Page 9 of Surfer Girl

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. “Oreatthe 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 alreadydid, 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.

Chapter Six

JESSIE

“So, this might sting a little.”

Jessie knelt on the wooden deck, clasping a wad of tissue paper saturated with hand sanitizer from the bottle by the kitchen sink. Sophie sat patiently on the Adirondack chair, black hair in wet ringlets clinging to her sun-kissed shoulders. She nodded, grasping the arms of the soft wooden chair dramatically.

“On three, okay?” Jessie said, damp paper towels hovering above her favorite surf pupil’s scraped knee. Sophie nodded. Jessie smiled. “One, two…”

“Arrrggghhh!” Sophie cried out, squirming in her seat as Jessie pressed the antibacterial cleanser against the scrape. “That stings!”

Jessie stifled a chuckle at her histrionics. “That means it’s working,” she reminded her. “No pain, no gain.”

“Devil woman!” Sophie grunted through gritted teeth, her tone playful. “Witch!”

Jessie laughed so hard she fell onto her butt, bikini still damp from the sea and stomach fluttering with more than just belly laughs. “Come on, Sophie,” she said, crossing her legs and patting the wet wound down until all that remained was a small, clean, disinfected scrape. “I think you’ll be able to keep the leg.”

Sophie bit her lower lip tenderly, as if fighting back the sting. “Should I put a bandage over it?”

Jessie hedged, not wanting to break the spell of sitting at Sophie’s feet, the closeness they were currently sharing, or the soft, comforting sound of the ocean at her back by leaving to grab a bandage. “I think fresh air is the best thing for it,” she bluffed, hoping Sophie wouldn’t notice.

“Is there anything you don’t know?” Sophie teased, easing back into her seat slightly and revealing a fresh, new angle of her shimmering wet bikini. Jessie struggled not to gawk as she gently traced the scrape with a bare glance of her fingertip around Sophie’s knee. Sophie tensed at first, then gradually relaxed. Jessie wondered if she’d do the same if, possibly when, she traced some other vital body part instead. The thought made her blush, even where Sophie couldn’t see.

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