tiny little slits.
 

He's already walking toward me by the time I realize what's going on.
 

I turn to make an exit, but I'm still moving too slowly and there's no escape anyway, and then Walker's in front of me.
 

"Rachel," he says, his voice light and airy and fake. "I thought you were leaving."
 

And just like that, I no longer feel like I'm stuck in whatever trance I was in.

"I bet you did."
 

He lifts his eyebrows. I've only seen this look of surprise cross his face once before -- today, on the roller coaster, when he realized how freaked out I was.

"What are you doing here?"
 

"I came back." He doesn't say anything as he waits for me to keep going. "I just -- I didn't want to let someone else make decisions for me. I wanted to be here, so I came back. Obviously I shouldn't have."
 

I can't keep my eyes from wandering back over to Piper when I say this. She's huddling now in the same corner, whispering feverishly with the two girls she walked in with.

"What?" Walker furrows his brow. "Yeah, you should've. I'm glad you did."
 

"Right," I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "So sorry I interrupted your time with Piper."
 

He blinks once, then says it again. "What?"

I half-shrug as I let out a low laugh. "Really? You're going to pretend you weren't over there talking to Piper Monaghan?"

I realize a second too late that I sound way too much like a jealous, overbearing girlfriend than one of his friends.

And I don't know if I like what that means.

"No," he says slowly, almost as if he can't believe he has to explain this to me. "I'm not. Brock saw her down at Western the other day, but I just put it all together when he pointed her out again tonight. I didn't know the blonde chick he was talking about was Piper until twenty minutes ago."

"But you recognized her as soon as she walked in here." I shake my head as if this will help clear the cobwebs.
 

Walker nods. "Yeah, but it took a little while for me to figure out it's the same girl Brock's into."
 

I pick at the cuticle of my right thumbnail. "So why were
you
talking to her instead of Brock?"
 

Now he just shrugs. "Brock asked me to."
 

"That's it?"

Now there's the beginning of a smile forming on his face. "Why are you so interested in all this?"

A heat rushes up through me, and I'm positive my cheeks are burning red. I don't know if I like what he's implying.

"I hate Piper," I reply, trying to keep my head high. "You know that."
 

He nods thoughtfully. "Sure. Didn't know that meant I couldn't talk to her, though."
 

"It...doesn't."

Right?

I mean, I can't tell him who to talk to. We're not even dating. Even if we
were
dating, would that make any difference? I'm not so sure.
 

But what I do know is that the sight of Walker leaning in to talk to Piper and her straining up toward him like a plant aching for the sun isn't an image I'm going to forget any time soon -- and I don't like the way it makes me feel.
 

"So," he says, leaning up against the table and folding his arms across his chest. "You came back, huh?"
 

I take this as a cue that he's letting me off the hook from the Piper hole I've been digging deeper and deeper for myself.

I shrug, hoping to come across as nonchalant. "I, uh, um, yeah, I thought -- I'm not tired yet."
 

So much for calm and collected.

Walker laughs, then turns around and pulls out a chair from under the table he'd been leaning against. He looks over at me and makes an over-the-top sweeping gesture toward the empty seat that makes me smile despite the embarrassment pumping through me now.

"Stay awhile?" he asks.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I do.

Check that, we
both
do.

Walker and I wind up closing down the Sand Dune tonight, huddled together at our round table until Luke comes over and tells us we have to leave.

It had felt like ten o'clock when he said it, but a quick glance down at my phone showed it was a little past two in the morning.

And I have no idea how that happened, but somehow the time had passed quickly as we enveloped ourselves in the buzz of good conversation and the spark of a late summer night on the water.

Walker insisted on walking me home, muttering something about dark streets and late nights and strangers.

I'm not sure what he's talking about, exactly, but at the time, I was so excited he wanted to continue the night and was actually going to do the whole gentleman thing that I didn't consider how awkward it would be when we finally arrived at the steps to the bungalow.

Which brings me to now.

Because we're here, just standing casually in the sand below the stairs that lead up to my house. I pause for only a second to see if he's going to do anything about this -- like I even know what I
want
him to do -- before I step onto the first rung.

"Thanks for walking me home," I say, turning around and smiling at him.
 

"Sure," he replies, and when he doesn't say anything else, I try not to let my shoulders sag too much and turn to go inside.

That's when he reaches out and grabs me by the arm. I feel the heat from his touch first, and it takes a second for me to realize what's happening -- and what's coming next.

Walker closes the distance between us in a single stride. Even though I'm standing a step higher than him, he's still taller than me, and I have to tilt my head up to see his face.

He's staring back down at me.

"I'm glad you came back," he says quietly, and then, just like that, his lips are on mine.

I don't react at first, and I'm pretty sure I feel like a fish out of water. Only one guy has ever bothered to kiss me before, and it didn't exactly go like this.
 

Miles French in the sixth grade hadn't lived up to his last name, not by a long shot.
 

My head's foggy, but the clouds part just enough for me to push aside stupid memories of Miles and start kissing Walker back. I soak it all in: from his thumb that's lightly stroking my right check to the big, strong hand that's pressed against my back, pulling me closer to him, to the slow bubble that's heating me up inside, to the faint taste of beer and midnight onion rings on his lips.

It's not at all like I thought it'd be -- not that I spent a lot of time thinking about this moment or anything.

Walker pulls away a fraction of an inch and lazily opens his eyes, his lids heavy, smiles, and kisses me again.

It only lasts a second, and then he takes a step back, away from me.

"Good night," he whispers, and then he's gone, walking down the beach in the opposite direction of the way we came.

***

I'm laying on a bright pink beach towel a few yards away from the bungalow the next afternoon. I'm resting on my back, feet pointed toward the ocean, headphones plugged into my ears.

I need a day to process everything that happened last night, and the beach, while it still reminds me of Alex and surfing and a life now lost, seems like the right place to be.

As long as I don't have to listen to the roar of the waves, anyway.

But it doesn't matter much. It's not like I can think about anything other than Walker.

Ever since I've met him, it's been hard to get him off my mind, at first just as someone who was intriguing in a I-want-to-know-more-about-you-but-I'm-not-sure-what-I'll-think-of-you-when-I-figure-it-out kinda way.

But now it's pretty much impossible to push any thoughts of him aside.

Especially because I know
exactly
what I think of him.

And how I want more of those kisses.

The sand next to me shifts with the weight of someone sitting down, and for a second I suck in my breath, sure Walker's managed to find me once again -- and liking the way that kicks up my heart rate a notch or two.

But when I pull the headphones out of my ears and look over, eager to feel his lips touch mine for the third time in the last twelve hours, I see it isn't Walker at all.

"Hoaloha, you lookin' good," Ahe says. "Much better than the last time I saw you."
 

I can't keep the smile off my face. "Well, good. That's good."

"Yeah," he says, lifting his sunglasses and peering at me. "What's gotten into you?"

I shrug. "I dunno," I lie. "Must be catching me on a good day."

Ahe raises his eyebrows and I know he doesn't buy my story. "Uh-huh. And this wouldn't have somethin' to do with that southern boy we all see you hanging around? We're not blind, ya know."

My heart beats faster again, but not for any reason I like. "Who knows?"

Ahe chuckles. "Who doesn't?"

"Whatever. It's not a big deal."
 

"The heck it ain't!" he replies. "Anna saw you at the amusement park yesterday. I thought you don't go there."

I shrug. "Walker asked. I said yes."
 

"Did you tell him what happened last time?"

"Oh come on, you know about that, too?"

"You forget how long I've known your family, Rachel?"

I blow out some air. "No. I was in sixth grade. It's not a big deal."