Hedging His Bets

by Laura Carter

  I cover the hand resting on her thigh and I squeeze. “Stop overthinking, Jess. Let’s just enjoy today. It’s you, and me, an open road and a beach.”

  She doesn’t look at me but she squeezes my hand as she continues to gaze out of the window. I’ll take it.

  Right before the beach I’ve chosen, I see an open café. I swing the truck into the parking lot and make quick work of picking up two drinks. A coconut latte for Jess, and a black coffee for me.

  “Take these?” I ask, sliding into the truck.

  “Mmm, caffeine,” she says, inhaling through the small hole in the top of the lid.

  “Aaaand—” I hand her the brown paper bag that holds her favorite—cinnamon rolls.

  Finally, I get a smile. “If I’d known a cinnamon roll was all it would take to cure Little Miss Grumpy I would have driven faster.”

  She scowls playfully. “Shut up. Any woman would be grouchy if you woke her up at four in the morning.”

  “But I wouldn’t buy cinnamon swirls for just any woman.”

  “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” She laughs, a tiny, short sound. But it warms my heart.

  I knock the stick into drive and a few minutes later we park up behind the beach.

  With one hand, Jess clings to her cinnamon swirls for dear life, while in the other she guards her caffeine hit. I grab my takeout cup from her and throw the beach bag I packed over my shoulder.

  We head through the harsh dune grass and past the uneven and lopsided fence posts that mark a path down to the beach.

  In the middle of the sand, I turn my head left and right. We are the only people out here. The sun is creeping above the water level and starting to cast a soft orange glow up the sky. Jess takes it in, staring at the sun. I stare at her. It couldn’t be more perfect.

  I know I’m supposed to hold back, that I can’t come on too hard and risk scaring her more than she already is. But my body steps closer to her, my chest almost touching her back.

  “You really do know me, don’t you?” Her words are quiet, almost lost in the sound of the ocean, as she speaks facing the sun.

  I wrap my arms around her waist and rest my chin on her shoulder. I’m not sure what the right words are, so I don’t offer any. I just let her know I’m there, that I’ll hold her, if that’s what she wants. I’ll give her whatever she needs if she just doesn’t run.

  She leans her head to the side, pressing our temples together. “When I was younger, and Ruth and John first took me away, I used to wake early and head out on my own to watch the sunrise. You know the amazing thing about the sun is that, no matter where you are, no matter how insignificant or alone you feel, it’s always there. Even if sometimes it’s hiding behind a cloud. It is always there. And it’s everyone’s sun. No matter if you’re on the Earth or just…somewhere, you’re looking at the same sun as everyone else. There were days I missed my parents so much, and I would stare at the sun as it rose, knowing that they were looking at it too, wherever they were.”

  “They’ll be looking at it now,” I tell her.

  She closes her eyes and seems to sink into my hold a little more. “I used to wake up feeling…dark and cold. I’d have had a bad dream or I’d have gone to sleep with bad thoughts. And when I watched the sunrise, I would steal the heat from the sun and make it warm my dark thoughts. And I would tell myself, it’s a new day. You can try again, today. Maybe today will be easier. Maybe today good things will happen.”

  She stirs in my arms until I release her. I wonder what she’s doing until she puts her coffee cup down in the sand, then takes mine from me and places it next to hers. Then, from nowhere, she clenches her fists around the chest of my hoody and pulls me to her, lifting my cap and crashing her lips against mine.

  It’s a surprise. It’s the best fucking surprise I could have hoped for this morning. She doesn’t open her mouth, she just lets her lips linger against mine. And I let her. I stroke my hands through her hair, and enjoy the soft flesh of her lips. I let her pour everything she feels, everything that hurts her, everything she loves, and everything she fears, into me. I take it from her and I hold her to me.

  When we separate, she looks down to her feet. But I want to see those eyes. I want to see the things she won’t voice. I tuck my knuckle under her chin and force her to look at me.

