Chapter Five

SOPHIE

 

“You sure you’ve never surfed before?”

Sophie rolled her eyes, admiring Jessie’s second bikini of the day. This one was powder blue, with orange and red racing stripes across the waistband and her stiff, pointy nipples. She grinned to herself, thinking of her earlier run-in with Colton at Foam and how he’d said nobody bought matching bikinis anymore.

She wondered if Jessie had simply never gotten the memo, or if her ex was just full of shit. Either way, what Sophie wouldn’t give to have Colton shuffle along the shoreline at that very moment, watching her stand in the shadow of the towering, sexy shimmering ginger, so close she could smell the exact brand of sunscreen Jessie wore. (Sun ’N Fun it was called, if she wasn’t mistaken.)

“I think I’d remember something like surfing,” Sophie teased as they stood on the shore, bare feet dusted with soft white sand.

It was midafternoon, the sun warm on her skin as she tried not to sweat the fact that she was wearing a bikini for the first time all season. What’s more, she’d been so flustered running into Colton and the way he bum-rushed her into picking out the two bikinis he thought would look best on her, she hadn’t even tried them on in the store. She’d had a mild panic attack once she finally got home after racing around town picking up sundries and groceries, beer, wine, soda, and as many cans of Joltz as her beat-up old pickup truck could carry.

Trying on the first bikini, she knew right away it was going to be snug. So snug she didn’t even bother slipping it all the way on. The second one was a bit more forgiving, but even so, as she stood wincing at herself in the guest room mirror, pale tan lines whispering around the edges of her new swimsuit, she wished she’d chosen a one-piece the way she’d wanted to.

With time running out before Jessie was supposed to come back for their lesson together, thus kicked off a great search for a backup bikini, with Sophie rifling through every nook and cranny, drawer and closet to find a suitable replacement for Colton’s teeny-weenie bikini choices. (Secretly, she’d felt Colton was sabotaging her, knowing the bikinis were no longer for his eyes only.)

Sophie always left a few suits in the guestroom drawers of the cottage every summer, but the ones she managed to find that morning were all faded, misshapen, or out of fashion, strictly for lying out in one of the twin Adirondack chairs on the back deck, anonymous and carefree. Now, she struggled to contain her insecurities in front of her sexy surf instructor, worried she’d burst open the sexy striped bikini top the first time she had to breathe heavily.

To make matters worse, Jessie seemed to be studying the new bikini from top to bottom and back again, admiring the orange bottom first before moving up to the green and yellow stripes of the top before giving Sophie an odd, disconcerting look.

Sophie caught her once too often and quickly blurted, “It’s too small, I know, I just…”

“Who told you that?” Jessie challenged her playfully before Sophie could embarrass herself any further.

“Uh, the full-length mirror right before you showed up today.”

“I think it’s just right,” Jessie assured her in a guarded, murmuring tone that bordered on sultry.

Sophie groaned, choosing to ignore the mixed messages. “God, I’m sticking out all over. You can even see my tan lines. I should have just gone with the one-piece like I wanted to.”

“What?” Jessie blurted. “And hide those ripe, luscious curves away from the world? And besides, I think tan lines are…sexy.”

Sophie all but snorted, as surprised by the comment as she was the flattering tone. She’d been called many things in her lifetime—curvy, full-figured, zaftig, even Rubenesque—but never ripe, to say nothing of…luscious. “You say curves,” she huffed, avoiding Jessie’s eyes pointedly. “I say fat.”

Jessie shoved her playfully on the shoulder, sending her back a step or two in the warm, smooth sand. “You take that back right now, Sophie,” she huffed dramatically, even as she let out a playful growl. “I don’t let my surf students talk about themselves that way, let alone my…friends.”

“Sorry, force of habit, I guess. My stepdad’s some kind of triathlete obsessive fitness lunatic and he’s been on me for years to lose weight. My mom, having converted to Lunatic Land, doesn’t object. So…swimsuit season always carries a lot of baggage with it.”

