Riding the Wave (20 page)

Not that he tried very hard to get away. He needed her, in a way.

But every time his palms burned with the need to grab her, he also remembered how damn bad her betrayal had hurt. It was that much worse that she believed that she had been doing something good for him. Made him wonder what else she failed to understand about him. How much else she didn’t see.

For the last heat, it was him and Jack on the water and the photographers barely out of the way, on the far end of the swell.

He had to push everything away. Not a scrap left in his head but him and the water.

The only thing he had to beat was the wave. He waited
on his board, the water soothing and swelling. On shore, the beach was packed. In the water, he owned both the power and the calm of the ocean.

He’d already had one excellent wave, barreling out in a maneuver that was both clean and technically perfect. For his second score of the heat, he wanted something bigger. Fancier. He spotted the swell he needed. Felt it surge under him. Paddled as hard as he had in his life, trusting the magic would happen. And it did. The wave took him. He popped up, standing. Belonging.

He took the wave in return, poured in every bit of his frustration and upset. Slammed down the front, dug in a rail. Flipped a sharp turn at the bottom and rode his momentum up. Up and out until he was floating over the moment. He hovered in the air, his heart rising to the back of his mouth. He was a god.

But a god without a destiny.

His arms spread for balance, he slammed back to earth, cut across the top of the seafoam as the wave broke. Slowed. Dropped back to his board.

He knew he’d done it. Won. He felt the immediate rush of perfect wave plus perfect ride.

His eyes cut to Avalon first. Behind the housing of her camera, he couldn’t see her, not the way he’d wanted to. Not the way he needed to. The way her eyes lit up for him on practice runs, he knew this one would be epic. She’d fucking explode.

Or she would, if he hadn’t fucked all that up.

After he rode the wave all the way in, the throngs of people rushed toward him from the beach. It was something to put down in the record book—two championships, during his first and last competitions, and exactly ten years apart. The odds of it ever happening again
were slim. He might not be Kelly Slater, but he had this year. He had his place.

As Sage and his mom slung their arms around his wet back, he couldn’t help himself. He looked past them both, over their heads.

Avalon walked out of the waves. Water clung to her curves, even though she wore a pair of unrevealing board shorts and a dark green, silky rash guard. The camera dangled from one hand. From some deep depth, she pulled out a weak smile. The two fingers she tipped to one eyebrow were a salute, but it didn’t feel mocking.

It felt right. There was no reason in the world why she shouldn’t be a part of the best moments of his life.

He missed her.

He wanted her back.

On some level, he’d have to admit that he’d flipped out about the Mako thing because he’d been beyond scared. Cut-his-balls-off-and-bury-them-in-the-sand-level scared. Avalon was strong and brilliant and fascinatingly creative, while Tanner could be her rock. Be her calm in the storm. He’d just been too damn afraid he’d turn into his father and put his own ego and wants ahead of his relationships.

And he didn’t know if he could get over that.

Then he didn’t have any choice but to pay attention to the crowds. Sage laid a big, fat kiss on his cheek, and his mom did the same in quick succession. Mr. Wakowski was right there, grabbing his hand in a hard shake.

Avalon slipped away. Her narrow back wove between two beach bunnies in tiny suits.

And he didn’t stop her.

Something sick took up residence in his stomach, even as he thanked everyone and accepted their congratulations.

Jack appeared in front of him. He held his hand out. Dark blue eyes narrowed at him in direct opposition to the wide smile. “Congratulations, man.”

Tanner shook, though they kept it fast. “Thanks.”

“About everything.”

Tanner held his hands up, palms out.

“I wanna say I’m sorry. You deserve this win.”

Tanner nodded.

Really, he was fucking exhausted. His brain had short-circuited right about the same time he’d spotted Avalon on the sand. His knees were weak, his thighs hard-sprung with leftover adrenaline, and his back felt like it needed to pop back into place. He wasn’t a young man anymore. The win couldn’t have come at a better time.

