Page 21 of Surfer Girl

Sophie shook her head, as dazed and confused as she’d been after Jessie’s first tentative, sweltering kiss back at the beach house, less than an actual day earlier. What a short, strange trip it had been. “I’m happy for you, Colton, really. I know how hard it can be to live a lie, so I’m glad you don’t have to do that anymore.”

He grinned, nodding at her casually sexy getup: the crinkle skirt, the chocolate-brown tank top with no bra, hair up in a pile on her head, held in place by stylish chopsticks just waiting to be slid out by an eager, willing lover. “And you? Those bikinis yesterday? Your hotsy-totsy outfit today? That shit-eating grin. Who are those for, huh, Hot Pants?”

“Just…someone I met.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

He rolled his eyes. “Wow, you don’t waste time, do you?”

“I wasn’t planning on a summer romance, but she was borrowing our walkway shower and it was…”

“Love at first sight, huh?”

“Probably the way that spring breaker felt, looking at you that day, Colt?”

He gave her the same dismissive handwave she’d just given him. She realized, now, how stupid it looked. “Stop.”

“Stop what?” Kendrick had suddenly appeared, face vaguely less enthusiastic than it had been before his phone call.

“I was flattering your boyfriend mercilessly,” Sophie said, making Kendrick smile, albeit not as easily as it had been too before his phone call.

He reached for Colton’s hand and squeezed it. Not for show, Sophie noticed, but with genuine, sincere affection. “Hard not to, right?”

Sophie beamed. “Sure is…”

“Listen, I don’t want to break up your reunion but duty calls and you’re my ride, Colt, so…”

Colton looked at her, already apologetic. She stood along with him. “No, no, I’m meeting someone in a few minutes anyway, so…”

They murmured goodbyes and promises to meet again, the usual empty promises that sometimes meant they would, but mostly meant they wouldn’t. Sophie didn’t need them anyway. She knew, in a town as small as Siesta Beach, with three whole months to kill, that she’d be running into Colton and Kendrick before too long anyway. They shared more awkward hugs and murmured promises before Colton finally drifted through the door, Kendrick holding it open for him. As if forgetting something, he murmured to Colton and sent him on his way with a merry shove. Colton chuckled but drifted outside just the same. Kendrick came back and embraced Sophie gently but eagerly. “Honestly, it’s so nice to finally meet you. I’m exaggerating obviously, but Colton talks about you more often than you’d think.”

It was hard to talk, what with the sudden lump in her throat. “I’m honored.”

His smile was warm and easy as he gently drifted away. He paused in the open door, giving her a quick up and down. “Listen, for what it’s worth? Maybe you should sit outside for a bit. If you’re really meeting someone, that is.”

“Oh yeah. Why’s that?”

He offered a radiant smile, smooth and knowing and conspiratorially girlish. “Those headlights have been on the whole time you’ve been in here, girl. I know it’s cold, but…maybe play a little hard to get for your next meetup, ’kay?”

With that he was gone, leaving an orchestra of playful giggles in his wake. Some of them even her own. Glancing down at her sexiest blouse, she realized he wasn’t kidding. Then again, if he’d had the chance to see Jessie walk in, Kendrick might have been a tad more understanding of why anticipation had her body straight out of whack and her nipples on high alert.

All the same, she busied herself with throwing away the boys’ trash, and her own, before ordering a diet soda to go from the surprisingly quick counter dude. She left an unreasonably big tip. He thanked her profusely all the way out the door. She settled, at last, on the shadiest picnic table, enjoying the fresh air breeze if not the unseasonable, even unreasonable, summer heat. All the same, Kendrick was right: she couldn’t go around showing off her excitement every time Jessie appeared. Then again, God help her breasts once Jessie showed up in the flesh. Sophie glanced at her phone, surprised to see it was almost three.

She sipped her soda absently, glancing across the street from the row of ice cream parlors and souvenir stands at Beach Break, the waterfront restaurant where Jessie worked. In no time, she would be breezing through the front door, ambling across the wide, clean paved street toward where Sophie sat.

And after that?Who knows, she thought, wriggling atop her wooden bench seat with the familiar tang of anticipation on the tip of her eager tongue. They had the whole summer to convince themselves this was real, and Sophie was nothing if not eager to do so, one kiss, one climax, one surf session at a time.

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