Surf & Surrender

by Riley Edgewood

  "I can't make any promises." She arcs a brow. "You know me."

  "I'll send it." I glance behind us and see a roll in the water on the horizon. "But don't make me go all bruiser on you."

  "Love to see you try." But her mouth quirks and she can't quite swallow her laughter.

  When the swell reaches us, I paddle to gain momentum, grabbing my board at the chest line and pushing up to my feet as the unbroken wave peaks into something steeper. I flip her off over my shoulder right before re-angling my board to take the drop and cut across the water.

  Then? There's no stopping me. I'm flying. Salt whips my face and the wind whistles into my ears. I can't keep a grin from parting my lips. Carving a wave is just…amazing. Fast like a roller coaster, with just as much stomach-dropping. I slice into the water, fanning a spray of water into the air. Exhilaration streaks through my chest.

  The water takes me higher.

  Faster.

  And faster.

  Then… Oh crap.

  I. Eat. Foam.

  My leash gets tangled, and the wave completely has its way with me.

  Water floods my nose and my mouth and my eyes, and then spirals me toward the shore so hard I almost bite my tongue off. I'm somersaulted onto the beach in a mixed-up clump of person and surfboard…and sand. Everywhere. In my mouth. In my hair. In my eyes. Down in my swimsuit in places I don't even want to think about.

  Which is fine because the only thing I can think about is how bad my head hurts. Holy mother of all brain freezes. My sinus cavity screams at me—I think I snorted in at least an eighth of the ocean.

  And the beach is crowded. I just provided hours of memory-replay entertainment for at least fifty people.

  I wave off a few of the ones heading my direction to, I'm assuming, see if I'm all right. When I stand, waving weakly to Gianna, she wraps her arms around her waist and falls forward onto her board, she's laughing so hard.

  What a bitch.

  Though maybe I deserve it for laughing when she ate it earlier.

  Guess karma's a bitch, too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  QUINN

  "ARE YOU OKAY?" A stocky, sunburned redheaded kid stops me by the beach exit. "I saw that wipeout—you need a doctor or anything?"

  I don't know whether I should roll my eyes. I can't tell if he's being sincere, or if there's a hint of condescension—and for someone clearly younger than me, it's annoying if there is. I study him a moment longer, and then… "Where do I know you from?"

  He shrugs. "Dunno."

  A little kid screams in the distance, and I look over his shoulder to see a toddler squealing when her father tosses her in the air. He's throwing her a little higher than my lifeguarding senses are comfortable with, but whatever. She's fine. I drag my eyes back to the guy in front of me, but when my gaze passes over the trash can a few feet away, I remember. "You're the little shit who littered right in front of me the other week."

  "Doesn't ring a bell." Down go his eyebrows, furrowed like he's confused. But there's panic in his eyes. "You must be thinking—"

  "Of a different totally built redheaded teenager in the exact same green swim shorts that you have on now?" I ask, smirking. I should let him off the hook, but he's squirming now, and damn if it isn't kinda funny.

  Then he says, "You think I'm totally built?" and his cheeks turn even brighter red than his burn. "Because I think you're totally—"

  "Oh, God. Go ahead and stop right there." I bite back a smile. "Listen…?"

  "Mason?" he fills in the blank, his blush creeping down his neck.

  "Mason." I dig my car keys out of my beach bag. "Go hit on a girl your age. Thanks for asking about my wipeout. I'm fine. But I'm late." And starving. I need to grab food and somehow still get to Kitty Hawk in the next twenty minutes. I walk past him, but turn back a second later. "Hey—you know Jess Carson, right?"

  He freezes, not even blinking. "No."

  Wow. He's definitely lying. Jess was with Mason's group of friends the day I saved him. I wonder if Jess picked a fight with him or something to get this sort of reaction. Though their sizes are so different, Jess wouldn't stand a chance.

  Unless he learned from his brother, maybe. Skinny, but scrappy enough to make up for it. Not that Sawyer's very skinny anymore… But I'm not about to start thinking about that right now.

