The Shore (34 page)

She sat up, amazed that she was still alive. “Thank you,” she said as he handed her the cup.

“Careful. It’s hot,” he warned. “Milk? And sugar?”

She watched in a daze as he doctored her coffee. “Thank you,” she said again, and blurted out, “No one’s ever done this for me before.”

“Rude and unlucky dudes,” Finn pronounced. “Aren’t they, Barrel?” And she realized that, of course, Barrel was there, too.

As Claire drank her coffee, Finn leaned across the foot of the bed as if he belonged. Barrel jumped up, too. Without thinking, Claire reached out and smoothed back a strand of Finn’s sunstreaked hair. Then she yanked her hand back, blushing.

But Finn caught her hand and patted it, almost the way he patted Barrel.

Claire felt shy and self-conscious and hung over and confused. But she liked it, too. If felt cozy, if not entirely comfortable. Barrel inched up the bed and put his nose on her hip.

“Did I . . . was I bad last night?” she asked at last.

“I think you just drank too much on an empty stomach. Happens.” He released her hand and leaned over to give her a quick kiss. “When you finish your coffee, gear up and we’ll go look for a break. Best hangover cure I know.”

Full-body immersion in cold water—she wasn’t sure she was
ready for it. She couldn’t tell Finn that, of course. “I have to work,” she said instead.

“Me, too. It’s way early enough. Surf first, work later, be happy.” He patted her on the shoulder and loped out of the room. Barrel scrambled off the bed to follow.

She stared after him, hands still cradling the cup. Well, she thought. Domestic bliss.

Jodi woke suddenly and completely from the best and worst night of her life. She turned her head and saw the long spray of red hair fanned out on the pillow next to her.

What had she done? Couldn’t she do anything right? She had probably ruined another good friendship forever. . . .

No, wait, she hadn’t ruined her friendship with Linley. Because Linley didn’t know what she had done . . . what a miserable, sneaky, disloyal friend she’d been. No way Linley could know.

And Linley wasn’t going to know about this, either.

Sliding hastily and silently out of bed, Jodi groped for something to put on. Then she remembered she’d been wearing only her towel, the one with the big red J on it.

She groaned inwardly, grabbed the towel, and wrapped it into place. As she opened the door, she thought she heard Poppy move in the bed behind her. Without looking back, Jodi darted into the hall.

“Jodi, hi! You’re up early, too.” Claire smiled at Jodi—beamed, actually. “Good. May I borrow your shorty?”

“Sure . . . You’re going to the beach?” Jodi managed to ask.

“Surfing!” Claire sang. “Isn’t it a great day?”

How could she be so cheerful—wasn’t she totally hungover? The last time Jodi had seen Claire, Claire had been knee-walking smashed.

No, not the last time. The last time she’d seen Claire was in the hall when Claire had run into her own room, leaving Jodi and Poppy to . . .

No. She wouldn’t think about it now. “May the surf be with you,” Jodi croaked, grateful that Claire hadn’t noticed that this is exactly how she had seen her the night before—in the same hall wearing the same towel. As Claire let out a peal of laughter, Jodi made it to the safety of her own room.

Only later did Claire realize that it looked as if Jodi had been coming not out of her own room but Poppy’s and in what looked like the same towel as she’d been wearing the night before.

But Claire didn’t want to think about that whole hot tub scene, and anyway, she’d probably been mistaken.

The beach Finn chose for the morning lesson was closer to everything, but it was early enough that there wasn’t too much of a scene. With Claire in tow, Finn approached two people standing in the sand surveying the water.

“Sloppy,” one of them said.

“Lot of chop,” agreed another, and then, “Hey Barrel, hey Finn.”

“Hey,” said Finn. “Rita, Axel, this is Claire.”

They were a startlingly similar pair, except for the gender difference. Fuzzy, sun-bleached short hair twigged into two tight tails, one behind each ear, dark blue Excel wet suits, and the same patient stance in the sand. They were even much the same height. Different boards, though, Claire noted.

Rita gave Claire a nod, but she wasn’t really interested. Axel smiled and said, “Hey. Not much to work with today. The wind keeps shifting offshore. We’re gonna go up the beach and look for a better break. Want to come?”

Finn said, “Thanks, brah, but we’re not doing much of a session, so we’ll stick. Work.”

