by Parker, Ali
Besides, I didn’t know about looking her right in the face during the conversation we were about to have. Jenna sighed, but did as I had asked. Once she wasn’t facing me any longer, I heard another question.
“You were about to tell me about it, why did you stop?”
Popping the top off the sunscreen, I squeezed some onto my palms and rubbed them together before putting my hands on her warm skin. “I stopped because it’s just weird to talk to someone about this stuff who isn’t either Valerie or Heidi. I used to have these kinds of talks with them. Now they’re gone, sort of, and I don’t know how to talk to anyone else about it.”
“I get that.” She sat still while I finished, then turned to face me again and took the sunscreen. It was my turn, so I gave her my back and held my ponytail up with one hand.
Jenna’s voice was gentle, as were her hands when she started rubbing the cream in. “It’s okay. I understand, really. I’d love to talk to you about it, if you want to, but I won’t make you tell me. It was your first time. That’s always going to be special.”
I sighed, my muscles relaxing under her hands. “Are you sure you don’t mind if I talk to you about it? I really do want to, I guess it’s just weird.”
“It’s not weird,” she insisted, giving me a pat on the back to let me know she was done. “We’re friends, right? So what if we didn’t grow up together? We’re friends now and I think we’re becoming good friends. You’re not betraying your old friends by talking to me about it. I just happen to be here, so I get to hear about it first.”
A smile came to my lips. “Okay, but remember, you asked for it.”
Jenna grinned at me, doing a victory jig with her arms pumping in the air. “Yeah, I did. So spill it. Who was it with? Was it any good? Did he hurt you? Did he take care of you? Ooooh, did he make you come like a fountain?”
I blinked a few times, trying to determine if I’d heard her right. My cheeks, chest, and neck had to have turned the color of an overripe tomato. “A fountain?”
She scrunched up her nose, but I could see the smile she was trying to hide. “Okay, maybe not a fountain. A geyser? A full tube of toothpaste that you left open and then step on, a—”
I held up my hand, afraid that it she kept going the blood vessels in my cheeks were going to pop. “Let me start with your first question. His name is Rylen.”
Skimming over some of the more personal details, I told her all about my first time. I answered all her questions, but when it came to the last one, my face heated again. “He did take care of me, he made me … um, you know, three times.”
Lifting up her palm for a high five, she waited until I clapped mine against hers before grinning. “Now that’s what I call a man. Too many of them don’t give a damn about a girl. Especially if it’s her first time. They just assume we’re not going to have an orgasm anyway, so they only focus on the getting it in part and then pumping away until they get there.”
“Really?” I frowned. That sounded terrible. “Rylen wasn’t like that at all.”
“Good man,” she said. “That wasn’t what I meant about taking care of you, though. That’s why it was a separate question. He didn’t dine and dash, did he?”
“Dine and dash?” I arched an eyebrow. “Seriously, people call it that?”
Jenna’s head rolled back as she laughed. “People call it so many things, but that’s one of the tamer ones. So did he?”
“No, I slept over at this house. He made me breakfast in the morning, and when he had to leave, he told me to stay as long as I wanted.”
Jenna’s sunglasses came off again, but this time they came all the way off, and she held them in her hand and gaped at me. “Really? You’re not kidding me with any of this?”
“No, it’s all true.”
She put her sunglasses on her head, pushing the arms into the sides in front of her messy bun, then started applauding. “Bravo. If there’s any guy to sleep with, it’s this Rylen person.”
My cheeks warmed again, but I dipped my head in acknowledgment. Jenna stopped clapping and narrowed her eyes, tilting her head. “Wait, Rylen. That’s not a very common name around here. I was so into hearing the story before that I wasn’t thinking about his name until I just said it myself.”
“Okay?”
“You’re not talking about Rylen Page, are you? Superhot heart surgeon extraordinaire?”
I bopped my head up and down, fingers of trepidation closing around my gut. “Yeah, that’s him. I mean, I don’t know about extraordinaire, but that’s his name and he is a heart surgeon.”
Her eyes filled with approval. “He’s definitely a catch for your first time. I mean, sure, he has a fucking rough past, but he turned himself around. He became something most people can only wish to become.”
The trepidation eased immediately. Rylen might not have given me details about his past, but he’d dropped enough hints that I had been expecting there was something of a story there. I could deal with a story and with baggage.
I felt like I made the right decision with him. I was more than ready to spend time with him. Whenever he chose to tell me about his past, I would listen. For now, I was content just getting to know him a little better, one day at a time.
Chapter 17
Rylen
“Why’d you want to meet me here?” Olive asked on Thursday morning, walking up to me on the pier at the boardwalk.
There was a light breeze that lifted the tendrils of hair that had escaped from her braid. She was wearing a pair of denim shorts that were way too long for my liking and a blue tank top that brought out the darker hues in her eyes.
Her smile was relaxed and happy, a worn denim backpack hanging by its strap off her shoulder. I reached out for the backpack, taking it and setting it down by our feet before giving her a tight hug.