  Maybe Mason's got a crush on Jess's girlfriend. Or some other high school drama thing. Whatever. If I had more time I'd pick at this until I learned something about Jess, but I drop it because I don't have time—and this guy really doesn't want to talk about Jess. "Well. Have a good day, Mason."

  "Yeah." He smirks. "You, too."

  I jog to my Jeep because I'm really short on time now, but when I get there, it's my turn to freeze. There's a gift, wrapped with ribbon, leaning against my windshield.

  A frame. A breathtakingly gorgeous piece of craftsmanship. Two sheets of thick glass edged together with tarnished iron.

  The perfect thing for displaying pressed wildflowers. I reach across my hood to grab it, unwrap the bow, and check along the iron edges for a merchant's mark—because I have to buy more of these—but there's no stamping, or anything otherwise identifiable, anywhere.

  Then… I think of Sawyer. This is something he'd do. So sweet, so thoughtful… But that can't be right, can it? We didn't leave on good terms and I still hate him and it just doesn't make sense.

  Who else could it be, though? Not Chase—it's definitely not his style.

  Not…ugh. Definitely not Julian.

  And other than that I'm stumped.

  Damn. I think I want it to be from Sawyer.

  Which is stupid because I hate him.

  With my mind, at least.

  It's just my heart refuses to agree.

  As much as it pains me to admit it.

  As much as I swear I'm not going to do anything about it…

  I still think about him for my entire shift. Even more than I think about food. Which, considering I didn't have time to grab anything to eat beforehand, says a freaking lot. It says so much, in fact, that I head home after work instead of to his shop to speak with him about Jess like I'd planned, because I need to get my thoughts in check before I face him again.

  Knowing I'll wait to fill the iron frame until I find the perfect flower combination to dry, I place it on the side table beside my couch so it's the first thing I'll see every time I come in. Even though it makes me think of Sawyer.

  And, because of it, or maybe just because of how I'm wired, it's almost a week before I think I have my stupid longings under control enough to see him again.

  As soon as I walk into his shop, as soon as I see him…I realize I didn't wait long enough.

  He's leaning across the counter, a towel wrapped around his waist, shirtless, with his back to me. Even if this was the first time I'd lain eyes on him in years, I'd recognize that flex across those shoulder blades. Those sharp, muscled shoulder blades. Covered by that smooth, tan skin.

  Great. And now I can't stop swallowing.

  He's talking with a brunette working behind the counter, and she's snapping her gum and laughing at something he's said and I wonder if they're sleeping together and I hate the way it makes my heart bottom out, I hate that I even care. But let's be real, we've moved way past the part where I try to lie to myself about the things I feel for him anymore.

  Because, fuck it. I still burn for him. Yearn for him. Make stupid, cheesy rhymes in my mind for him.

  The trick here, I think, is to make sure he doesn't discover any of it. Which might be kind of hard because I want to sprint through the store and jump on his back and lick his neck.

  His hair's wet and messier than usual—well, usual as so far as the two times I've seen him this summer—like he's just come in from a rough surf. He shakes his head and a drop of water must fling onto the girl because she wipes her cheek and giggles. The sound is…grating. He laughs, too, and apologizes. Also grating.

  I was the
girl he used to make laugh. For hours. Days. Weeks. It was me he wanted to tease smiles out of. And now his back is to me and another girl's getting that gift.

  Jealousy's a weird emotion. I can't remember the last time I felt it. Maybe back when a girl in my senior class claimed she'd spoken with Sawyer a few months after he'd left town, when I would have given anything and everything to hear his voice. I understood what people meant, then, about seeing red. I wanted to stomp her into the ground. But it turned out she'd been lying just to mess with me because I'd offended her when I didn't go to a party she threw. I've never been so close to punching someone. Even knowing she was full of it, my heart still managed to disintegrate all over again.

  And, damn it, here it is again, reacting in a way I wish it wouldn't, hopping all over the place at the mere sight of his stupid shoulder blades.

  "Hey, Quinn." Rajesh's voice booms at me from the side, damn my stupid Sawyer-tunnel vision.

