Waves of Love (Surf’s Up Book 1) (4 page)

              Sage knelt in the sand, pale body glowing with a sheen of fresh sweat as they both waxed their boards. He’d waited all day for this moment, to be close to her, warm and wet on the beach together, and she hadn’t disappointed.

              Now he watched her every move, the sand kissing her knees, the little white ties on either side of her skimpy brown bikini, the way her chest heaved witch each rub of the board, exposing those small, tender breasts that glowed and glistened in the late summer heat.

              She was so beautiful, so friendly and fun, and yet so… distant. Derek was no dog, but he had to admit he’d never known a girl this long and not slept with her before… if she was straight, that is.

              Derek knew the interest was there; the attraction, it was obvious. So… what was the problem? Or maybe, he suddenly realized, this was what normal people, maybe even older people, did. They dated, hung out, got to know each other first. Was that all this was?

A generational thing?

              He smiled, watching her wax her board with vigor and determination. He could do that as well. Be determined, that is. Right then and there, in the sand, Derek decided to woo Sage. To win her over, even if it took all summer.

              But… first things first. “Okay,” he said, standing and reaching a hand out to help her up. She took it, gently, softly, avoiding his eyes. He relished the touch, warm and moist from her efforts. “Time to get wet!”

              She chuckled, peering over his sweaty shoulder at the ocean breakers rolling softly into the sand. “I was hoping we could pace ourselves, you know?” she suggested, biting her lower lip. “Maybe… stick to the sand this week. And the next week, and the next…”

              “Or I could just move here,” he suggested, “and maybe get around to getting wet this time next year?”
              She nodded eagerly. “Okay.”

              “Seriously, Sage, we don’t have to do this.”

              She nodded, reaching dutifully for her board. “I want to,” she said. “I’m just being a baby.”

              “I was scared my first time, too,” he offered.

              “Yeah?” Her expression was hopeful.

              “Then again, I actually
was
a baby at the time, so…”
              She slapped him playfully with her free hand. “Yeah, well, I feel like a baby about all this…”

              They paused at the water’s edge, the surfboard feeling comfortable in his arm, hers looking jaunty and awkward. The sea foam fizzled around their feet and he turned to her, looking slightly down into her nervous green eyes. “So I’ll give you a break,” she said, his heart warming as her eyes gleamed hopefully.

              “Yeah?”

              “Yeah, just… for this first session, we’ll go out, catch some waves but you don’t have to stand up if you don’t want.”

              “For real?”

              Derek chuckled. “By the way, you never have to do anything you don’t want to do, but today especially, you don’t have to stand up if you don’t feel like it.”

              Her smiled turned vaguely suspicious, and absolutely charming. “What do you mean, ‘
if
I don’t feel like it?’” she asked. “I can tell you right now I don’t feel like it.”

              He took another step in the water, knowing she’d follow without realizing it. Then another, and another. “I just have a feeling you’ll feel like it, is all.”

              She shook her head. “Boogie boarding with a surfboard sounds much better to me.”

              “Okay,” he said, before teaching her how to ride the board under, not over, a wave. She held her breath and scooped under the wave, dutifully, popping out on the other side wet, glistening and mighty proud of herself.

              “I did it!” she squealed and he made a sarcastic little golf clap.

              “Great,” he said, nodding toward another approaching wave. “Now get ready to do it about twelve more times!”

              The wave caught her off guard but she was tough and quickly rebounded, taking the next few sets easily until, by the time they reached the calm flank between the crashing waves and those merely cresting, Sage looked like an old pro.

              He coached her on how to climb atop her board before easing into a sitting position and, after a few slide-offs and one hilarious “fall off,” she quickly got the hang of that, too.

              They sat there, the afternoon sun lazy and soft on their backs, feeling the lull of the waves beneath their boards. “Can’t we just stay here all day?” she asked, hair wet and damp on her shoulders, body glowing and moist.

              “If you want,” he said, thinking he’d like nothing more. “Many is the day when I get out here, look back on the beach, and let the ocean lull me into a vegetative state.”

              She was looking over at him, their boards so close their knees were almost touching, nodding at him. “Sounds nice,” she said, murmuring softly and nodding gently. “But that’s not quite surfing, is it?”

              “Not quite,” he agreed. “But a pretty awesome perk.”