“I haven’t been here in years, maybe even since I was a kid. I thought rediscovering its magic was a good place to start our day together.” I gave her another squeeze, relishing in the feel of her body pressed close to mine and reliving a barrage of memories that were going to make it hard to walk if I didn’t let her go, so I did. “Want to go for a walk?”
“Yeah, I’d like that.” She stepped back and bent down to grab her backpack, but I beat her to it. Shouldering it on my left, I took her hand in my right. Olive lifted her free hand and pointed at a row of restaurants down the beach from the boardwalk. “That’s where I used to work. Heidi and Will actually had their first date here.”
“They did?” I started walking in that direction, tugging on her hand. “I’d like to see where you worked, then maybe we can take it from there.”
Her gaze darted to the side, a longing look in her eyes as she glanced down the pier. “Do you mind if we walk along here first? I haven’t really had the chance to do it yet, especially not with company.”
“Your wish is my command.” I changed direction, walking toward the edge and staying near the water as we made our way slowly along.
Seagulls squalled overhead, lazily drifting above the pier and occasionally darting down to take a chance at someone’s snack. There weren’t many other people around, since it was a Thursday morning and all.
As it was, I’d had to rearrange some things to get the day off. I didn’t have surgeries booked until next week, which meant that I could afford a little break from the hospital. There was another surgeon on call in case of emergency and Edgar had promised to update me on my patients.
For once, things at the hospital were slow enough that I didn’t feel bad taking a couple of days before the weekend and then taking the weekend off too. It made me realize that Olive and I had that in common, not liking too much time off. It also made me realize that I’d better use the time we both now had to the fullest, since I didn’t know when it would happen again.
It was taking a bit of time to put things in place, but I was sure she was going to enjoy what I had planned for us. Today was a day to simply relax, though. Walking and spending ti
me at the boardwalk seemed like a good, fun way to pass the time.
Plus, I had a few tricks up my sleeve for today too. I could hardly wait to see what Olive’s reaction was going to be when she found out what it was.
We walked along in comfortable silence for the first few minutes, both of us watching the swells of the ocean and seagulls dipping and taking flight. It was peaceful here, much more so than it usually was over the weekends.
At least it used to be crazy busy on the weekends back when I was growing up, but I wasn’t sure if it still was. The sheer number of restaurants, bars, closed food trucks, and excess parking off the back made me guess that the crowds still came in over weekends and on holidays.
I liked it the way it was now, though. Quiet enough to talk and to sit on the benches located every few feet. Olive and I didn’t sit. It was just nice to know that we could if we wanted to.
She seemed lost in thought, an absent frown tugging at her features while we walked. I squeezed her hand, pulling her in to my side. “Are you okay? You’re not too sore for walking, are you?”
“No, no.” She flushed but smiled up at me. “It’s not that. I’m just wondering about something that I heard, and I don’t know whether to bring it up or not.”
A knot formed in my stomach, but I forced myself to speak past the sandpaper that had suddenly wedged itself in my throat. “I’m assuming that what you heard is about me?”
She nodded, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “It’s worse saying what I just did than if I’d just told you what I’d heard, isn’t it?”
I rocked my head from side to side once. “A little, yeah. It’s okay, Olive. Whatever you heard, you can tell me about it.”
“It’s just that I heard you had a tough childhood.” Her eyes found the floor. “I don’t mean to pry and that’s all I know, I swear. I didn’t ask for details because I’d rather hear them from you if you ever want to tell me about it. I was just thinking about it earlier and wasn’t sure if I should even tell you.”
“I’m glad you told me what you heard.” Liar.
My stomach flipped itself over, but I took a deep breath to get over the sick feeling in the center of it. Tampa was a big city, but it had a tendency to become very small when it came to things you’d rather be kept secret.
Olive said she didn’t know the details, though. It had to stay that way for now. She would never want to keep getting to know me if she knew the whole truth, but once she did know me, she would know all that was in my past. It wasn’t me anymore. As soon as we got to that point where I could trust she knew who the person I was now, I’d tell her everything. If we ever get to that point.
“It wasn’t such a big deal,” I told her eventually, just before the pause became so long that she’d be able to tell that I was playing it off instead of giving her the full truth. “I had a few hiccups, but I turned my life around to help people.”
I promised myself right then and there that I would give her the entire story someday. “I’ve told you before that I didn’t have the greatest start, but that doesn’t matter to me anymore. All that matters to me is who I am now and what I’ve done to turn my life around.”
Olive listened without interrupting, something that I found myself liking about her. When I was done, she tightened her grip on my fingers. “You’ve done a really good job doing that, making something of yourself. You should be really proud.”
“I am.” We reached the end of the pier, leaning with our forearms on the railing but our hands still linked. “How about you?”
“What about me?” She peered at me from the corner of her eye, but she mostly kept watching the ocean.
“Your childhood. Was it good? You’ve said you grew up in New York, but you also mentioned that you inherited the house you’re currently living in from your mother.”
