“Yep.”
“Isn’t it really expensive up there?”
“I guess,” he said without a trace of emotion in his voice.
It was weird – one minute he could be laughing and friendly, and the next it was like he shut off emotionally. Like now. It was like a faucet running hot and cold at a second’s notice.
“What did you do that you could afford to live in San Francisco?” I asked. “Or here, for that matter?”
Without hesitating in the slightest, he said, “I’m an ass model.”
My eyes opened wide. “…really?”
He looked over at me like I was absolutely insane. “No.”
“Oh,” I said, then forced a laugh. “Oh. Haha.”
Because you could TOTALLY be an ass model.
He gave me an incredulous grin. “You seriously thought –”
“I come from Kansas,” I interrupted him, “where people aren’t sarcastic buttholes all the time, so when they say something I tend to believe them.”
So not true, but it got me out of admitting he had a great ass.
He took a sip of his drink and looked back out at the ocean. “Well, we’re going to have to break you of that habit quickly.”
My defenses went up. “I like believing all people are basically good.”
“That’ll last until you get your heart broken.” He sounded so cynical when he said it. “Really, truly broken.”
Or until you break somebody else’s, I thought with a pain in my chest.
But rather than deal with my own pain, I figured I would try to zero in on his. “So… somebody broke your heart?”
“Hasn’t somebody broken yours?”
Didn’t want to answer that. So I didn’t.
“I notice you dodge a lot of questions,” I said.
“I notice you do, too. Like what you did back in Kansas or what you want to do in life.”
“I want to surf.”
“Is that so.”
“Yeah,” I said aggressively.
“But not talk about Kansas?” he smirked.
“No,” I said, staring him straight in the eye.
He shrugged, then smiled mysteriously.
“Alright then… time for a wet suit.”
22
We walked back up the beach with him carrying his board under his arm. The crowds had really started to come out by now. All the shops were thronged with tourists and the beach had been colonized by little groups of sunbathers on their towels.
We strolled up his street until we reached his house. He unlocked the gate and walked the surfboard over to his front door, then leaned it against the house. Then he went inside to grab his cell phone and wallet.
While he was inside, I looked around the little yard and the tiki torches. The air smelled like lime from all the squeezed-out rinds that littered the grass.
I felt a little pang of yearning for last night, and what might have happened if the cops hadn’t shown up.
But hopefully we’d be able to revisit that later.
“You ready to go?” he asked, and I nodded.
We walked up the street to the main drag in Venice, then dropped into a shop that he said carried the best gear within walking distance.
The shop I’d been in the other day was way more touristy; this was more of a hole in the wall, but the things it carried definitely looked way more legit. There was also an assortment of surfboards hanging on the wall, along with tons of bikinis – and even some one-pieces.
As we browsed the racks, he told me what to look for in a wet suits – which brands were quality and which ones sucked. He advised just getting an upper-body one for now, one that would cover my arms and shoulders but leave my legs exposed.
As I pulled one out to look at, he asked, “Can you afford this?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“You just moved here. Do you have a job yet?”
“Yeah – learning to surf.”
“You don’t get paid to learn to surf.”
“Well, I’m not paying you either, so I guess we’re even,” I said sassily.
“But –”
“So what did you do in San Francisco again?” I asked.
He grinned, then looked over at the wall. “Maybe we should look at boards for you, too.”
As we looked at the selection, once more he was a wealth of information as he talked about foamies, volume, breadth, width, depth, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I had a hard time concentrating since I was mostly looking at him.
When I got close enough to look at the price tag, though, it was a little steep. $500 for a mid-range board, what he said was the bottom-line of what was really acceptable to learn on.
“Daaaamn,” I muttered under my breath.
He looked over my shoulder at the price tag. “Maybe the wetsuit is enough for the day,” he suggested.
“Maybe later,” I agreed. “It’s beautiful, but…”
He nodded. “Maybe later.”
Suddenly there was a buzzing, and he pulled out his cell phone from his pocket. He looked at it, then pressed the button to silence it.
“Your girlfriend?” I asked, trying to sound all innocent.
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said as he pocketed the phone
YES!
“…okay,” I said nonchalantly. “Um, I think I’m going to get a bikini while I’m here.”
“Okay,” he said, just as nonchalantly.
I flipped through a couple, found a red and black one I really liked, and took it back into the dressing room. I looked at myself in the mirror approvingly. Much better than my Kansas swimsuit. I may have been as pale as vanilla frosting, but I did have a nice set of curves where they counted – and this bikini showed them off a hell of a lot better.
When I walked out into the showroom, he was watching the video monitor on the wall. Some guy was surfing a huge wave in deep blue waters.
“What do you think?” I asked, coyly.
When he turned around to look at me, his eyes almost bugged out. He stared at me for a couple of seconds, his eyes roving over my body.
It felt absolutely wonderful.
“Uh…” he said, not able to articulate anything more than that.