Part of that had to mean letting go of the things held on to by the younger version of himself. He nodded, clapped Jack’s wet shoulder. Hard, of course, so the other guy staggered under the blow. Certain male things couldn’t be left behind altogether. But he smiled. “It’s all good. Water washes it all away. We’re even.”

Because hell, if he couldn’t be the bigger man when he was flying high on a win, when the hell could he?

A few minutes later, he found himself high on a podium. He hefted the golden cup over his head. Thousands of people looked up at him.

He owned the moment.

Even if Avalon had managed to hide herself out of his line of sight.

The press went first, spattering questions at him. The release of that perfectly timed magazine article meant that plenty of them were about Hank Wright and his hidden family, as well as the young age of Mako’s mother. Tanner ignored those questions as if they’d never been
asked, and answered the ones about how it felt to win. How it felt to be the champion.

Speeches came next. Most of them slid by in a blur. He wasn’t even sure what he said during his own except that the words
thank you
echoed a lot. Repeatedly. As in over and over again, until he figured he pretty much qualified as babbling, because he was afraid if he stopped talking he’d cry.

There was no way he’d cry on stage.

But when they hustled him to the staging area in back, he sucked in a harsh breath as he stepped down from the stage. The press of bodies was gone. Mostly his manager and a few WavePro people remained. Plus his mom and sister, of course.

He pressed cold, tingling fingers to his eyes to stave off the pressure there.

He wished his dad were there to see it. And not in some fucked-up, revenge-tinted way. But really, truly wanted him there. Hank would have gotten such a kick out of a random, record-book kind of moment like this.

His dad had made mistakes. A lot of them, it seemed. The anger he’d left in his wake was overwhelming and almost epic. But he’d been just a man, and he’d been Tanner’s father. The dad who’d raised him and taught him to surf and ingrained the drive to win. Things had gone downhill later, but Tanner had been lucky enough to get that much of him. He wished Mako had gotten more of Hank, seen his good side.

Under the wish, a decade of anger sloughed off.

Only one thing would make this moment actually perfect. Avalon.

A
valon had always liked her bedroom in the Wright house. When she’d left her mother’s tiny apartment, it had felt like moving into a castle—one almost on the beach, to boot. Coming back after school and Matthew, it had been a safe haven. The pale blue walls always made her feel better and the high four-poster bed had that touch of whimsy that every teenage girl lived for.

Of course, back then she’d decorated the walls with cutouts from every surf magazine ever published. Now the walls were covered with prints of her own action photographs.

Except the biggest print, the panoramic she’d labored over, was simply of the waves—the ones that were less than a quarter mile away. The same ones Tanner had dominated to seal the championship two days ago.

And she hadn’t seen him since.

The ache had gotten worse when she had to pick through a month’s worth of photographs of Tanner too.

God, he was such a beautiful man.

She paused on a shot from a day trip they’d taken to San Onofre. Tanner had a wetsuit on, but he’d peeled it
down to his waist, and he was holding a bottle of water as he stared out at the waves. Thick slabs of muscles etched him with the solid strength she’d known up close and personal. The sharp line of his lats, arching over the side of his ribs that she’d grasped as she exploded. Those heavy arms that had wrapped around her in the dark of night.

And also the steady trust in his eyes. He knew the waves and he knew himself and he let everything else
be.
She wanted that. Needed that in her life and in herself.

But it didn’t mean she was wrong to have tried to help, did it? After all, the visible proof was in Eileen. She didn’t look happy, not exactly. But she wasn’t walking around as shell-shocked as she had been.

This morning she’d greeted Avalon and Sage with a smile, then made them whole-wheat pancakes. She’d made her mind up on selling the store. Said she was done with it, that between what she’d make and Hank’s life insurance, she could take early retirement.