Olive sighed. “Oh, that.”
“Yeah, that.” I bumped her shoulder with my own. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”
She tore her gaze away from the water to look up at me for a fraction of a second, managing a soft smile. “No, that’s okay. All of this happened such a long time ago. It’s nothing to be sad about now.”
Her voice was barely more than a whisper on the breeze, but I heard her just fine. “I grew up in New York. My parents always had problems, but I didn’t realize how bad they were until they told me about the divorce.”
“You mean they were getting one?”
Her head shook once. “No, that they had already gotten it. My mom was a free spirit, a really loving soul. She said the city was caging her in and that she’d used her own inheritance from her parents as well as her settlement money to buy a house in Florida.”
“She left you behind?” The knot in my stomach twisted. I knew all too well what it felt like to be thrown away and forgotten about.
Olive didn’t seem bitter about it, though. Then again, I wasn’t anymore either. “She asked me if I could come, but she told me I’d need to get a job to help her put myself through school. She also said that Dad refused to contribute any money toward me if I moved with her, but that he’d see to everything for me if I stayed.”
“That’s not legal.”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. It was the deal she took.”
“So you stayed with him?”
“I spent most of my time with Valerie and Heidi and slept over at one of their houses most nights. Dad got wrapped up in his own world pretty soon after the divorce. He gave me some money, put me through school and everything, but he stopped paying a single cent the day after my eighteenth birthday.”
She swallowed past a lump in her throat, her eyes more watery than they had been a minute before. It was obvious that she was still having a hard time talking about this, despite what she had said when I’d asked.
“I’m so sorry, Olive.” I let go of her hand to drape my arm over her shoulder. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No, it’s okay.” She folded her arm around my waist, resting her head on my chest. “Like I said, it was a long time ago, it just still stings a bit when I talk about it.”
“I understand.” I was still curious about her past, and I knew she was about mine, but both of us decided to leave it at that for the day. We stood there holding each other for what felt like seconds and hours at the same time, but only turned out to be about fifteen minutes.
Somewhere in the space of that time, my mind had drifted away from the tragic events of our pasts to land on where we were today. Having her tucked at my side, touching her hand casually when she lifted it to toy with my fingers hanging over her shoulder, all of it felt good.
It also felt like something I ought to tell her. Turning my face to hers, I squeezed her hand to get her attention. She looked up, also without moving. It put our faces so close together that it felt like we were in our own private, intimate bubble.
“I like spending time with you, Olive. I really enjoy your company and I’d like to spend some more time with you, if you’re up for it.”
“I feel the same way, so I am.” She pressed her lips against my neck and planted a soft kiss on the skin there. “What did you have in mind?”
Reluctantly stepping out of the embrace, I smirked down at her. It was time to set my plan into motion. Enough of this heavy stuff.
“How would you like to learn how to surf?”
Her smile dropped. “No.”
I grabbed her hand, holding on to it tightly as I started to walk back down the pier. “I say yes. It’s time for another thing a new woman would do, so we’re doing it. You’re going to love it. Promise.”
Chapter 18
Olive
“Surfing is hard.” I panted, trying to catch my breath after paddling out behind Rylen.
The man was a freaking natural, his hands slicing through the water like it was air. No current, jackass on any kind of board, or wave stopped him. He simply kept going.
I, on the other hand, was whatever the total opposite o
f a natural was. Every bit of current threatened to carry me all the way to Mexico, every wave nearly knocked me off my board, and to the other people in the water, I was a gnat that was always in the way.
At least I made it behind the breakers this time. I hadn’t been so lucky on my last few attempts, being washed back to shore to start all over again.
I’d made it through the waves now, actually managed to dive beneath one—board and all—and had gotten close enough to where Rylen was lying lazily on his board, watching me fight the good fight.
The first few times I’d tried, he’d stuck to my side. He’d instructed me back on the beach, made me hop around on the board like an idiot and then eventually deemed me water ready. I was pretty sure he’d regretted that statement almost the minute we’d hit the water.
To be fair to him, he really had tried—all the way up until I’d told him to show me what he had then, if he was such a superior surfer. Unfortunately for my pride, he was really good.
He’d shown me, and everyone else cheering him on, what he had. When he’d come back to where I was flailing around like a fish out of the water just to manage to stay on my floating lump of foam, I’d sent him away. I told him I’d get to him eventually, that he’d taught me all he could, and that it was time to fall on his sword on the matter of turning me into a pro.
Finally, I had managed to get here, though. I was damn proud of myself, even if I’d only managed to paddle. I was still on my board, so I was chalking it up as a win.
Rylen sat up on his board when he saw me coming closer, looking like a glistening god as he lifted his arms to slick his wet hair back. Freaking hell, is that really who I lost my virginity to?
The guy looked like he could have been filming a damn commercial. He grinned and I swore the sun glinted off his pearly white teeth like he really was in a commercial. “It’s not that bad, babe. You’ve just got to find your center.”