“I think this is a good one,” I said, as though I didn’t notice the cat had gotten his tongue.
He cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah. That’s a good one.”
I liked his reaction so much, I wore it out of the store. Forget the Kansas one piece – I was rocking a California bikini now.
23
The day passed magically. After the surfing shop, we walked past an ice cream parlor.
“Oh – you’ve got to try this,” he said. “It’s like the crack cocaine of ice cream.”
I waved my hand. “Unh-unh – I don’t need to become an addict. I’ve got to watch my weight.”
“No you don’t,” he scoffed. “You don’t have a thing to worry about.”
Okay, that was always nice to hear.
“Just – come on,” he said as he grabbed me by the wrist and led me into the shop.
I tried a couple of flavors, and he was right: it was basically crack cocaine in dairy form.
I got a mango concoction, while he settled for French vanilla.
“So boring,” I teased him as the cashier gave him the cone. “So conventional of you, Surf Boy.”
He thrust the cone towards my face. “Try it.”
“No, I’m fine –”
“Try it.”
I hesitated, then licked the ice cream.
“Noooo, take a bite,” he ordered, then added mockingly, “You’re so boring, so conventional.”
“Fine,” I snapped, and took a Hulk-sized bite out of his ice cream, getting it all over my nose and lips.
He started laughing at me, but I didn’t care – I was in heaven. I have literally never tasted anything vanilla-flavored that was better than that ice cream cone.
“Oh my God,” I said, though
it came out more muffled: uh muh Gah.
“Was I right, or was I right?” he asked.
I couldn’t let him have his victory that easily.
I shrugged and gave a half-hearted look. “It’s okay,” which came out more like: iff uhkay.
“Whatever. You just don’t want to admit when I’m right.”
“Unh-uhn –”
“I think so,” he said, and hooked his arm through mine as he led me out of the store again. “I can tell these sorts of things.”
I didn’t bother to answer; I was afraid he would take his arm away from mine, so I just stayed silent. When we were out on the sidewalk, he looked down at me. “Well? Am I right or not?”
“Well, you were right about one thing,” I said.
“And what’s that?”
“This is definitely the crack cocaine of ice cream.”
He laughed.
24
We talked about a lot of things – what we’d wanted to be growing up. Places we still wanted to visit. Old friends. Whether we were cat people or dog people. (We were both dog lovers, although he agreed that kittens are awesome, too.)
One of the most interesting topics was when I got him talking about Hawaii.
“I lived there for a while,” he said. “I spent a lot of time on Kauai, which is probably the least developed of the four major islands.”
“What are the four islands?”
“There’s actually more than that – Niihau is the westernmost, but you can only visit if you’re full-blooded native Hawaiian. They still speak the Hawaiian language there as the primary language, and it’s incredibly rural – the closest thing to the way Hawaiians used to live 200 years ago, before Westerners showed up.
“There’s Oahu – that’s where Honolulu is – but I’m not a fan. It’s overdeveloped and there’s way too many people. It’s like if they took Century City here in Los Angeles, plopped it down on a beach, and added in Rodeo Drive.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad,” I teased. “Sounds like great shopping.”
He gave me a reproachful look. “If you ever go to Hawaii, go for the nature. Don’t go for the Gucci stores.”
I laughed. “What else is there?”
“Well, there’s the Big Island – that’s where the active volcanoes are. And there’s Maui, which is a nice balance of development and unsullied rural areas.”
“‘Unsullied rural areas,’” I said. “I think you need to add a ‘brah’ on the end of that.”
He laughed. “Unsullied rural areas, brah. But I really love Kauai the most. You can just go there and feel the stress drain out of your body as soon as you put your feet in the sand. It’s lush – miles and miles of green plants everywhere you look. And the skies are so free of light pollution, you can see a million stars in the sky.”
“It sounds wonderful,” I murmured.
“At the northernmost part of the island, there’s this village – I think it used to be an old fishing village, but it sort of turned into a hippie enclave back in the 60s or something. In fact, Peter Paul and Mary put it in that song ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ – Hanalei. That’s where the dragon’s from.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and it’s just the start. My absolute favorite place is Ke’e Beach.”
I wrinkled my brow and repeated after him: “Kay-ay?”
“Yeah. It’s gorgeous. You drive past this giant cave on the side of the road – it’s like a giant carved a big wedge out of the bottom of this mountain. You keep on going until you can’t go any farther, then there’s this path you walk on to get to the beach. You pass under this canopy of trees, and then you emerge onto this perfect, beautiful spot with deep blue rolling waves. It’s one of my favorite places on Earth – not just to surf, but to sit there and look at. Especially at night, with the stars twinkling on the water.”
The way he described it, it sounded like heaven on earth.
But I knew heaven came with a price.
“And what do you do to be able to afford all these Hawaiian vacations?” I asked, returning to one of his unexplained mysteries.