              She nodded and turned, Derek following suit. He saw the crest of a nice, smooth, soft wave coming from behind them, the kind he could ride in his sleep. “Looks like a good—” he started to say as she laid down on her board and, as they’d practiced for nearly twenty minutes on the beach, started paddling to catch the wave.

              She was a little too far ahead to get the best of it, but Derek watched with pride as she paddled furiously until the wave caught up with her. Instinctively, she stopped paddling and gripped the sides of her board, riding the wave in and even turning, just to the left, so that he could see the surprised smile on her gorgeous face. If he didn’t know any better, watching those long, pale limbs and wet hair and glistening skin and grinning face, Sage might have been a teenager.

              She paddled back out, breathless and excited. “Great job,” he said earnestly.

              “Yeah?” she said, catching her breath even as she peered past him to spot the next wave. Before he could reply, she had bent to her board and was once again paddling furiously.

              He chuckled to himself, watching her firm, ripe rump glisten in the sun, her bikini having shifted just so to reveal the glory of her left cheek in its near entirety.

              “Jesus,” he murmured to himself as she instinctively waited for the wave to catch up with her this time and, catching it more fully, rode it longer and turned sooner, enjoying the curling crest even if she was riding it like a—no, no, she stood, wobbly and uncertain, but she stood just the same!

              He could see her body tense as she stood, hunched over, until at last she tumbled in the ocean froth but, man… standing on her second try. Well, almost standing.

              He was clapping, genuinely and loudly, when at last she paddled back out. “Nice job!” he said and, for once, she didn’t reply with snark or sarcasm.

              “Yeah?” she gushed, rushing her board up to face him and, as they faced each other, side by side, clinging to his board for safe keeping.

              “Very nice.”

              “I’m gonna try to stand up the whole time,” she gushed, pushing away from his board.

              “Get it,” he encouraged as, once again, she raced off. And again and again and again.

              Sage took to surfing with a dogged, if not natural, talent and, nearly an hour later, had stood up at least a dozen times. Winded, her shoulders starting to redden with the sun, she paddled back, clearly spent.

              “Can we grab some conch fritters and draft beers now?” she asked in a pitiful voice, making him laugh out loud and slap his board.

              “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” he said. Sage rewarded him with a smile and Derek let her paddle back just in front of him so he could enjoy the view

.

              Sage sipped her beer, listening to the distant sound of the ocean, hardly believing that, after thirty-two years, she had finally conquered those smashing, crashing, thrashing waves.

              “I love that look,” Derek murmured, quietly, as if not wanting to spoil her reverie.

              She turned to him with a warm smile, his face tan and a little salt from the ocean still clinging to his cheek. “What look?” she asked dreamily, her body, mind and soul so at ease she might have even been dreaming the entire moment.

              “That ‘I just caught a wave for the first time’ look,” he explained, raising his own beer for a toast.

              She clinked glasses and narrowed her eyes. “That would be an ‘I just caught over two dozen waves for the first time’ look, mister, and don’t you forget it!”

              They laughed, heartily, and she sipped her drink, lazily. He was right, though; there was no feeling quite like sitting in a soft, low Adirondack chair, skin tight and warm from too much sun, salt still drying on her skin from a beach shower, her limbs warm and already sore from using muscles she’d never even known she had while learning how to surf.

              Derek’s back porch was surprisingly spacious and a generous overhang protected them from the late afternoon sun. She had suggested one of the two beach bars right there by where they had been surfing, but he’d begged off, suggesting that they stow the surfboard rack first and then “hang out” on his porch.

              She’d smirked and helped him load the rack, both of them tugging at the rubber handle bar as they carried it, lumbering across the street. There was a shed next to his cottage just big enough to back the board rack in and lock it tight. A good thing, since they’d been lugging around about three grand worth of rented surfboards.

              Now they sat, sandy and sticky, lazing in the wooden chairs on his spacious deck. In the living room, his iPod oozed some kind of chill, remixed reggae music on a wireless speaker, set just right at “background music” mode and, drowsily, it added to the relaxed vibe as they sipped their beers.

              “Either way,” he said, legs long and bare as he sat in his baggies and a clingy tank top, “I’m really proud of you.”

              “I’m proud of myself, actually.”

              “Yeah?”

              She nodded. “Most everybody I knew growing up surfed,” she explained, “and they learned early, when you’re supposed to, I guess. I always had something to do at home, or around the store, or homework, or was reading and just… missed that boat. After high school, well, it seemed too late. And when I came back from State… well, there was drama, so I never learned then, either. I guess it just seemed too late to start after that…”

              Her voice trailed off and she avoided his eyes. Sage hadn’t meant to say quite so much, nor had she expected it to affect her quite so powerfully.