“Too bad,” said Rita sympathetically. “No patrons for me until this afternoon.”

“Dude, later,” said Axel and the two headed back to the parking area.

“She works with you? Rita?”

“Axel, too, except he’s one hotel over.”

“Are Rita and Axel . . .”

“Twins,” said Finn. “Cool, huh?”

I’m not jealous of Rita, Claire thought, and decided to concentrate on the lesson.

She actually got up once. Not for long, only a couple of seconds—just long enough to feel the energy coming up from the water through the board and into the soles of her feet.

“That was awesome,” she gasped, breaking the surface and
in that moment falling in love with more than Finn. She also gained a whole new respect for the surfer vocabulary—in its place, she assured herself.

This time, when she was back on deck, Finn leaned over and hugged her. “Excellent,” he said.

After the lesson as the three of them made their way back to the van, Claire could still feel the tingle of energy. In fact, between Finn and the ocean, she was on all-over tingle. Luscious, she thought.

“You can change in the van, if you want,” Finn said.

“Thanks,” Claire said, relieved. Having sex with Finn was one thing, but she wasn’t ready to go full-body naked with him while she struggled into her work clothes—even if the parking lot was empty.

He grinned. “Me, I’m already pretty much rigged for my day. He unzipped the top of the shorty and pulled it down and went around to give Barrel a bowl of water.

At the Stacked, Claire said, “I hope I didn’t, you know, mess up your surfing for today.”

“Oh, no,” said Finn cheerfully. “I’ll catch some waves this afternoon on the way home from work.”

He didn’t ask her to join him. On the other hand, he’d called the house “home.” He leaned over to kiss her, a nice slow burn of a kiss and, pulling back, grinned happily and said, “See you later, Mermaid Claire.”

Mermaid Claire, she thought. Silly . . . but she liked it.

• • •

Max was thinking about his life. It was pretty much what he’d been doing for the last three years except when he was working on not thinking about his life.

You reached a point when you had to move on. But somehow he couldn’t. So here he was, back where he’d staπrted from. This time, however, he had his own room down the hall and someone new was up in that old room where he and Linley had spent so much time getting it right.

They’d had some very good nights in that room.

Not nights like the one before, he thought, and he knew that in some ways he had moved on, had left that whole party hearty scene behind. There were, after all, bodily limitations to how messed up you could get, and no matter what you mixed or dared, morning always came.

Max laughed at himself and shook his head. Keep going, he told himself, and you’re going to sound like your father.

Still, he’d hated that whole scene the previous night. Because the people acting out the little anti-morality play were people he liked. Friends. Old friends. Lovers.

Twelve

The battered Subaru almost took Claire out as she was Blading home from work that day. Staggering and clutching a street sign, she took a few to register that the assault vehicle was Jodi’s and that Linley was leaning out the passenger window.

“Good, we found you,” Linley said, oblivious to the fact that she and Jodi had almost turned Claire into roadkill.

“Yeah, but you missed me,” Claire retorted. She released her death grip on the street sign and added, “Nyah, nyah, nyah.”

“And here I thought all that sex, ah, I mean surfing, would mellow you,” Linley said. She grinned wickedly.

Claire felt her cheeks turn red. How did Linley know? Did Linley know?

Pleased, Linley said, “Anyway, Jodi and I feel that now that you’ve started surfing, it’s time for another important event in your life.”

Claire skated over to the car. “Thanks, but I’m not into
sharing hot tubs.” She was pleased at how calm she sounded in spite of her stupid blush.

“Jodi’s not either,” Linley said unexpectedly. “She bailed on me too.”

“Another time,” said Jodi in a slightly strangled voice, and Claire thought, Hah. I’m not so uptight after all.

Rolling her eyes, Linley went on. “Anyway, this doesn’t involve water sports of any kind.”

“What does it involve, exactly?” asked Claire.

“No trust,” said Jodi. “That’s your problem.”

“Strong survival instincts, you mean.”

Jodi drummed the steering wheel with all ten of her fingers. “Come on, trust us, you’ll love it.”

Claire gave up and got into the back of the Subaru. She’d managed to avoid what she’d secretly dubbed Jodi’s Taxi of Death all summer, but at least now she would not die a virgin.

“So did you have fun last night?” Claire had decided on attack as the best defense.