“My mom’s the same way,” Jessie commiserated. “Even though I don’t live with her anymore, she’s still always on me to count calories and skip the iced mochas.”

Sophie was literally gobsmacked. “You? You have the perfect body. I mean…if you don’t mind me saying so, of course.”

Jessie’s blush was hard to ignore. Almost as hard to ignore as that perfect body of hers. “Far from it, but…thanks just the same.” They endured a momentary pause between joint flattery. “Besides,” Jessie added with another slow gaze up and down Sophie’s perfectly imperfect physique. “If you could see yourself the way I do, you’d never listen to your stepdad again.”

The compliment simmered in the highly charged air, leaving Sophie reeling in the vague hopes that it might be, could be, possibly be true. It had been so long since she’d felt attractive to herself, and even longer since she’d felt attractive to anyone else. The thought that a stunner like Jessie, so limber and sleek and athletic, could consider her even remotely appealing made the already outrageous afternoon even more surreal.

“Anyway,” Jessie was saying as they approached the waves, as if to steer clear of any added sexual tension before they entered the surf, lest the water sizzle and fume away to pure steam upon entry. “I can’t imagine someone growing up in Siesta Beach and never learning how to surf.”

“My stepdad wanted me to play team sports, obviously,” Sophie explained ruefully, wishing she’d followed her heart—and the rest of the hot chicks heading out to the beach after school every day—and learned how to surf all those years instead.

Jessie nodded, patiently, those green eyes shimmering coolly in the afternoon sun. “Still, summers? Spring breaks? You never chilled at the beach with your friends?”

“I mean, we lived on the beach, so obvi but…” Sophie recalled her turbulent high school years, the desperate longings and buried fantasies, never to be acted upon, at least until years later when she had finally escaped Siesta Beach for good.

Or so she’d thought…

Jessie must have felt the awkward silence. “But what, Sophie?” Her voice was soft and low, so quiet the crashing, foamy waves almost buried the muted question.

Sophie met those kind, green eyes and offered a shy smile of her own. “Nothing, it’s just…well, I’ve never been all that good at making friends.”

Jessie gave her another good once over. “You?” she teased. “Not good at making friends? Was this before they invented coffee in a can, perhaps? Because I’ve never met a more friendly property owner in my life!”

They both chuckled, Sophie nervously, Jessie radiantly. Either way, Sophie was glad for the quick burst of laughter and the way her new friend deftly changed the subject from awkward teen angst to the present.

As if to ensure her new surf student was gonna be okay, Jessie nudged her playfully with her narrow hip, pale flesh warm to the touch—and no wonder. Their skin was flushed from the sun, having already spent close to an hour with their boards in the sand, lying flat and standing up, then lying flat and standing up some more.

Practice, Jessie called it.

More like torture. Sophie was already sore, and they’d only now just stepped foot into the ocean for the first time all day, the soft, foamy water caressing her feet almost tenderly.

Jessie noted her trepidation and put a gentle hand out to stop Sophie’s progress. It felt warm and sandy on Sophie’s flushed skin. “You don’t have to do it all on your first lesson,” she said, making Sophie smile. “We’ve got all summer, right?”

Sophie nodded, then took a breath. “I know, but I’ve waited this long, and you’ve been so patient, so…I’m game if you are?”

Jessie winked, an intimate gesture, and squeezed her arm, an even more intimate one. “Follow me then!” she exclaimed, and Sophie was only too glad to do as she was told. That is, once she’d had her fill of admiring her surf instructor’s taut derriere as it bounded into the surf, one ripe, glistening jiggle at a time.

The water was colder than it looked, but not for long. After Jessie had taught Sophie to dive under the first rush of waves, and not over them, she emerged on the other side of the froth, drenched and smiling as if she’d already learned how to surf.

The saltwater felt good on her skin, on her lips, even up her nose! Had it really been a whole year since she’d gone swimming in the sea? She shook her head, pledging never to go that long between salt water up her nose again.