  She is afraid. She’s terrified. And I hate that she is. But I also feel hope. If she’s afraid, she might be feeling just a fraction of the emotion that’s knocking me sideways.

  “Don’t be afraid, Jess. Don’t be afraid.”

  “I can’t change the habits of a lifetime, Jake.” She bites her lip and her eyes cloud.

  “Then let go. Don’t think. Let me be with you today. Can you do that for me, babe? Can we just be us, just be together?” Her lips slowly curve up and she nods. I wink at her. “Atta girl.”

  She laughs and thumps me in the chest. “Keep patronizing me and you’ll have to sleep with one eye open.”

  “Quaking, Jess. Seriously, I’m quaking.”

  She laughs and sits down on the sand. “You’ll be sorry when I don’t give you one of these cinnamon swirls.”

  I sit in the sand next to her, both of us facing the sun, our knees pulled up. “That’s not funny. It’s a step too far. You always go too far, don’t you?”

  She rocks into my side, smiling as she holds the open brown bag. We watch the sun’s rays burst into a fan of bright beams as we drink coffee and eat sweet bread. Something tells me that somehow, at some point, we’ll be fine.

  Once the sun is up, I stand, pulling off my hoody and T-shirt, leaving me in board shorts. “You coming?”

  Jess swivels to look at me, and oh yeah, she looks. “In the sea? Won’t it be cold?”

  “I’ll warm you up. Plus, you’re going to have to get used to it for what I’ve got planned later.”

  She rises to her feet. “What have you got planned?”

  I shrug. “A surprise. And, by the way, you totally just checked me out.”

  She gasps. “I did not!”

  “Oh yeah, babe, you did. Hey, I’m not hating. That’s why I go to the gym—enjoy it. I’m only pointing out that I get a free ogle when you strip down to that itsy-bitsy bikini.”

  She drops her head back on a laugh but she does take her sweater over her head and slip her shorts down her thighs. And I watch. Oh yes, I do.

  “Come on!” I jog down to the ocean’s edge and she follows, but stops short of the water.

  “It’s cold!” She starts running back to our plot in the sand but I scoop an arm around her waist and lift her, her back to my chest, her legs flailing, her lungs screaming at full capacity, and I throw myself under the water, bringing her with me.

  We come up, fighting to catch our breath. “Fuck, it is cold!” I shout, a little too high-pitched.

  “Oh, what happened to Mister Macho?” she asks. “Babe, I go to the gym so you can stare at my pecs. Babe, I’m so hot, all women want me and men want to be me.”

  “You know what you get for that?” I lift her over my shoulder and dunk us under the water again. We’re deeper this time and she can’t touch the bottom when we surface, so I lift her around my waist and hold her up. “It doesn’t get any fucking warmer,” I laugh.

  She shivers as she shakes her head but she makes no move to get out of the water. She drops her head to my shoulder and I hold her, slowly turning us in the water, rocking up and down with the waves. I don’t know how long we stay that way but the cold of the water stops affecting me and I feel warmer than I have in three years.

  Eventually, I ask, “Have you fallen asleep, there?”

  Her words vibrate against my neck. “You couldn’t blame me since you dragged me out in the middle of the night.”

  “Oh, I thought you were going to say because I fucked you so well you were exhausted.”

  I
feel her laughter reverberate through my body.

  “We need to check on the time. I told you we have plans.”

  She sits back and I rub the wet hair that’s pressed to her temple behind her ear. “What are we doing?”

  “You’ll see.” I walk us out of the water and set her down in the sand.

  “Don’t we need to pack up?” she asks as I walk past our towels and bag, only stopping to grab my wallet.

  “Nope.”

  Giggling, she runs to catch up to me. “You’re still not going to tell me, are you?”

  I wrap an arm around her shoulders. “Nope.”

  She leans harder into my side. Damn, I love when this girl is happy.

  “Here we are.” I nod to the surf shack in front of us and take my arm from her shoulder. “How do you feel about taking a surf lesson with me, babe?”

