The XOXO New Adult Collection: 16 Full Length New Adult Stories (185 page)

“They'll be out in the water with you,” she said. She pointed to the left. “We have boards over there. The kids have already been instructed not to touch them unless given permission by you.”

I turned my attention back to the water. The break was still small, steady 2-3 foot waves rolling in softly. The wind was gentle enough that there was no chop. I scanned the break, looking for rip currents. None to see but it was low tide, which meant there was a greater likelihood one would materialize.

“These guys swim?” I asked.

Barry nodded. “They've done swim lessons at the Boys & Girls club. Not much ocean action.”

“Alright,” I said. I studied the group of boys and was grateful that they were all dark-haired and dark-skinned. I wouldn't see Jay's blond hair or hazel eyes in any of them while we were out on the water. “Let's do this.”

ELEVEN

Kellen

––––––––

“Y
ou did a good job.”

I finished toweling off my hair and said nothing.

Gina smiled from her spot on the beach. After talking with a few reporters and spectators, she'd settled down on the sand, her shoes and briefcase next to her. I hadn't paid much attention to her while I'd been out in the water. I'd been too focused on the kids bobbing up and down in the waves next to me, their indifference morphing into enthusiasm after their first taste of getting on the board.

We'd started slowly, giving each kid a chance to straddle the board, to lay down on it and ride a wave into shore. After realizing no one would ever get a chance to try to stand if we continued on with just one board in the water, I'd body surfed in and grabbed two more boards, tucking them under my arms and hauling them back out past the break. My helpers, the college-kids, had balked at first but I'd shown them how to hold the board and how to help the kids up into a prone position. After our lunch break – lukewarm pizza donated by a local joint and bottles of even warmer Gatorade – I'd switched tactics. Instead of having a group out in the water, I'd taken them out, one at a time, for an individualized surf session. More than half got to a standing position after their first try and were able to successfully stay upright for a few seconds before slipping off and into the water.

“And you didn't have to stay,” she said.

I rubbed the towel against my hair and across my face. Sand dug into my skin and the salt water stung my eyes, but it felt good. Normal. What I was used to. “What do you mean?”

She glanced at her watch. “It's almost five-thirty. We were supposed to end at four.”

“Yeah, well, they weren't done.”

None of the kids had wanted to leave when four o'clock rolled around. Barry had looked at me, his eyebrows raised, and I'd just shrugged.

“You cool with staying?” he'd asked.

I'd nodded and the kids erupted into cheers. And we'd stayed.

“Still,” she said, smiling. “You didn't have to stay.”

I sank on to the sand next to her. “I know.”

The beach was mostly deserted. The reporters and spectators had left soon after lunch. They'd gotten their fill of watching me out in the water, coaching and coaxing the kids up on to the boards. When they realized they weren't going to see me do much of anything except stand in waist-deep water and propel surfboards toward shore, they'd quickly lost interest.

And I'd relaxed. With the reporters and the cameras gone, I'd loosened up a little. The breaks were small, the rip currents nonexistent and I somehow managed to not even think about Jay. All I thought about were these punks on the water, punks like me who, despite their reservations and their cool exteriors, were just as thrilled to catch their first wave at twelve as I'd been when I was eight.

“I spoke to the reps from the papers and Surfer magazine. The local NBC affiliate was going to run the story tonight. The early news.” She looked at her watch again. “I'm pretty sure we already missed it.”

“Okay.”

She was quiet for a moment. She stared out at the water, her gaze fixed on the horizon. “I'll talk to Mark and Gavin tonight. Give them a full report.”

“Okay.”

She hesitated. “And we should talk about your next appearance.”

“Okay.”

“Jesus,” she said with such force that I turned to look at her. She'd shifted so that she was facing me. She'd pulled her hair back at some point and a low ponytail hung down her back. Her cheeks were flushed but not from embarrassment. She'd gotten sunburned.

“What?”

“Do you have anything else to say besides okay? Anything with more than two syllables?”

“What do you want me to say?”

She rolled her eyes. “I don't know. Tell me how it was out there. Tell me how stupid it was. Argue with me about your next appearance.”