              “It’s never too late to live, Sage,” Derek said, softly, earnestly. If they had been closer, she thought, he might have reached out to touch her hand.

              She looked back at him, eyes moist. “I know that,” she croaked. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t trying to get all emotional, it’s just… I was trying to thank you for helping me reach a lifelong goal.”

              He nodded, eyes soft and hazel as they gazed at each other. “You know, I never knew my mother,” he said. “She left us when I was just a kid, too young to remember much about her. My dad, well, he wasn’t the kind to be alone, and he hooked up with a few different women in short succession.

“They were climbers, you know? Social climbers, I mean. Dad’s big into real estate in the San Diego area, so these women were just after his dough. And they always, always,
always
had kids, and the kids were always jerks, and they always moved in right away. To our big house and, basically, took over…”

              Derek’s eyes drifted and, yet again, she wished the deck chairs were slightly closer so that she could reach out and comfort him with a gentle caress on the top of his wrist. “So my house never felt like my own. Even when he’d kick one out, and we’d have the place to ourselves again, I knew it was only a matter of time before another broad moved in. And, sure enough, a few weeks, maybe a few months, later, here would come some other brassy broad and her six loser kids and, well…”

              His voice trailed off, but she smiled and finished his sentence for him. “You found the beach, right?”

              He looked back, smiling gratefully. “Exactly. I… I saved up my allowance for a few weeks and got a secondhand board at some pawn shop downtown. Taught myself to surf early in the morning, when the locals wouldn’t chase me off or make fun of me. I got pretty good, pretty fast, because… well, it was all I cared about. Started skipping school, grades were dropping, dad didn’t care.”

              “But you wanted him to?” she prodded.

              He shrugged. “Possibly. Probably, but… by then, the beach was my home, and the ocean was my family. The surfers, my friends. I basically lived there. I started keeping a journal, you know, in a spiral binder from school. My counselor called me into her office one day; she was worried about my grades, my future, and I gave it to her. I don’t know why. Like you said, maybe I wanted it to get back to my dad or something, but… whatever. She showed it to one of the English teachers and they happened to know a literary agent and, well… here I am.”

              “Here you are,” she teased him, “teaching older women how to surf.”

              “Will you get over that?” he chuckled. “My point to all that was, Sage, I know what it’s like to lose a family. Not the way you did, but…”

              Sage peered at him, curiously. “How… how did you hear that?”
              “Small town,” he explained, not wanting to get the realtor in trouble. “I… I didn’t tell you all that to brag about myself. I wanted you to know that, if you ever want to talk, you know, about what happened… I’ll understand.”

              She nodded, then corrected him. “I’m not sure you would,” she said, not unkindly. “I mean, don’t get me wrong: I couldn’t imagine growing up without a mother, and then having a father who replaced her with a stream of other mothers. It’s a different kind of pain, and I can’t understand it. Because my parents were always there for me, every day. And when dad got sick, Derek, honestly… my mother was the only reason I stuck around.”

              “Really?”

              “Really. I just… I’d never experienced grief before, and to feel it for the first time, at such a young age, and such an important relationship in my life – my father – honestly, I was a crazy person. My mother kept me sane, not because she was in any better shape, but… I knew I had to live for her, had to be there for her, had to keep it together because she couldn’t afford to lose the only person she had left. And I think… I think her grief was so strong, she just… gave up.”

              Sage’s voice trailed off, recalling that dark, bleak and soul-crushing time in her life. “She quit eating, or at least, eating right. Started drinking, smoking… and this was a strict vegetarian who never had anything stronger than a glass of champagne on New Year’s. I just…” She chuckled, humorlessly, dryly, shaking her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, peering at Derek through threatening tears. “This is supposed to be a day of celebration, not… mourning.”

              “In my experience,” he said, standing gently, “happiness and sadness are never too far apart.”

              She chuckled, despite herself, heart lifting after the rugged trip down Memory Lane. “How is one so young also so wise?”
              He paused at the edge of the deck. “All surfers are wise, Sage. Don’t you feel smarter already?”

              He left her there, alone, chuckling as he drifted inside the roomy cottage. It was a perfect fit for him: large and sprawling, hardwood floors, funky furniture, surfer prints on the walls, the walls themselves painted a pleasant mix of oranges and rusts and tans.

