Page 28 of Beyond The Break

“Why’d he stop?”

“I guess, when you’re at the top for so long it gets boring,” she shrugs before handing two zinc bottles to Charlie along with my camera case as we approach the checkout counter.

He totals up our order and I nearly puke from the number staring back at me, an extra zero added to what I thought I’d be paying. With a trembling hand I give him Gabriel’s credit card and he swipes it, handing it back to me seconds later.

“Can you have these delivered to The Shredder House?” Kairi asks him, leaning forward on the checkout counter, propping her chin on her fists, and batting her eyelashes at him.

His face is scorching red as he stares at her, and I swear I see drool pooling from the corner of his mouth. He blinks twice before shaking some sense back into himself.

“Y-yeah of course, Kairi,” he says breathlessly. “I’ll drop it all off on my lunch break in an hour.”

“Thanks, James,” she says, blowing him a kiss before she locks arms with me and walks us out into the bustling streets.

“It’s Charlie,” he calls out as the door closes behind us.

We make our way over to a beach themed ice cream parlor and grab a seat at their outside patio while we wait for our ice cream to arrive. I had ordered a Seabreeze Caramel Crunch, which is just a fancy way of saying Caramel ice cream. Kairi ordered the Sandy Shores Cookie Dough flavor.

“So, back to you and Griffin,” she says, staring out at the calm ocean as couples walk along the shore, hand in hand.

“There is no me and Griffin.”

“I think there is.” She wiggles her brows at me. “I’ve neverseen him get as protective as he did last night. He wouldn’t punch someone and risk getting booted off the team, I think our Fin has a little crush.”

“Why would he get booted of the team for punching someone?”

“Coach is strict on the no physical fighting rule. If we break it, we get kicked off the team and out of the house, no second chances.”

“Oh my god.” That guilty feeling from earlier eases itself back into my stomach and I thank the heavens that my ice cream hasn’t arrived yet.

I was so worried about Gabriel firing me, I never considered the possibility that Griffin or Zale could get fired too.

“Don’t worry, he’s usually a bit more lenient with Griffin and Zale. They’ve known each other for what seems like forever. He’ll probably just get more stern with them for a few days.”

“Thank goodness,” I release the breath I was holding.

“Hmm, looks like someone was worried about Griffin,” she says, side-eyeing me with a smirk.

“Anyways,” I roll my eyes with a small smile, “Zale and Koa were protective too, that would mean, by your logic, that they all have a crush on me which is highly unlikely.”

“Zale definitely isn’t protective – he’s just a hot head – and Koa is always protective, but not Fin.” She smiles as she returns her gaze to the ocean. “He insisted on being the one to drive you home, even though there was more than enough room in the team van.”

My cheeks grow warm from her insinuation, but I don’t say anything, which seems to spark her curiosity as she turns to look at me with a wide grin.

“So, what exactly happened on that drive? I couldn’t help but notice you guys got back home much later than the rest of us.”

“Nothing happened! We just stopped to get some food before coming home,” I mumble.

“He bought you food?” she squeals. “He wanted to make sure you weren’t going home hungry,” she coos as she puts a hand to her heart, and I swear her eyes start tearing up as she lets out a sigh.

“You’re looking too much into it, he was hungry and I was hungry, so we got food.”

“And drove home to eat it?”

I hesitate, her eyes growing more sparkly. “Not exactly.”

“Oh. My. GOSH!” She squeals, jumping out of her seat. “Tell me everything.”

So, I do. I tell her about the picture in his visor, I tell her about the lookout point, and the conversation we had about his injury. By the end of it, she’s calmly back in her seat nodding quietly.

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