Page 135 of Beach Vibes

“I’m not worried about the chemistry.”

“Don’t you want to be sure?”

“No, but I do want to kiss you.”

Before she could respond to that, he stepped close and cupped her face in his large hands, then lowered his mouth to hers.

The second their lips touched, she felt all the air rush out of her. Sparks exploded, and her thighs started to shake. Sheinstinctively leaned in, wrapping her arms around him. He dropped his hands to her waist and pulled her hard against him. The kiss went from family friendly to X-rated in five seconds. Two heartbeats after that, Dex pulled back.

“Not in public,” he muttered, staring at her. “Still worried about the chemistry?”

She shook her head, even as she tried to understand the feelings surging through her. Not only had she never felt anything like it, she’d also never felt the sureness that came with whatever that had been. Was this the knowing that Teddy had talked about?

“I thought I’d come over for dinner tonight,” she said softly.

“That would be good. Dinner.” Although the heat in his eyes made her think there might be less time spent in the dining room than one would expect.

“I’ll bring Linnie next time, but not tonight.”

“Probably for the best.”

They stared at each other for another few seconds, then Dex put his arm around her. “We need to get back to the kids.”

“We do.”

He smiled at her. “We’re going to be great together.”

“Yes, we are.”

* * *

Beth stared at the “Great job! Every week you get better and better” scrawled across the top of her title page. There were also glowing margin notes, along with a few corrections of grammar and suggestions to extend the conversation between Mandy and her mother. Mandy being the fictional heroine of the book Beth was writing.

She smiled. Not only was she constantly amazed she was actually trying to write a book, but judging from all the feedback her instructor had given her, it was going well. Her!

She glanced over at Kai, who sat at the desk next to hers, looking equally stunned. Surprisingly, when he’d found outshe was going to be taking a writing class at UCLA Extension, he’d wanted to go with her. Kai, it turned out, wanted to write a spy novel where the heroes were surfers, which allowed them to travel all over the world. The kid had depths.

Their instructor—a part-time screenwriter and full-time psychologist—was pushing seventy and old-school. Assignments were turned in on paper because he claimed he was of a generation that “thought with a pen in their hand.” At first Kai had balked, claiming he didn’t even own a printer. But after seeing the positive feedback in written form, he’d been excited to join the 1990s. For Beth, she had to admit there was something satisfying about handing in actual papers and then getting them dropped on her desk during the next class.

“Setting as character,” Dr. Previn said from the front of the class. “That’s our next topic. It’s a reading-heavy week. I get that. Do the best you can. Your assignment is to pick a scene to rewrite with the idea of setting as character. I want to see anywhere between three and seven pages from you, and I want both the original version and the new and improved version.”

He smiled at the class. “You’re all doing so well. Congratulations. I’ll see you next week.”

Beth collected her things and nearly floated out of class. The praise from her instructor always carried her through the times when she stared at her computer screen with no idea what to do next. Dr. Previn thought she was a natural born storyteller with a readable style. The two weeks they’d spent on plotting had totally rocked her world. She’d started the class with the idea of turning her growing up with Rick into a book, but had quickly realized that real life doesn’t plot well. In a matter of days she’d decided to change everything around and was now writing a coming-of-age story focused fully on Mandy and the trials of dealing with her action junkie mother. As of this version, the brother didn’t even exist.

Perhaps a metaphor for her actual life, Beth thought with bothsadness and resignation. The summer was nearly over, and she hadn’t once heard from her brother. Not that she’d reached out to him. Agatha had counseled her to give herself time to figure out what she ultimately wanted. She supposed that at some point she would want to know that he was all right—even if whatever faux closeness she thought they had would never exist again. She didn’t want him in her life on a regular basis—not when she couldn’t trust him to act like a decent, caring person. But cutting him off completely didn’t seem right, either. Which meant listening to Agatha made the most sense. Time would provide clarity.

She and Kai walked to her car. They drove to class together and split the cost of parking. Sometimes they went a little early and grabbed dinner at one of the food trucks parked on campus. They talked about their writing and the weekly lessons. While she’d always liked Kai, their shared interest had added a nice dimension to their friendship. He was, in a way, like the younger brother she could trust. She would guess she was very much an older sister for him. She knew that he was still estranged from his family.

“Did you see the schedule for next session?” he asked as she headed west on I-10. When it ended in Santa Monica, she would drive north to Malibu. Not the most direct route, but they both liked being near the ocean.

“Yes. I want to take Dr. Previn’s next class.” Which was a continuation of his beginning writing series.

“Me, too. I’m learning so much.”

“And going to college,” she teased. “You were opposed.”

“It’s not the same.”

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