Page 112 of Tides That Bind

“I was busy daydreaming.”

Riley places the pan back on the stove to heat up and takes the butter out of the fridge. It sizzles with the oil on the pan, but it’s me who melts.

“Do you mind reading that over for me?” He motions at the folder on the table with a pen sitting on it. “You can mark the typos or repetitions.”

I purse my lips together. “Why do you say that like you already know they’re there?”

“Because I’m dyslexic.”

I frown and step over to him. “Youhavedyslexia. Youaren’tdyslexia.”

“Harper—”

“Whoyou are is”—I pause, starting with the obvious—“an athlete. An attorney. A businessman,” I add.

“You don’t have to—”

“I know I don’t have to try to convince you to believe in yourself. I just want you to know I believe in you and no typo or diagnosis will change that.”

Riley looks down.

“You know something? We should celebrate.”

I notice the red line on the calendar cutting through the end of next week, marking Lucas's spring break. He’ll be spending part of it with Claire for a long weekend. The timing is ideal after last night, and the thought that we could have solid alone time should excite me. But I want more than that. I want to lift Riley up.

“We’re going out next week,” I tell him. “To celebrate.”

Riley plates the perfect, unburnt pancakes. “We haven’t won anything yet.”

I smirk. “Haven’t we?”

Taking the folder, I leave the pen, especially because I can feel Riley watching. I want him to see I’m not going into this thinking anything he came up needs to be changed, made into something better. I need him to believe he is more than enough. And if words are hard, I can certainly show him.

And yet, there’s still a tenseness seizing Riley, evident by how he shifts his jaw side to side. It makes me uneasy—not in the way that it rubs off on me. It simplybothersme that there’s something bothering him.

“Maybe we won each other, you know? And…”

I want to be careful with my words. Riley comes across as confident and borderline cocky at times. But I know now that it’s overcompensation for how he’s felt most of his life—less than.

“No matter what happens,” I whisper, reaching forward to take his hand. “I’ll never be more grateful you were willing to take a chance to make this right.”

Riley’s Adam’s apple bobs as he looks down at our fingers linked together. “It feels like a leap of faith, you know?”

“I know. But remember”—I pause, smiling—“I can fly if I know there’s someone to catch me.”

I’d liketo think the confidence I have in Riley in the courtroom could easily be extended to the both of us when on a surfboard.

Really, we look like a bunch of idiots.

While paddling out and popping up together has been easier to manage than I initially thought, I’ve yet to successfully stand on Riley’s shoulders, which makes our party trick not much of a trick at all. At this point, we won’t even look like amateurs in the competition that’s only a few weeks away.

But Riley hasn’t thrown the towel in yet. And as imperfect as our practices go, there are moments of perfection on the board, like right now with Riley’s chest pressed against my ass. And maybe that’s why we can’t quite get this right. Maybe I’m too focused on holding on to Riley when I should be focused on letting go of him.

Can anyone blame me? Over the past week, there’s been a series of soft, subtle touches that I don’t even think would make the cut for a PG rating. Riley is so immersed in preparing for the hearing that hasn’t even been scheduled yet, sometimes he doesn’t even notice I leave my spot in the club chair and head upstairs to get ready for bed.

On those nights, he sprints upstairs thirty seconds after meand kisses me breathless, leaving me with my toes curled and fingers clutching him.

So, these moments of full, physical contact out in the ocean just have to fill my cup up. But I don’t get to enjoy them long enough.

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