              She sighed and sipped the last of her beer, knowing she should get back to Sequels but simply not motivated enough to. In the least. Besides, the shift was covered, as it always was, with Fiona and another part-timer, both of whom were more than capable of running and closing the store without her actually being there. Sage just liked to be there, as always, hovering over – the kids called it “smothering” – and covering for the high school kids she generally hired to run the café and bookstore registers.

              But, tonight, Derek was right: it was a time for celebration. She was thrilled to hear the ocean at her back and, just inside, the reggae remixes softly oozing as Derek hummed along, padding around the hardwood floor on his bare feet.

              Sage couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so relaxed. Or unburdened. It had been ages since she’d talked about her parents, to anyone, let alone a comparative stranger like Derek. And yet, hearing his not-so-perfect life made Sage realize that she wasn’t alone in her suffering, or her grief. And being with him, like this, all afternoon, and now here, on his porch, meant she wasn’t alone… period.

              She sighed and heard him approaching, two beers in one hand, a bag of tortilla chips in the other. He handed her a beer and, while she opened it, gently dragged his wooden deck chair closer with one long, strong bare foot.

              He sat, so close their knees were almost touching, and tore open the bag. “Bon appétit,” he said, handing it to her.

              She took it appreciatively. “You sure do know how to treat a gal.”

              He smirked, fresh beer halfway to his lips. “It’s tradition,” he explained, sitting back and sliding his feet on either side of hers. “You’re a surfer, you’ve surfed, now you eat what surfers eat after we surf.”

              The fresh corn chips, salty and crisp, were a perfect complement to the beer and, until she tried one, Sage hadn’t realized how hungry she was. A dozen chips later she forced the bag back on Derek, patting her flat belly with unbridled satisfaction.

“Perfect,” she sighed, leaning back and, in the process, brushing her foot against his. Rather than gasp and race away, however, she preferred to leave it there, enjoying the feel of his warm skin against her own.

              And besides, it was just a foot.

              He appeared not to notice but, instead, attacked the bag voraciously. “Good, huh?” he said between mouth fulls.

              She barely had time to answer before he was reaching into the bag again. When it was empty, he folded it carefully and slid it between the two empty bottles on the rustic wooden end table beside him.

              It was late afternoon now, bordering on early evening, the sun a brilliant blend of orange, pink and blue. “You know,” she ruminated, the beer cool and wet on her bare knee, “I’ve lived in Florida so long and I’m always in the store at this time. I mean, I can see the sky change outside the window, but…”

              “It’s just not the same,” he finished for her when her voice trailed off.

              “Exactly,” she said.

              “Wait’ll you see it from a surfboard.”

              “Yeah?”

              “Yeah,” he confirmed. “You’ll never want to get out of the water.”

              She tapped his foot, lightly, almost… flirtatiously, sipping her beer. “Is that an invitation?” she teased, setting it down on the table near her chair.

              He arched one dirty blond eyebrow and shook his head slowly, eyes drowsy but full of intent. “Some other time,” he said. “You couldn’t pry me off this porch right now with a crowbar.”

              She sighed, leaning back a little so that, as she did, her foot rubbed against his once more. “I know,” she sighed. “It’s so comfortable.”

              “I was referring to the company,” he said and, gently, covered her toes with the bottom of his feet. They were still sandy, and the sensation of rough sand and soft skin made her shiver with delight. Or maybe it was simply the human touch - something she’d gone without for far too long.

              She sat up, gently, and met his eyes. “Me too.”

              Derek smiled. No, Derek
beamed
. His face looked so youthful and radiant at that moment, bathed in the orange-pink-blue sunset, skin caramel kissed from the sun, tank top barely there as his hairless torso glimmered and his long legs stretched out from his loose, faded red baggies.

              He said not a word and, for a moment, neither did she. And even when she spoke, as his foot slid more purposefully across hers, what left her mouth was more like a murmur.

              Her eyes blinked open and closed as his sandy foot gently caressed her own, the gesture so sweet and yet so tender; Sage found herself squirming in her seat. When she opened her eyes again, he had leaned forward in his chair, a hand on each knee.

              Their eyes met and he said, almost apologetically, “Tell me to stop, Sage, and I will…”

              “Derek, I… I shouldn’t,” she murmured, rising gently to cover his hands with her own. “I shouldn’t but… I can’t stop you.”