“You want me to argue with you?”

“No.” She shook her head. “No, I really don't.”

I stared at her. She was confusing the hell out of me.

“I just want you to snap out of it,” she said.

“Out of what?”

“Out of your funk.” She sighed again and plunged her hand into the sand, scooping up a handful of grains. “Out of the funk I caused.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

She spread her fingers and the sand trickled out, the evening sun reflecting off it, the grains shimmering like crystals. The polish on her fingernails didn't match the polish on her toes. It was red like her shirt. Like her lips.

“My comment,” she said. “About...about Jay.”

“You didn't say anything about Jay,” I reminded her.

“I know, I know,” she said. She reached for another handful. “But it was there. That stupid comment.”

“I'm fine,” I said. “Shook me for a minute. But I got over it.”

“I know you did,” she said, her voice soft. “I saw you out there, working with those kids. It was like nothing else in the world existed. Just you and them and the water.”

“Pretty much.”

She'd nailed it. It was the reason I could still surf, the reason I could still bring myself to get back into the water every day. It wasn't a choice for me. The ocean was an extension of myself, the only place where I could find solace and peace. And even though I'd lost my best friend to it, I couldn't let it go, couldn't turn my back on it. I couldn't exist without it.

“Anyway,” she said, brushing her hands on her shorts. “I just wanted to apologize. And to tell you that you did a good job out there.”

“You've apologized enough,” I said. “And it was fine. Easier than I thought. So just chill out.”

We were quiet for a minute. I gazed out at the water, at the white clouds hanging above the ocean, trying to stamp out the sun as it dipped toward the horizon. Seagulls squawked overhead, their cries shrill, and a shorebird flitted close to the water line, pecking at something invisible along the sand.

“Why'd you say you don't like kids?”

I glanced at her. She'd pushed her sunglasses on to her head and I noticed that her nose was sunburnt, too. “Because I don't.”

“You seemed to like those kids just fine,” she said.

“Those kids were cool.”

“So you don't like uncool kids?”

“Right.”

“And you make that judgment how?” she asked with raised eyebrows.

I started to say something, then just laughed. I knew I couldn't win. “Whatever.”

She smiled. “You're better with kids than you think. I'll try to schedule a couple more things like this over the course of the month.”

“Alright,” I said, leaning back in the sand. I was tired. Relaxed. This surprised me. I always felt like a tightly wound coil, ready to burst. The only thing that soothed me was the water. And when I wasn't in the ocean? I was drinking.But there I was, lounging on the sand, doing neither of those things. “So what's next?”

“Tomorrow night.” The smile faded. “It's probably going to be a little tougher.”

“Why's that?”

“Because you're going to be surrounded by girls,” she said. “And you won't be hooking up with a single one of them.”

For some reason, her comment got to me. “You know, it takes two to tango,” I said cooly. “It's not just me putting the moves on every single chick I see.”

And it wasn't. I couldn't remember the last time I'd hit on a girl. Part of me knew it was because I didn't have to. More often than not, there was a line of them ready to go, mine for the choosing. But I'd never had the desire to. Not recently, anyway. Every hook-up I'd had over the last six months, I'd been coaxed into. And before that? There hadn't been many. Jay had seen to that. He'd always harped on me about focus, about paying attention to what was important.

“Wow, congrats on using a saying my great-grandfather might relate to,” Gina said. “No one 'tangos' anymore. But yes, I do know what you mean. So let me rephrase. You won't be hitting on a single woman in the room. If they make advances toward you, you will decline. Politely. No matter how hot they are or what they offer you.”

“What does this have to do with me getting in a fight?” I asked, confused.

“Nothing,” she said, glancing at me. “It has to do with your rep as a womanizer, as someone who doesn't exactly treat women with respect.”

“Well, that's just bullshit,” I said, irritated. “I've never done anything like that.”

Gina held up a hand. “Never said you did. And I'm not saying the rep is accurate. I'm just telling you what it is. There's the perception that you treat girls like crap. We need to fix that.”