With slow, deliberate clicks, Avalon shut the picture on her screen. She put the last pictures meant for WavePro on a disk, then added the last batch to the external drive she’d been gathering for Tanner. He deserved his own record of the win.

Plus she had to admit she had an ulterior motive. A tiny, petty part of her wanted to make sure Tanner never forgot her. If he picked one of these pictures, framed it maybe, kept it as a memento of his ten-year-span win? She’d be part of his memories forever. A fixture in his life, even if he eventually forgot the rest of what they’d had.

Because Avalon was pretty damn sure she’d never forget Tanner. What he was to her would never fade into the background of their other truths. Friend, brother of her best friend, coworker—and the man she’d always love.

The disk slid out the side of her computer; then she snapped it in a case and marked the dates spanned. The drive she slipped in an outside pocket of her smaller camera bag.

Downstairs, the house almost echoed with quiet. She put her stuff down on the island counter, then set about refilling her iced coffee. Eileen had left the air conditioner off and opened every door and window, so she couldn’t have gone very far.

Swirling her coffee so the ice could do its job, Avalon stood in front of the sink and looked out at the back patio. The afternoon sun wove between latticed vines, leaving a dappled pattern across the flagstone. A pair of feet stuck out from the lounger, with sandals dangling off the end.

Avalon slipped through the back door. “I’m going into the WavePro offices.”

Eileen didn’t open her eyes, but she smiled. Her face was tipped up toward the sun, but Avalon knew she’d have already slathered on SPF eleventy million. “Will you be home for dinner?”

Something fluttered deep in Avalon’s chest. Home. Yeah, this was home. She’d made the right choice. “Yep.”

“Good. I’m making pesto pasta.”

“My favorite.” She managed to keep the thickening out of her voice, but there was no doubt her eyes watered a little.

“That would be why I’m making it.” Her hand flew out and wrapped around Avalon’s wrist in a gentle grip. “Hey.” She tugged Avalon around and down, then kissed her cheek. “Everything happens for a reason. There’s no such thing as chance.”

Avalon shook her head. “I don’t like this one. It hurts.”

Eileen sighed. Her eyes were the same color as
Tanner’s. Avalon hadn’t quite noticed before and it hurt. Badly. “Tanner is so much like his father. I always knew that was why they stopped talking. The excuse doesn’t matter. And for all his faults . . . for all his mistakes . . . Hank always made me feel special.”

Avalon’s eyes burned with the force of the tears she held back. She shook her head again, as if that would matter, then shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Done is done.”

Eileen patted her cheek. “You’ll always be a daughter of my heart. The rest is details.”

Avalon wrapped her arms around Eileen and squeezed. The older woman rubbed Avalon’s back. The warmth that spread through Avalon was as close to comfort as she’d gotten in the last few days. But at least it was better than nothing.

She felt sort of traitorous for wanting Tanner’s arms. The feeling wasn’t at all the same.

Finally she wiped at her eyes, then pulled back. “See ya.”

Eileen gave a wistful smile as she waved.

But getting out of the house wasn’t near that easy. An atom bomb waited on her in the kitchen.

Tanner.

He looked so good, it shouldn’t be allowed. The charcoal gray pants and green button-down made as nice an outfit as Jack could have picked out, but Tanner wore it with aplomb. With his hands spread to each side of his hips, curled around the tile edge of the counter, he leaned back. The length of his legs stretched out before him, crossed at the ankles. A pair of metallic-sheened sunglasses covered his eyes, but the curve of his mouth was soft.

Everything relaxed. Not a care in the world. Because he was the motherfucking world champion.

Avalon’s movements became sharp, her steps like
mincing through a pool of pudding, every step a slog. Fucker. Bright, hot anger rushed through her.

Anger was easier, after everything.

She slapped the flap of her camera bag shut, then slung it over her shoulder. The pain arrowing up the back of her head would give her an awful headache soon.

