Page 19 of Surfer Girl

Sophie was in a good mood for once, nodding at the shady picnic tables just outside the plate glass window next to the table. “This shmuck was trying to pawn me off on those tables out there in the hot ass sun,” she murmured, still so shocked and mock offended she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Colton,” the new member of their vaguely familiar trio teased, sinking down breezily into the chair across from him with a proprietary air. “Don’t be rude. There’s plenty of room in here for all three of us.”

“Us?” Sophie couldn’t help but blurt as she noted the obvious implications of the offer.

Colton audibly gulped before nodding at the interloper. “Sophie, this is Kendrick. Kendrick, this is—”

“Sophie?” Kendrick’s face lit up, warm, brown skin growing lighter with the delight featured there. He pushed thick black, almost retro glasses frames up his nose. “The Sophie from…prom night?”

“Colton!” Sophie gasped, waffle cone suddenly forgotten as she sank into the nearest chair and dragged it over. “You told him?”

Kendrick was incredulous, lips curling into a satisfied smile. “Told me? It’s, like, my bedtime story every night.”

“Oh. My. God.”

Kendrick placed a comforting hand on Sophie’s arm, long ebony fingers squeezing it reassuringly and with a vaguely gentle grip. “It’s not like that, girl. It’s…” He nodded at Colton across the table. “You tell her, baby.”

Sophie sank back into her seat, mind thoroughly blown. “What is actually happening right now?”

Colton chuckled, his goose obviously cooked, the cat literally out of the bag, all his bluster back at Foam about banging surf bunnies and spring breakers an obvious bluff. “Listen, it’s just, I never told you because Hallmark doesn’t exactly make cards for that kind of thing but…after prom and senior year and everything that happened with you, with us, I just… You inspired me.”

“I? Inspired? You?”

Kendrick’s giggle was equally merry and light. “Girl, I know this may come as quite a shock to you, but…you are never gonna hear the happy ending if you keep interrupting him like that.”

She shot him a wicked eye roll. “Listen, Kendrick, and don’t take this the wrong way but forgive me for being vaguely mind blown when this dude was Siesta High’s resident lady killer last time I saw him, so…give me a moment to process the new deets, okay?”

“Fair enough,” Kendrick murmured, absently dragging his straw through the melted muck at the bottom of his strawberry milkshake. “It’s…a little hard for me to believe, too, Sophie.”

“What Kendrick’s trying to say,” Colton said a smidge defensively, bewildering Sophie all the more, “is that after you poured your heart out to me in that hotel room, about all the girls you secretly pined for and couldn’t bring yourself to approach, it…hit home.”

“But you never said a word, Colt? Not that night. Not all these years, not even yesterday back at the surf shop. I just…” Sophie knew her words sounded like an accusation.

“I couldn’t, really. Not…not even to myself. But I sat there, listening to you, and I just wanted to scream ‘get out of my head,’ you know, because everything you were saying was how I felt about…”

“Boys?” Sophie finished for him.

“Yes, girl, ring-a-ding,” Kendrick murmured playfully from the sidelines. She nudged his foot beneath the table before he apologized with his hands.

“But all those girls? Senior year? A new one every week?”

Colton sighed, sinking back in his chair as if with the weight of it all. “It was like I was trying to prove to myself how straight I was.”

She clucked her tongue, glancing from Kendrick to Colton and back again, then back some more. “Kind of like I was doing with you on prom night, huh?”

“I guess that’s why I never blamed you at the time, because in my heart, I knew exactly what you were doing. Then, after that night, I started…doing it myself.”

“But if you were so into guys, how did you make it with all those girls?”

“Maybe it’s easier for guys,” Colton surmised, eyes peering past her as if drifting back through time. “Or maybe I’m just a really good actor. Or maybe I just really, really wanted to be straight, for all the wrong reasons. But all the while, it just felt like work to me.”

She knew the feeling all too well. “So when did you give up…working?”

Colton glanced at Kendrick first, offering an apologetic smile. “Do you mind?”

Kendrick rolled his eyes. “Sweet Jesus no, Colt. God knows I have a past of my own you’ve heard a time or two.” As if on cue, a cell phone bleated next to Kendrick’s milkshake glass. “Saved by the bell,” he teased, patting Colton’s hand tenderly on the table before winking at Sophie. “Duty calls,” he murmured to Sophie as he stood beside her. “Enjoy story time and don’t let him skate on the juicy parts, ’kay? I promise you, this will all be worth the wait!”

Colton nodded, glancing up with an obvious sigh of relief. The bell over the door rang as Kendrick departed, chatting amiably into the phone as the door shut again behind him.

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