  She tilts her head to one side, a glint in her eye, a smirk on her lips. “Surfing?”

  “I thought it would be cool to try something new together.”

  “And you chose surfing?”

  I nod, wondering whether I called this massively wrong. She’s usually up for fun stuff.

  “Jake?” A guy about my age walks out of the shack, his hand out for me to shake, the wet suit that hangs down around his waist, leaving his chest exposed, a dead giveaway as to who I’m taking to. That and his mass of wavy blond hair.

  I take his hand. “Heath?”

  “The very man. You must be Jess.” He shakes her hand too and doesn’t even check her out, despite the fact she looks damn hot in her bold print bikini. “Have either of you guys surfed before?”

  I tell him no. “But I pick up all sports fairly quickly. Spend as much time with Jess as you need.”

  She tuts and her eyes widen as she laughs the way she does when she thinks I’m being a dick.

  “Sorry, babe, but surfing is tough. I want you to be safe.”

  “No, thanks, I appreciate it. Like you say, you’re so good at all sports, I mean, you hardly need a lesson.”

  “Do I need to let you two have a domestic?” Heath asks.

  “No, we’re good,” Jess tells him.

  “All right then, let’s get you fixed up with some wet suits and boards and we’ll go through the basics.”

  Once the three of us are zipped into long wet suits, we carry our boards onto the beach, setting them down on the hard sand by the water.

  “We’re going to practice popping up onto the board,” Heath tells us.

  He demonstrates for us, moving from lying on the board to planting his hands on the sides and popping up to stand in the middle. Jess and I give it a go. After a few rounds of popping, I’m wondering whether Jess will be able to cope with this in the water. It’s tougher than I thought.

  “Ready to catch some waves?” Heath asks, standing and bringing his board under his arm.

  “I’m ready. Jess, are you still up for it?”

  She looks at the water, then at her board. “I’ll try. I can always stop if it’s too difficult, right?”

  “Sure you can, babe. We’ll stop whenever you want.”

  We fasten our ankle straps and follow Heath into the water. He shows us how to paddle out, and the three of us set off. I get a buzz of excitement as I see the mounting waves. But I also worry about Jess in the rough water.

  When we get out beyond the closest wave breaks, we sit on our boards and Heath talks us through catching the wave and popping up on the board. “If you don’t feel confident, you can start on your knees,” he says.

  We wait for minutes in the water and my adrenalin builds.

  “We’re going to catch this one, guys,” Heath says. “We’re just going to practice popping and getting our balance this time. Get a feel for being up on the board.”

  The wave comes and we paddle until Heath calls, “Now!”

  We all make it up on the boards, Heath staying upright as Jess and I fall off to the side. We paddle back out to the same spot and wait again. Jess reties her hair and wipes her nose as she watches the rolling water.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her.

  She nods but doesn’t speak. She seems nervous.

  “Okay, guys, this is a big one. Are you up for it?” Heath asks.

  “I’m in,” I tell him, looking at Jess.

  She nods tightly. “Yeah. I’m in.”

  “All right then. Let’s do it.”

  The wave builds and, fuck, it’s bigger than the last one. I’m about to tell Jess not to go but she starts paddling forward. Shit, I’m going.

  I paddle faster and faster. When the wave comes, I pop up but, fuck, it’s huge and fast. I manage to stand for a split second before being pushed under the water. I kick up hard, fighting the drag of the undertow, desperate to find Jess.

  When I break the surface, I look around me, and finally see her, riding the wave like a pro, fisting the air and laughing before she dives off the board and under the water.

  “Looks like you brought a hustler,” Heath says, paddling back toward me, laughing hard. “She’s definitely done that before, dude.”

  “She fucking played me.”

  Jess comes paddling out to us and shrugs when she comes up to sit on her board next to me.

  “You can surf?” I ask.

  “I traveled the world for fifteen years, Jake. Yes, I surf.” She drops her voice, I think imitating me. “But, babe, are you sure you’ll be okay, it’s just I’m so great, I pick up everything real easily. I’m such a maaaan.”

