“Thank you so much for meeting me here,” I told Kyle as we walked into Johnny’s Surf Shop on Tuesday afternoon. A tiny wind chime clinked above our heads. Inside, the place smelled like sawdust, rubber, and coconut oil. Sunlight poured in the huge windows, and the wood floor creaked under our feet. “I have zero clue where to start.”
“Not a problem.” Kyle smiled and slapped hands with the multiply-pierced dude behind the counter. “What’s up, Nero?” he said with a nod. Of course Kyle would be a regular around here. “This is Jenna.”
“How are ya?” Nero said.
“Good, thanks,” I replied. I’d never spoken to someone with an eyebrow ring, nose ring, and lip ring before.
“Let me know if you two need any help,” Nero told me, ripping open the packing tape on a cardboard box with his bare hands.
“We will!”
I led Kyle toward the left side of the store, where all the women’s gear was stocked. Kyle stuck pretty close, which made my heart pound. I could practically feel his warmth behind me, and if I stopped short, that perfect bod would bump right into mine.
“I think it’s cool you want to invest in a wet suit,” Kyle said, putting his hands on my shoulders and kneading my muscles quickly with his thumbs. (Total coronary spasms.) He brought his mouth so close to my ear, he could probably taste my conditioner. (Total full-body shivers.) “I knew I’d turn you into a real surfer.”
I pulled away from him and walked backward, embarrassed by my physical reactions. “I don’t know if I’m a real surfer or just really sick of wedgies,” I joked.
Kyle laughed, and I blushed. Did I just say “wedgies”? He was so going to mock me for that one.
“Well, that’s a good motivation, too,” he said.
I paused, and my mouth fell open slightly. Really? That was it? No comments about my butt? The extreme depth of my various surf wedgies? Where was all the immaturity I was so used to in guys?
“Okay, when it comes to wet suits, you basically have two options,” Kyle said, pausing between two round racks. “You have your quality, functional suits for your serious surfers,” he said, lifting one hand toward a rack full of black, blue, and purple suits. “Or you have your lesser-quality, fashionable suits, which are still okay.” He lifted his other hand toward a rack that was all bright colors, flower patterns, and zebra stripes. “They, you know, serve their purpose.”
“Which is?”
“They make chicks look hot,” Nero called over.
“Ah.” I turned toward the functional rack and started flipping. As much as I’d like to look hot, that’s not what this particular shopping trip was about.
“Nice,” Kyle said, leaning both arms on my chosen rack. “You really are serious about this.”
“Hey, this is an investment,” I told him. “I want something that’s going to hold up, not something that’s visible from space.”
The second I said it, I wondered if maybe I should have chosen something colorful and sexy—something Becca would have picked.
“Cool. I like the way you think,” Kyle said.
I caught a gleam of admiration in his eyes. That was enough to squelch any doubt. Maybe around Kyle, being myself and going with my instincts was a good thing.
“You’re not like other girls, are you?” Kyle said, resting his chin on his arms.
I smiled slightly. “And you’re not like other guys.”
Kyle’s grin widened.
“I’ll go try this on,” I told him, grabbing a suit in black with a purple stripe down the side.
“I’ll be here,” he said.
I stepped into the dressing room and yanked the batik-print sheet closed. My hands were shaking as I undressed. Kyle had just totally complimented me. And not only that, but I’d boldly complimented him right back. This shopping spree was the best idea I’d ever had. For the first time I really felt as if Kyle and I might have a shot at getting past the student-teacher phase.
I stepped into the wet suit and pulled it up. I paused as the stretchy material clung to my skin. Okay. That was going nowhere. I held my breath and pulled harder. The material inched up my thighs. Wow. This was some space-age stuff. By the time I got my arms through and zipped the thing up and adjusted all the parts that were pulling, I was flushed from exertion.
At that very moment my cell phone rang. I fished it out of my bag and saw Becca’s name on the caller ID. Instantly my shoulders tensed. I had been avoiding Becca’s calls ever since her announcement yesterday. As if not talking to her about her trip would prevent her from taking it. Yeah, right. I just couldn’t deal with it quite yet. So, instead, I turned off the phone.
Taking a deep breath, I turned around to check my reflection. There was no mirror in the dressing room. Heathens.
“How’s it going in there?” Kyle called.
“Well, I have it on, but I’m not sure how it looks.”
All I knew was that it was clinging to me like Saran Wrap. Any flaws I had were certain to show in this thing. Big-time.
“Let me see,” Kyle suggested.
Okay, I could either be a modest, self-conscious, wussy girl, tell him to forget it, and change back into my clothes, or I could suck it up.
I swallowed my trepidation and shoved the curtain aside. Kyle stood up straight. For a second I actually thought he was going to throw up.
“What?” I said, backing up a step. “It’s the wrong size, right? I knew it.”
“No! No…no,” Kyle said. “That’s it. That’s perfect fit. I mean, a perfect fit.” He laughed and ran a hand through his hair.
Nero walked by with a box of flippers and dropped them onto the floor near the flipper display. “Kyle, man. Chill,” he said. “He’s right, Jenna. That’s exactly how you want it to fit.”