“I told you – I’m an ass model.”
I laughed. “How could I forget.”
He got a distant, faraway look on his face. “I haven’t been there in a long, long time.”
“Sounds like you want to go back.”
“I do.” He hesitated, then said, “But I can’t really afford to do it right now.”
“I’ll take you some day.”
He looked at me in amused surprise. “You will, huh?”
“Yeah. I’ll spring for a trip for both of us.”
“That’s very generous.”
“Well, you have to promise to teach me how to surf Hawaiian waves.”
“It’s a deal. I forget – how is it you’re going to pay for this trip?”
“Oh, I didn’t tell you? I’m a foot model.”
“Really?” he asked, obviously not believing me at all.
“Yeah – and you know what they say about foot models…”
“No, actually, I don’t.”
“They can kick ass models’ asses,” I said as I leaned over and karate kicked him playfully in the butt.
“Hey!” he exclaimed.
I ran giggling down the street as he chased after me.
But I have to admit, I didn’t try too hard to outrun him.
25
Somehow we dawdled the entire day away until it was time to eat again. He suggested a beer and fish joint out on the water. It looked low-rent, although there were a suspicious number of well-dressed patrons. Lots of silk short-sleeved shirts for the men, and outfits on the women that could have gotten them into any high-priced restaurant further inland.
We walked up to the maître d’ – at least, as much of a maître d’ as you can get at a fish and beer joint. He was wearing a tacky Hawaiian shirt and khaki pants. He told us in a very disinterested way that the wait was going to be over an hour.
I looked back at the dozens and dozens of people waiting on benches. “Oh man – I don’t know…”
Then all of a sudden, without warning or explanation, the guy grew way more enthusiastic. “Right this way, sir,” he said, and led us down the steps onto the wooden dock overlooking the ocean.
“How’d you do that?” I whispered to Ian.
“They know me around here.”
I frowned. “He didn’t seem to know you at first.”
“He’s new.”
“Okay,” I said dubiously, then let it drop.
We got the best table in the house – right at the edge of the deck, looking out at the sunset over the water. The sky was on fire with reds and oranges and violet hues. It was absolutely breathtaking.
“This is gorgeous,” I said with a gasp.
Ian smiled as he sat down. “A good ending to a good day.”
Once I saw the menu, I understood that the whole fish shack thing was merely a ruse – a theme, like that 50’s restaurant in Pulp Fiction. Except here, everybody was pretending to slum it while paying $20 for exotic cocktails and a king’s ransom for Asian fusion-inspired cuisine. Or you could just opt for the Mahi-Mahi Fish and Chips for 40 bucks.
“This is expensive,” I said with raised eyebrows.
“Don’t worry about it – I got it.”
“No way,” I argued. “This is way too much –”
“I said I got it,” he said in a tone of voice that indicated the discussion was over.
“Are you sure?” I asked in concern.
“Hey, it’s the least I can do. You’re going to take me to Hawaii someday,” he said with a subtle smile.
“Yeah, well, we could almost buy the plane tickets for the price of this meal,” I said worriedly.
“Just enjoy it. Don’t ruin the meal by worrying about the price.”
“But – ”
“Aah!” he said, and raised a single finger to stop me.
I settled back in my chair in defeat. “Fine,�
�� I said, and then proceeded to enjoy one of the best meals I’ve ever had in my life.
Everything was so fresh, it tasted like it had been caught that morning – maybe even minutes before they cooked it. And the drinks were amazing! You could order something random, which the ‘mixologist’ would make for you. That’s what Ian recommended, and we wound up with two amazing cocktails. I’d never had anything like them back in Kansas. Mine was light and flowery with a hint of lavender and mint; his was a concoction of citrus oils, high-end bourbon, and a touch of cinnamon. Best drinks I’ve ever tasted, hands down.
The only bad part of the evening came while we were talking.
It started out great at first – he was talking about surfing as a kid.
“My dad took me out for the first time when I was ten,” he said. “That was one of the best days of my life. The water was so warm, it was like a bath. The waves were just enough to be exciting, but not overpowering for a little kid first learning to surf. You know that movie Groundhog Day?”
“The one with Bill Murray, where he has to relive everything over and over?”
“That’s the one. If I had to live one day over and over again, I think that one would be a top contender.”
I smiled. He looked so happy – maybe the happiest I’d seen him all day.
“That sounds awesome,” I said. “Does your dad still surf with you?”
That’s when things went south.
Suddenly he looked like he had been punched in the gut.
“I… no.”
The water had gone from hot to cold again. Maybe even arctic.
“Is there something wrong?” I asked worriedly.
He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to – ”
“It’s fine, I just don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay,” I said, and sipped my drink during the awkward silence that followed.
His phone rang. I was immensely thankful for the distraction from how badly things were going.
He checked it, scowled, and shoved it back in his pants.
Sex On The Beach: Bad Boys Club Romance #1 Page 6