Page 31 of Britta & the Beach Boy
The wave is a perfect-peeling left-hander, the highest one of the day, with an endless face. As soon as I drop in, I know this is my chance for a perfect ten. Adrenaline surges, and I pump my board to pick up speed. I carve and turn, then launch into an aerial, land it even better than the last one, and still have time to do some more maneuvers before the wave washes out.
I let the whitewash carry me in, diving into the water just before shore. I’ve done my best. I may have scored my highest ever, and I tremble with excitement.
After I pop out of the water, self-doubt creeps in. Even though I did a ripper job on that wave, I worry my score still won’t be high enough to beat Jack. The crowd is already cheering, and I can’t tell if it’s for me or for Robbo.
I carry my board out of the water, running my free hand over my face, wiping away salty water that’s come from more than the ocean. There’s nothing I would have done differently on that last wave. If I lose to Jack, I’ll have done my best, but I don’t have any idea how I could have done better.
My feet hit the sand, and I hear my name, then my score. A ten.
I just pulled off the impossible and scored a perfect ten in the WSL finals.
The crowd roars again, and I wipe my hand over my face to hide my tears. But they can tell I’m crying. Before I know it, Archie has his arms wrapped around me and lifts me off the ground.
“You did it, mate! You did it!”
When he lets go, I make my way to the locker room, high-fiving fans standing on each side of the path to the surfers’ area. I still have four heats left, but Britta and Stella are waiting at the bottom of the stairs when I get there.
“That was quite a dance, Liam,” Britta says.
I pause long enough to return her grin before I drop my board and close the space between us. She doesn’t have an apron on, so no strings to hook my fingers around. Instead, I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her close enough there’s no way she can’t feel how hard my heart is pounding under my orange jersey and wetsuit.
Her mouth curves into a smile, giving me the permission I’ve been waiting for.
I slide my other hand across her jaw, into her hair, but Britta is the one who rises to her tiptoes in the sand to press her lips to mine. She has on lip stuff that tastes sweet and fruity, and I feel bad for the salty, chapped lips she’s getting in return.
Britta doesn’t seem to mind. With her arms slung around my neck, she deepens our kiss, pulling a moan from my throat when she tugs at my bottom lip while lowering her heels back to the sand.
“If that’s what I get for winning the first heat, what’s in store if I win the title?” I tighten my grip around her waist, wanting to keep her close.
“I guess you’ll have to win it to find out.” She looks up at me through feathery lashes, and her tongue darts between her lips before they pull into a smile.
I’ve wiped out heaps of times, tossed so hard by waves, I’ve had a dozen concussions, at least. It’s a crazy experience being washed around like that. Under churning water, it’s impossible to tell what’s up or down.
With the taste of Britta’s lips still on mine, I feel the same disconcerting sensation of being pummeled by a wave. There’s no up or down. Nothing else exists outside the pounding in my chest and my lungs grasping for air.
But wiping out has never felt this good.
Chapter twelve
Britta
If you’d told me a year ago, I’d fall stupid in love within a matter of minutes, I would have laughed hysterically. Falling in love is not on my to-do list. Or my bullet list. Definitely not on my shopping list. But here I am, picking up a value-size, heart-shaped pack of love.
There’s no use denying it. I am utterly, hopelessly in love with…surfing.
Falling in love with a person is very much off the table. At least for now, and at least with Dex. Even if I weren’t trying to find my bearings after losing Mom, Dex and I live very different lives. He has to be near the ocean, and I have to be nearBritta’s,which is nowhere near an ocean. So, despite the hottest, most toe-curlingkiss of my life—second only to the last time Dex kissed me—an actual relationship with him is out of the question.
That doesn’t mean I have no interest in being kissed like that again. Or even a few more times like that. Kissing only has to do with love when you want it to.
Surfing, though, has stolen my heart.
Sure, the attraction started with Dex’s looks. His kisses flooded me with heat first, but the same fire surges through me as I watch him glide across a wave, moving back and forth over it like they’re a perfectly matched pair of ballroom dancers. The ocean leads, but Dex is very much in charge.
It’s both beautiful and terrifying to watch. At any second, the wave could do something unpredictable and trip up Dex’s carefully planned choreography. Not just trip him. Toss him and turn him like a dryer full of rocks. I’m on the edge of my seat, waiting for what Dex and his beautifully dangerous partner will do next.
I’m brimming with a nervous energy, wave after wave, heat after heat. Dex barely has time to recover between his heats while the women surf theirs. Then he’s back in the ocean again. Stella and I watch all Dex’s heats from the box with Archie. The giant windows, and the box’s position above the stands and the crowd, allow us a perfect view. But when we want a close-up shot, we turn to the live feed from the TV on the one windowless wall that doesn’t face the ocean.
There are twelve heats total, thirty-five minutes each. First the men go, then the women, with the winners moving on to the next heats, until there are two men, and two women left. The best two out of three heats for each determines who the champions are.