“Thanks,” I said. Then I looked at Kyle. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, shaking his head at himself. “It’s just, you…”
“What?” I asked, still feeling uncertain.
I could see the blush creeping up his neck and across his face. “Apparently you really don’t need the flashy suits. That’s all,” he said quickly, like he was embarrassed to say it. Nero even rolled his eyes.
Kyle glanced at me tentatively again, and I felt a jolt of pure attraction right through my entire body.
“Sorry. That was lame,” he said.
I grinned. The apology made him even more attractive. Because most guys would have tried to pull off that line with a straight face.
“No. No. It’s fine.” I looked at Nero and smiled. “I’ll take it.”
Wednesday morning, with another hour or so before lab, I sat on a towel on the sand, enjoying the warmth of the sun as it dried the salty water off my skin. My third surf lesson was officially behind me, and my new wet suit hadn’t given me a single wedgie.
Out in the ocean, Kyle shredded a few waves. It was unbelievable, seeing him out there. Until now I had only ever seen surfing like that in movies, and there was always the possibility that it was the product of trick photography or something. But now I knew people could really ride those huge swells, and Kyle was one of them.
His form was perfect. His body was perfect. I couldn’t wait for him to finish up and come in to shore already. Kyle had been totally professional during our lesson, which was a letdown after the various moments we had shared at the surf shop the day before. But I was hoping that once we were out of lesson mode, we could have a few more moments. Give me something else to fantasize about all night long—like I had yesterday.
I was startled out of my trance when Kyle’s cell phone rang. A regular ring now—not that Chili Peppers song. The cell was right next to me on his towel. I wondered if I should answer it. The guy was trying to run a business here. I glanced at the caller ID. There was one word on the screen: MANETTE.
After the third ring, the phone stopped. Oh, well. I was sure Kyle had voice mail. I looked out at the water again. Kyle was riding a swell in to the shore. I smiled and was about to wave, and then the phone rang again.
Manette.
Weird. Was that a first name? Or maybe the name of a store or something? I didn’t feel comfortable answering, so I let the voice mail get it again. Kyle was just lifting his board and starting up the beach.
The phone rang again. I was beginning to get tense here. I stood up and waited for Kyle, brushing some sand off the backs of my legs. He flung his dark hair away from his forehead and jogged toward me.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey!” he replied happily, tossing his board into the sand and grabbing a towel. He rubbed his hair and bent over to knock some water out of his ears. “It’s a great day, huh?” he said, glancing up at the blue sky. “You want to go grab some food or something?”
“Yeah, sure. Listen, your phone rang a few times while you were out there,” I said. “Someone named Manette?”
Kyle stood up straight. His face went white. “You answered it?” he demanded.
“No!” I said, startled by the abrupt shift in mood. “Just saw the name on the caller ID.”
He grabbed his phone and scrolled through the calls. “Dammit,” he said under his breath. Then it started to ring again. “Oh, come on! Who the hell is giving out my number?”
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
Kyle looked at me as if he’d just remembered I was there, even though we were close enough that the water from his hair was dripping onto my shoulder.
“It’s fine. I just…I have to go,” he said. He quickly gathered up his stuff, then leaned to grab his board, which he shoved under one arm. “I have to deal with this.”
“I…I thought we were going to go eat,” I said, feeling silly as I said it.
“I can’t right now,” he said flatly. “Maybe another time.”
“Kyle, what’s going on? You’re freaking me out a little,” I said, feeling desperate. The wind tossed my hair in front of my face, and I shoved it away.
“I’m sorry. There’s something I really need to take care of. It’s just—” He tried to look me in the eye but couldn’t seem to make it stick. He seemed very frustrated and somehow tired. “I’ll call you to set up your next lesson, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
He turned around and double-timed it up the beach. I thought about calling after him, but I knew it was pointless. All I could do was stand there, wondering what had just happened. Who the hell was Manette? And why was Kyle so monumentally freaked?
Sweat poured down the back of my neck as if someone was holding a warm-running hose over my head. Out in the center of the field at the Pepperdine soccer stadium there was no shade, and it was pushing noon.
“Maybe we should do this later,” I suggested to Sean. I was still feeling a bit thrown from Kyle’s sudden abandonment, and I was having a lot of trouble concentrating. “You know, when we’re not close enough to the sun for our blood to boil.”
“If we wait for the sun to go down, we won’t be able to see well enough,” Sean said. He crouched to the ground and lifted the metal-and-rubber slingshot we were using for our experiment. Closing one eye, he pulled back the rubber band and practiced his aim. “Besides, I’m fine.”
“How? How are you fine?” I asked, throwing out my arms, which were slippery with perspiration. “This is Mercury hot.”
“I’m cold-blooded,” Sean said with a grin as he stood. He tossed and caught a tennis ball, then loaded it into the slingshot. “Here we go. Get the stopwatch.”
Hang on. Just because my brain was melting did not mean I was going to let Sean do everything himself. A girl had to have some pride.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” I said, grabbing his arm. He stared at my hand for a second, like he was wondering what it was doing there, and I snatched it back. “Who said we were doing the tennis ball first?”