  My cheeks heat. I'm caught. Sawyer starts to turn and before he catches me, too, I look at Rajesh, smiling through my blush. "I seem to have misplaced my wakeboard. Thought maybe you could help me with that."

  "Me?" He tilts his head, his eyes laughing like he knows exactly who I'm here to see. And, he did completely bust me staring at Sawyer. "You thought I could help you?"

  I clear my throat. "Or anyone who works here, I guess."

  I feel more than see in my peripheral, Sawyer making his way toward us. He waits until he's close enough to touch me before speaking. "I got this, Raj."

  "I got this, Raj?" I snap, finally looking at Sawyer. His words totally offend me, even if I can't put my finger on why. "Like…what? I'm something to be handled?"

  "And this is where I step away." Rajesh throws his hands up, backing slowly—exaggeratedly—away.

  "No," Sawyer says slowly, drawing out his next words. "I got this, Raj, as in Rajesh just clocked out so he shouldn't have to worry about helping customers."

  "Oh." Well, shit. I drop my gaze to the rack of rash guards hanging beside us, running my fingers over a few of the shoulders. "Sorry." God, it burns, apologizing to him. A small flare of anger makes it easier to look back up into his face.

  He's staring at my neck and swallowing. He used to have a fascination with kissing me just above my collarbone. I drag a finger across the skin, fighting a smirk when his eyes follow the motion. I wonder if he's thinking about it now.

  I am.

  Damn it.

  "Guess it's easy to make assumptions about what you might mean, given your track record of being so forthcoming." There. Situation fixed. Now his gaze is heavy on mine, and even a little pissed.

  Good. Anger's better than the other thing.

  "New wakeboard. That's why you're here, right?" His tone is as pointed as his expression.

  "Are you working?" I ask, just as pointedly. "I get that Rajesh is off. But you've still got sand on your chest." He does. A dusting of brown sand I'm dying to brush away with my fingers. "Kind of unprofessional."

  "I walked in from lunch literally five minutes before you got here, Quinn." He unwraps his towel and even though I try so hard not to, I glance down. Board shorts. Obviously he wasn't naked. God. "Is this better?"

  "You might want to try putting on a shirt."

  "Last time you were all take off your shirt, Sawyer, and now it's put your shirt on, Sawyer." He smirks. "Hard to tell how to please you these days."

  "Pretty sure you know exactly how to please me." The sentence just slips out and hangs in the air between us.

  "Glad I haven't lost my touch," he finally says. I wish his expression wasn't so smug. I wish I wasn't secretly so pleased that the tension between us is as strong as it was the other day. Stronger, maybe.

  I wish he would fucking tell me why he left and where he went and why he didn't ever contact me or even say goodbye.

  But I especially wish my heart wasn't searching so hard for reasons to forgive him without even hearing his reasoning. To believe he's still the same kindhearted Sawyer who'd never do something like that without a very good reason.

  To believe he's the same Sawyer who once loved me more than life itself.

  Or at least I thought he did. Maybe I was wrong. I was probably wrong.

  And I still freaking want him so much my skin feels like it's stretching toward him.

  And now he's studying my face like he's been able to read this entire stream of thoughts. Fuck. But he only points to a wall lined with wakeboards. "See anything you like?"

  Oh, man. Such an easy line here. Look at him. Say, you. But I bite it back. "Maybe that black and green one."

  "Want a closer look?" He heads toward the wall and I follow, trying so hard not to notice the width of his shoulders. The shape of his ass under his board shorts. How perfect his hair would be to tangle my fingers in right now…

  But that last part disappears when he turns and asks how much I weigh.

  I stare at him, deadpan. "Not a chance."

  "Quinn, like I care about the number. I need it to figure out—"

  "I need a board in the 130 to 139 centimeter range, but I like them on the shorter side for less weight." The lighter the board, the easier it is to maneuver in the air when I flip across a wake. "And I want one with an aggressive rocker."

  "You like that nice pop into the air, huh?" Sawyer knows exactly what I mean. "Picked up some tricks over the years?"

  "Thought we'd already established that."