“Avalon.” Tanner’s big, warm hand curved around her shoulder. With one tug, he turned her around. The heat of his hand burned into her flesh. Part comfort and twice that much pain. “You’re not even going to talk to me now?”

“I need a little distance.” At least her voice came out steady and calm. Nothing of the mess inside her. “Besides, I’ve got to go to the meeting.”

He glanced down at her, taking in the slim pencil- cut skirt that stopped below her knees and the red silk blouse. “You look amazing.”

She managed to snort. The strap of her camera bag dragged the blouse all out of alignment. And she didn’t want to admit how good it felt to hear it from Tanner. She still wanted him. Which meant she wanted him to want her as well, as convoluted as that might be. “I clean up nicely.”

“No.” He caught the side of her face in his cupped fingers. His gaze bore into hers with an intensity that zinged all the way down to her toes. “You look gorgeous. Don’t blow it off.”

Her breath caught in her chest. But it wasn’t enough. That gaping, angry place within needed something more to hold on to. “What exactly are you saying, Tanner?”

He shifted on his feet. When he shook his head, it looked more like he was trying to shake free of some confusion. But he still didn’t remove his hand from her cheek. Instead, he flipped it over and trailed the back of his knuckles over her jaw. “I’m not sure. I know I miss you.”

She swallowed down the threatening tears. Part of her wondered why this wasn’t enough. This, right here. The moment when Tanner came to her and said that he missed her.

But the truth was: It still wasn’t what she needed.

She needed to know he wouldn’t let her down. Maybe the expectation of an end was part her own problem, but goddamn had it hurt when he’d just started in on her, and he’d assumed she’d been operating from the worst possible motives. He’d been quite ready to let her walk out, hadn’t he, without even a word of protest?

She needed someone who’d make life better for her. Who didn’t assume she’d be the one to make everything better for
him
.

More than that. She
deserved
someone who’d have her needs in mind.

Maybe her mom hadn’t and maybe Matthew hadn’t, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t get someone who would.

She shuffled around in the outside pocket of her bag until her fingers curled around the chunky hard drive. Pulling Tanner’s hand from her face was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do. Winding her fingers through his would be entirely more natural. Instead she spread them open, so his hand was held up.

Setting the drive in the middle of his palm, she folded his fingers over it. He watched her with a fine line of worry between his eyes, like he didn’t exactly understand what she was doing.

That was fine. She didn’t know, either.

“I’m not going to lie and say I’m not glad you miss me.” She smiled a little at that. “But it’s not enough. Call me if you figure the rest out. Or don’t. And we’ll be friends again in a little while.”

“Avalon . . .”

She lifted her brows, waiting for him to finish. Instead his voice trailed off. All gone. She didn’t get him after all.

And damned if that didn’t hurt a little bit all over again. That somewhere within her had been a tiny well of hope that he’d fight for her. Fight with her.

She stretched up on her toes, until her calves strained. She meant only to brush a kiss over his cheek, but at the last second Tanner turned his head. Took her mouth.

Flash-fire incendiary. Everything they’d been together. Exactly how they’d ended up in this tangled mess in the first place. Avalon’s lips clung to his, trying to drink in a last measure of his calm. But there was no more to be had, at least not when his kiss also made her want to cry.

She pulled away. There was a tiny smudge of red lipstick across his bottom lip. She wiped it away with her thumb, her fingers folded over his sharp jaw. The line of his scar pulled. So damned stubborn. Why couldn’t part of that stubbornness be
for
her?

She wanted to say something else, to put a point on the moment. A statement that would end things with a good flounce.

But in the end she only walked away.

Tanner’s gaze burned into her from behind as she slipped out of the kitchen. Her heels clattered on the tile, making the only noise in the house.

The bright, sunny day she found outside sure didn’t feel right when compared to the mess swirling around inside her. Birds even had the audacity to chirp and sing as they swooped down the street.

She didn’t slam the front door. No point. Everything was said and done.