Once they had reached the flat landscape of the ocean, Sophie followed Jessie’s example in sitting on top of her board. “Remember what I taught you,” she said as they sat, sideways, eyes ever lurking for the next rolling swell. “You can’t wait for the wave to come to you, Sophie. You have to beat it to the punch!”

As if on cue, Sophie felt a smooth, deep swell begin to roll behind her. She turned, panicking, and paddled with all her might. But it was too late. The wave crashed just beneath her, all the energy drained out of it before she’d even thought about kneeling, let alone standing. She rode it, still lying down, until she could slide off the board in complete humiliation, turn around and duck dive beneath the next frothy set of breaking waves to return to Jessie’s side, drenched and defeated.

Jessie sat, calmly, serenely, beautifully, skin damp and aglow with fresh saltwater. “Now what did we just learn?” she said, adopting a librarian’s voice and wagging a playful finger.

“Either beat the wave,” Sophie repeated in a singsong fashion, mimicking the lesson Jessie had taught her back on the beach. “Or eat the wave!”

Jessie clapped her hands, damp from lingering at her sides in the sea. “Very good!” she said, face changing gently. “Now, I feel one coming if you want to…”

Sophie was already on it, turning and paddling as she felt the soft pull of the wave curling behind her. She sensed it catching her, and not the other way around. Felt it guiding her, and not her guiding it. Before she knew it, she was caught up in the wave’s pull, the lime-green board Jessie had lent her for the lesson slicing down the middle of the wave as if following its own trajectory.

Time slowed down and, her muscle memory springing into action, Sophie gripped the board with a hand on either side. Her body tensed and she sprang up onto her feet, as Jessie had taught her a hundred or more times in the preceding hour. Of course, that had been on the beach, on a flat surface and, of course, safe and sound on dry land. Wobbly and unsteady, Sophie stood up into a solid crouch, hands out and waving frantically to keep her balance—just before crashing into the sea!

The foam filled her nostrils, salt water in her mouth, sand scraping her knee until she emerged, struggling to her feet as the last of the wave fizzled into the deep-brown, wet sand at the water’s edge. She turned, flailing to grab her board before turning back around and spotting Jessie, effortlessly coasting in on the next wave.

Jessie leaped off into the shallows to check on her. “Are you all right?” she gushed, concerned voice just a notch below panicked.

Sophie chuckled, wiping her nose and coughing up the last of the seawater as she rolled her eyes at her obvious clumsiness. “I’m fine,” she gurgled, like a mermaid struggling to breathe on dry land. “Let’s try it again!”

Jessie laughed, squeezing her shoulder. “Maybe later, okay?” she insisted, nudging Sophie with her hip.

“But I want to surf, coach,” Sophie teased, torn between giving it another shot and licking her wounds, to say nothing of her pride. Fortunately, her parents’ cottage was toward the south end of town, far from the maddening tourist crowd of downtown Siesta Beach, meaning the witnesses to her debacle were few and far between.

Jessie brightened, grabbing both shoulders and shaking her for emphasis. “You already did, Sophie. You surfed on your second try.”

Sophie blinked the saltwater out of her eyes. “I…I did?”

“Rode it, popped it, and stood right up, just like I showed you!” In an impromptu gesture, equal parts excited and proud, Jessie went from gripping Sophie’s shoulders to wrapping her arms around them, giving her a short but eventful hug.

For the briefest of moments, their skin touched, bare bellies pushed damply against each other’s, breasts pressed tight, Jessie’s arms circling Sophie’s neck and squeezing affectionately. It was over all too soon, only convincing Sophie how much she wanted it to happen again—and soon!

Jessie pushed her new pupil away and continued to gush. “Honestly, Sophie, it took me a dozen or more tries to stand up my first time. You’re way ahead of the curve already.”

Sophie nodded, winded, the board heavy in her arm as they stood, face to face in the sun.

“Besides,” Jessie added, a sudden note of concern in her tone as her eyes dipped southward. “We want to clean that knee up, right?”

“What knee?” Sophie asked, just before looking down to find the blood running down her leg.