“Tons,” said Linley. “Jodi so wishes she hadn’t gone to her room and passed out—don’t you, Jodi?”

The car speeded up suddenly and whipped around a corner, and Claire was pretty sure she felt two wheels leave the ground. “Slow down!” she shrieked. She focused on taking off her skates to avoid looking out the window.

Jodi said, “The speed limit is for thousand-year-old people in Buicks. Gives them a sense of security, y’know? Plus, they get to
wave their tiny little fists at us as we go by, and talk about how awful we are. So really we’re providing exercise and conversation, too.”

“And how do you think they get to be a thousand?” snapped Claire.

“Who wants to be a thousand?” Jodi shot back.

“Who wants to be old?” Linley said at the same time.

“Drive a thousand, don’t be a thousand,” Jodi sang, and somehow managed to go faster still.

Fortunately, the trip wasn’t a long one. Jodi swerved into a turn lane, actually put on her signal, then accelerated into the sort of shopping strip that had never seen better times.

Deciding to get out of the car first and ask questions later, Claire jumped for safety, taking her skates with her in case she needed to make a quick escape in the near future. She surveyed the shops. “We’re here why, exactly?” she asked.

Linley laughed exuberantly. “Okay,” she said. “Take your choice: bikini wax, tattoo, or piercing.”

Sure enough, one place offered bikini waxes and manicures, which sort of boggled Claire’s mind, and another tiny storefront promised “Big, Bold, Beautiful Tattoos” and “Practically Painless Piercings.”

“What? No! No way. I am so not that kind of girl.”

“Come on. It’ll be fun. A nice Brazilian wax,” Linley coaxed.

Jodi gave a snort of laughter. “Nice? Nice?”

“Have you ever had one?” Claire asked. As Linley’s roommate for a year, she knew the answer.

“Well, no,” Linley admitted. “But I will if you will.”

Linley, Jodi, and Claire looked at each other. Jodi sort of danced in place, her eyes darting back and forth between the shops, more like a dandelion on acid—and speed—than ever. Linley stood, one hand on her hip, looking like a gunslinger in California girl drag, her lips curled in her familiar shoot first, ask questions later smile, her gold hair falling in its perfect cut across one cheek.

Claire did not trust that smile. She smoothed her now-frazzled waitress French braid and silently shook her head.

“I don’t know,” said Jodi at last. “Hot wax all over”—she made a gesture—“and then everything ripped out at once . . .”

“No,” said Claire, regaining her voice. “No, no, and hell no. Also, no.”

With a sigh of long-suffering, Linley said, “Well, that leaves tattoos, or piercings. And at the moment, I personally don’t want to get anything else pierced.”

“What? No nipple rings?” Jodi feigned shock.

“Claire could get a navel ring, though. It’d look good on her now that’s she’s got a tan,” Linley said.

Claire cut in. “I appreciate the thought and I’ll think about a piercing. Or even a tattoo. But not today.”

“Coward,” said Linley.

Since this was true, Claire saw no point in arguing. She decided on diversionary tactics. “I’m willing to shop, though. In fact, I need to shop.”

“Shopping is good,” said Jodi. “We like shopping.”

“And since I can’t keep borrowing your shorties, I think it’s time I got one of my own.”

“It’s a plan. I like it. Good plan,” said Jodi, staccato style. “Let’s do it, let’s get to it.”

Losing the gunslinger smile, Linley said, “Well, okay. Tattoos later, wet suits now.”

Much, much later, thought Claire with an inward sigh of relief.

“Now this is shopping,” declared Linley. She was draping surf items and anything else that caught her fancy across Claire’s arms with reckless abandon.

The shop was the sort to break a bank account and a surfer’s heart—or at least a surfer dilettante’s, Claire thought. Racks of gear as far as the eye could see, from skins to surf socks to surfboards.

But Claire already knew that most surfers didn’t buy their boards off the rack—or the wall. They had them shaped to specifications, and every surfer had an opinion about the best shape and an idea on who was the best shaper.

She wasn’t looking for a surfboard, however. At the moment, she was going for fashion. If she was going to spend the rest of the summer falling off a surfboard, she wanted to look good while she did it.

Funny how she’d never thought much about things like that before.

“Look at this. I love this color blue,” said Linley. She held up a skin, the lightweight, quick-drying surfer’s version of a tight T-shirt. It protected surfers from board rash in warmer water.