I didn't say anything. I didn't treat girls like crap. If I did, I would have led on Ch with empty promises and snuck in one last fuck before leaving the hotel room. If I did, I would have forgotten about going back to Mercy's hotel room and pulled her into the bathroom to let her blow me there. I didn't do that shit. Other guys did. Not me. I might have had a rep for sleeping around but at least I was honest about what I was doing. The chicks usually weren't, not even with themselves, but I was. I didn't womanize and I didn't disrespect them. They disrespected themselves.

“It's end of season for the UCSD women's surf team,” Gina said. “They had a pretty good year. So they're doing their end of season dinner and banquet. And you are the dinner speaker.”

“The
what
?” I wouldn't have been more surprised if she'd told me I was having dinner with the President.

“The dinner speaker,” she repeated. “You'll give a nice little speech about life and surfing. Or something like that. Oh, and you'll wear a suit.”

“I don't even own a suit.”

She nodded. “I kinda figured. One will be delivered to you tomorrow,” she said. “And, yes, you're paying for that, too.”

I cut my eyes away from her. She was doing a great job of ruining what hadn't been a terrible day. But now it was turning into a nightmare.

“I'm not good at speaking in front of groups,” I said.

“It doesn't need to be anything formal,” she said. “Just simple, personal, relaxed.”

“About what?” I asked. “What the hell am I going to talk about?”

“Whatever you want,” she answered. “How you got into surfing, what you love about it, what they should hope to get out of it now that they've had experience in the water. Just tie it to surfing somehow.”

I dug my toes into the sand. “I'm not a very good writer, alright? If I have to write it, it's gonna suck.”

“Tell you what,” she said. “Let's talk about it on the way home. We can hash it out.”

I looked at her. “Home?” For one split second, I thought she was taking me to her house and I felt something spark in my gut.

“I'm driving you home. Your house,” she clarified. “I was told you didn't have a car up here.”

The spark died. She was right. I didn't have my car. Heath had picked me up and driven me to the hotel, probably because he was worried I might not show up at all.

“I can catch a ride home,” I said.

She shook her head. “No. You'll ride with me.”

“Why?” I asked.

She stood and brushed off her legs. “So I know you go home and nowhere else.”

I squinted at her, the sun breaking free from the clouds and glistening behind her. “I could always leave.”

She smiled and nodded. “Except I'm going to confiscate your car keys.”

TWELVE

Kellen

––––––––

T
he drive south to San Clemente was slow and snarled with traffic. The 405 was jammed and bottlenecked as we merged onto the 5. If the slow pace bothered Gina, she didn't show it. We inched along and she peppered me with questions, trying to find things I could talk about the following night. Nothing sounded good to me and I certainly wasn't much help because I was already anxious about the idea of getting up and talking in front of a bunch of people I didn't know.

Her cell rang and she hit the speaker button her phone. “Gavin,” she said, keeping her tone light. “I'm with a client.” She didn't elaborate and he didn't ask.

She hung up and glanced at me. The day on the beach had changed her appearance. Not just the pink cheeks and nose, but the casual ponytail she wore, dark hair escaping from the little elastic she'd used to pull it back. Most of her make-up had been erased by the heat and wind and she looked better without it. A little wild, a little wanton. I thought about what it would be like to kiss her, what her hair would feel like. What she would feel like. I shifted in my seat, tugging on my board shorts, trying to adjust myself. Just thinking about it was getting me hard.

“Look, the easiest thing would be to talk about your first time,” she said, waving a hand in the air, keeping the other on the wheel.

“My first time?” I blurted out. My first time had been in Sunny Winslow's pool house, fumbling and rushed and awkward. I'd unloaded in twenty seconds. “Wouldn't that be...a little inappropriate?”

She narrowed her eyes. “What your board was like. What the water felt like. How bad you wiped out.
That
first time.”

I shook my head. I needed to get my mind out of the gutter, especially when it came to her.

“Kellen? First time surfing? Hello? That would work.”

I looked back at her. “Right. I know. That was a long time ago.”

“Not that long,” she said. “You're what? Twenty-four?”

I nodded. It felt like forever ago, but I didn't say anything.