  I kick up water and she splashes me back as all three of us laugh.

  After my surf lesson and Jess’s refresher, we grab some fries and take them down to our towels on the beach.

  “Where did you learn to surf?” I ask her, dunking one of my fries in her ketchup because mine is gone.

  “Manly Beach in Australia. I surfed a few hotspots as I traveled around. I haven’t been out on the water since I moved back to the UK, though.”

  “You know what I love?”

  “That I have tomato ketchup left for you to steal, which you need to stop, by the way, before I stab you with my fork.”

  I snort-laugh. “Besides that. I love that I can finish your sentences. I can predict what you’re going to say before you say it. I can tell how you’re feeling from the shade of your irises. I know what you’re thinking every time you roll your eyes. But you can still surprise me. I love that there’s still so much I can to find out about you, Jess, and yet I know you and you know me more completely than anyone else.”

  Her eyes lock on mine for silent seconds. Then she looks down like her fries are the most interesting thing in the world. But I see the lift of her cheeks and know she’s smiling.

  I ball my food packaging and stuff it into the waste bag that’s pinned down by a bottle of water. When she still hasn’t looked at me, I lean forward, steal a fry and take more ketchup on that fry than I should have had on ten.

  Well, it gets her attention, even though her jaw drops as she looks at me. I go to put the potato in my mouth. Before it gets home, Jess dives on me, knocking me back in the sand and taking the food in her mouth, nipping my fingers in her teeth as she does.

  She shoves my arms above my head and I let her think she’s pinning them to the sand because I kind of like the way she’s straddling me in her bikini.

  “You know what else would surprise me?” I ask. She shakes her head. “If you were to slip out of those little panties and ride me on this beach.”

  Her eyes widen. “You, sir, are a pervert.”

  “I thought you were a wild one, huh? Where did exciting Jess go?”

  “She went to jail. For having sex on a beach surrounded by people.”

  My laughter is caught by her mouth crashing against mine. I wrap my arms around her and hold her to me as I part her lips wi
th my tongue, not wanting to tell her, panties still on, she surprised me anyway, because this kiss is too damn good to stop.

  I roll us on the towels so she’s on her back, her legs wrapped around my waist. She strokes her hand through my hair and gazes into my eyes. Are you with me, babe? Do you feel what I feel?

  God, I hope so, because right now, it’s taking all the strength I have not to tell her I’m so in love with her it hurts.

  * * * *

  Walking back to the beach with four bottles of beer, I watch Jess, sitting on her towel, now back in her hoody and shorts, her knees tucked into her chest as the day’s light dwindles. As simple as it’s been, I’ve had one of the best days of my life, and I can’t help wondering what’s happening in that mind of hers. I’m hoping she’s feeling some of what is filling my entire body with warmth.

  I slide to the ground behind her, positioning my legs either side of her, and I hold out the opened bottles. She digs two into the sand and keeps one for herself.

  “You smell fresh,” I tell her, inhaling the scent of outdoors from her hair.

  She leans against me and presses her lips to my arm through my sweater. “You smell of you,” she says quietly. If we could never move, if we could stay in this moment forever, I would.

  We drink our first beers in silence, holding on to each other. It’s a kind of peace I’ve never felt before, and never known I would love.

  As Jess switches our empty bottles for full ones, I finally ask what I’m dying to know. “What are you thinking?”

  “Not much.” She chuckles in my hold and I nudge into her neck, biting her earlobe in response to her sarcasm. That’s the Brit in her. They love their sarcasm over there.

  “You never mentioned Emily being at the house when you got back from fishing.”

  Well, that wasn’t exactly what I was expecting her to come out with but I’m sure at some point, probably when I can’t sleep at three in the morning, I’ll make the connection to what she’s actually thinking in that busy head of hers.

  “I hardly noticed she was there to be honest. In case you didn’t notice, I had eyes for only one woman when I got back from fishing.”