Sean dropped his arms. “Uh, logic said?”
I smirked. “Wow. You’re hilarious. How so?”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s the mid-weight object. If we’re going to do a control experiment, this is it. Using the data, we can hypothesize about the results of all the other projectiles. Now, are you ready with the tape measure and the stopwatch or not?”
Okay. He had a point. But still.
I turned and grabbed a tube of sunscreen out of my backpack, stalling for time. “So you’re not gonna even discuss it?” I said. I squeezed a blob of lotion into one palm, then rubbed my hands together.
Sean narrowed his eyes at me as I started to work the lotion into my arms and shoulders. He placed everything back down on the ground. “Fine. What do you want to use?” he challenged.
I looked at the other objects we were supposed to fling—a walnut, a Nerf ball, a baseball, a golf ball, and a Wiffle ball. I had already decided he was right, but I so didn’t want to admit it.
“Can you hold this for me for a sec?” I asked, handing him the lotion.
“Uh, sure.”
Before he could react, I dipped down, grabbed the slingshot and tennis ball, and took aim.
“Hey! What the hell?”
“I’m fine with the tennis ball. But I want to be the one to fling it,” I said. “Got the stopwatch?”
Sean’s mouth dropped open. He knew he’d been had. He picked up the stopwatch from the grass and held it up with a glare. “Fine.”
I smiled. “Good.”
Lifting my arms, I pulled back on the rubber band, and it slipped right out of my lotiony fingers. It snapped against my thumb and stung. Badly.
“Ow!” I cried, dropping everything. “Ow, ow, ow!”
I looked down, saw blood, and immediately squeezed my eyes closed. “I’m bleeding!” I cried, stating the obvious.
“Hang on. I got it,” Sean said.
He dove into his bag and rummaged around for a second. My whole thumb throbbed, tapping out an insane heartbeat under my nail. Sean procured a Band-Aid and a tissue.
“You carry around bandages?” I asked, still clutching my thumb.
Sean shrugged as he tore the wrapper off. “I like to be prepared.” He gently took my hand and pulled it to him. When I removed my fingers from around the cut, I winced. “Eh, it’s not too bad,” he said, dabbing it with the tissue.
I smiled, comforted, as he cleaned up the cut. “You are such the Boy Scout.”
Sean wrapped the Band-Aid around my thumb gently but tightly. My thumb continued to throb in his hand, but it already felt much better.
“Thanks,” I said, looking up at him.
For the first time I saw that his brown eyes had hundreds of little gold flecks in them.
“Good as new,” he said quietly.
“My hero,” I whispered. I didn’t intend to whisper. It just came out that way.
“I thought no one was ever going to call me that again,” Sean said, smiling slightly. Was it just me, or were those little gold flecks getting closer? Oh, my God. Was Sean going to kiss me?
“Well, I…I…”
Why was I trying to have the last word? He was going to kiss me, and, to my surprise, I wanted him to.
“Shut up,” Sean whispered lightly.
Still holding my hand, Sean touched his lips to mine. His kiss was firm and soft and as it went on, I found myself entwining my fingers with his.
“Is this okay?” he asked suddenly, pulling back.
My mind was so groggy, it took me a second to catch up. I nodded quickly. “Oh, yeah.”
Sean grinned and kissed me again, this time wrapping his arms around me. Then, suddenly, an image of Nicholas flashed through my mind. Whoa. What was I doing? Was I really kissing two guys at the same time? Well, not at the same time, but you know what I mean. Was I really the type of girl who could kiss two different guys over the course of a few days? Then Sean gripped my T-shirt and pulled me even closer, and my heart flip-flopped. All thoughts of Nicholas went right out of my head. At the moment I didn’t care. All I cared about was this unbelievable kiss.
Then, suddenly, someone cleared his throat—someone absurdly close. Sean and I pulled apart, looked at each other, then turned our faces. Professor Rosenberg was standing two feet away. He looked down at his clipboard.
“I don’t remember that being part of the experiment,” he said, screwing his face into a scowl.
Sean and I jumped away from each other.
“Sorry, Professor. We were just getting started and—” I began.
“We’ll get back to work,” Sean said firmly.
“See that you do,” the professor said. Then he turned and walked off to find some of our other classmates.
I could barely breathe, but then Sean and I looked at each other and cracked up laughing.
“That wasn’t embarrassing,” I said in between giggles.
“Not at all,” Sean said, loading the slingshot again. He lifted it as if to aim but then lowered his arms again. “You wanna do something tonight?” he asked.
I thought of Nicholas again and felt a pang of guilt. But I really wanted to do something with Sean, and Nicholas and I had never even said we were officially dating, let alone that we were exclusive. Suddenly I could hear Becca reasoning with me in my head. This was my summer to bust out of my shell, and, technically, I wasn’t tied down, so I could do what I wanted.
“Possibly,” I said, smiling slightly. “What were you thinking?”
“I think it should be a surprise,” he said. “Now get the stopwatch so we can start already. I’m melting out here.”
I lifted the watch and got ready to time our tennis ball’s flight.
“Ready?” Sean asked.
I nodded. “Let’s do it.”