  "Is that the real reason you're here?" His eyes flash, but I can't tell with what. Hope? Annoyance? Repressed desire? (God, please be the first or third option.) "Because I don't think it's a good idea."

  "That's not why I'm here." But his stupid rejection stings anyway. Guess I was wrong about the frame. If he thinks it's a bad idea for us to hook up again, he's definitely not about to be making some romantic gesture like leaving a handcrafted frame on the hood of my car. No matter how much I'd hoped it was him… "I actually do need a wakeboard, but… I also wanted to talk to you about Jess."

  Now I can read Sawyer's eyes with no problem. Apprehension.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  SAWYER

  "WHAT ABOUT MY brother?" Whatever Jess did to bring Quinn here pisses me off.

  She should be here because she wants to see me.

  Shit. What I mean, what I really need to get through my damn skull, is that she shouldn't be here at all. Especially looking like she does. Another dress. White this time, and crisp against her smooth, tanned skin. It's like she knows exactly what it does to me. Like she wants to torture me.

  I'm not saying I don't deserve it.

  "Is this…" She glances around the store, her eyes resting on a few of the customers wandering around. "Is this the best place to discuss him?"

  "So you're not here to sing his praises, I take it?" I clench my teeth to stem my irritation with him. It doesn't really help. This kid needs to get it together. He's doing his best to throw away everything, but I'd give anything I have to help him get back on track. He needs to open his fucking eyes and see it.

  "Can we go back in the workroom for a minute?" Her eyes dart toward the door and back to mine. Every time they hit me it's a blow to my gut.

  "No. If we got back in that room, it'll be for more than a minute and we won't be talking." Fuck. I've lost all control around this girl, and it's killing me. By her quick intake of air, maybe it's killing her, too. I want to shake her. One of us has to have self-control and maybe it should be me, but why the hell isn't it her? Why the hell does she look at me like she has faith I won't hurt her, like she thinks I'm the same boy I was before?

  I probably look at her the same way. But in her case, she is the same girl. Yeah, years have changed her, but her heart's right there for me to see, and she's got the same soul she's always had. Mine disappeared along the way, which is why it's torturous for me not to take her back to the workroom and slam her on the table again. And again. And again.

  Worse than that, even, is how happy I'd
be if I could just take her hand and never let go.

  Instead, I say, "Let's grab a table out front. Brandy's fine watching the counter for a while."

  "Brandy." Quinn says the name like it's sour in her mouth. "She looks like a Brandy."

  "Pretty and nice, you mean?" I ask, kind of enjoying the flare of irritation in her eyes.

  "You dating her, too?" Quinn asks. "Like Morgan, I mean. Not that you and I are… You know what? Forget I asked. I don't care."

  Yes, she does. I should let her think I'm playing the field that way. Like our backroom hookup didn't mean anything to me. It'd spare us a lot of future pain, probably.

  "I'm not dating anyone, Quinn." The truth is worth speaking to see the way she shivers when I say her name. I look away from her, closing my eyes until I find the will to walk toward the store's exit. I push open the door, the bell dinging, and wait to hold it for Quinn. She's still standing where I left her, a disappointed frown across her perfect lips. She straightens them into a line when she notices me staring and breezes past me like it's no problem at all to walk away from the temptation of the table in the back room.

  Yeah. Right.

  I glance at Brandy. "You got the store for a minute?"

  She sighs, and I tell her she owes me. Just a few weeks ago her apartment became the proud new owner of my really old, threadbare couch, and I'm not about to let her forget it.

  She blows a bubble. Pops it. "Then I guess it's no prob, boss."

  Outside, Quinn is already sitting at one of our two tables. She's got her shades on to face the sun, but I push the table's umbrella up anyway. Her eyes have always been sensitive even with sunglasses.

  "Thanks." Her tone is cool. Like in the past ten seconds she's doused the attraction burning the air between us.

  "Yep." I sit across from her. It's probably a good thing her eyes are covered, considering how easy it is to get lost in those deep blue depths, but her mouth is hard not to take in, especially when she chews on her lower lip. I'm at half-mast just watching her.