Page 77 of Britta & the Beach Boy
“He became my manager and my coach instead of my dad.” The bitterness his voice lacked before is there now.
“Do you think you’d be the world champion if he hadn’t coached you?”
Dex shakes his head again, but more slowly. “The reason I’m world champion is that I fired him four years ago. I quit surfing to win for him and went back to doing it because I love it. That’s what helped me win, not him telling me I could do better.” Dex’s words come out faster than usual, like he’s expelling them.
I suck in my breath. “Is that why things were weird between you when he came to San Clemente?”
Dex shifts and smiles. “You saw that? You ducked out so fast, I didn’t think you noticed my family was there.”
“I noticed, and I’m sorry. For leaving, and for the way things are with your dad.” I circle my fingers over his chest and feel his skin prickle.
“His pride won’t let him get over it, not just because I fired him, but because he knows he did a crap job as manager. He let people take advantage of me, because he thought a handshake meant more than a contract. He cares more about the money he cost me than I do.” His fingers find the spot where my t-shirt hascrept above my waist, and he runs them along my exposed spine. “I still love him, but he wants his job back, and I want my dad back, and it puts us at a bit of an impasse.”
I search for words but come up empty except for the truth. “I’m at a loss for what to say. Sorry isn’t enough.”
Dex presses his palm to my back. “You listened. That’s enough.”
His hands are rough and chapped from spending so much time in the ocean. The broken skin and calluses are evidence of how hard he works at what he loves. When I saw him surf, I thought I understood why he loves it. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have agreed to help him achieve his dream of going to the Olympics.
But I didn’t understand anything that first day watching him on the waves.
His gaze catches mine, and both our chests go still. If he kisses me now, I won’t stop him. I won’t be able to. Every part of me wants it.
But instead of pressing his lips to mine, he brushes them across the top of my head. “Look at us, talking like an old married couple.”
My breath comes out in a loud laugh that hopefully covers my disappointment, which quickly passes anyway. Dex did the right thing. We’re married in name only, and we have to keep it that way.
Now that I know what he’s sacrificed to be the best surfer in the world, I better understand how much he loves surfing.
So much that I’m not only safe being fake married to him, I’m also safe here in his arms, saying things I’ve never said out loud. Because I realize now, he’ll never love anything as much as he loves riding waves.
There’s no danger of us falling in love.
Even though, at the moment, I could stay here forever.
Chapter twenty-eight
Dex
When I wake up the next morning with Britta still in my arms, I dare to hope it won’t be the last time. I wish I could wake up like this every morning except without the kink in my neck and my arm stiff. I’m used to waking up with some part of my body hurting; I’mnotused to waking up at peace with the world and my place in it.
Talking to Britta did that for me. My friends don’t even know how uneducated I feel around most people. When they surfed professionally, they had tutors. They all finished Year Twelve. Archie has a university degree—only because his dad made him get it, but I’d take that type of dad over a dad who convincesyou that you’re such a good surfer you don’t need a high school certificate.
What sixteen-year-old doesn’t want to believe that? It only took a decade, heaps of minor injuries, and one major one to make me realize I don’t have other options if surfing doesn’t work out.
Britta didn’t try to convince me I’m more than a surfer, and she didn’t judge me for my lack of education either. Which makes me trust her even more.
While we say goodbye to her family, we’re totally at ease with each other—holding hands and being affectionate. Because the news of our wedding is out, there’s a bit of media waiting for us outside the hotel, and we keep up the act. Our legs even touch inside the Escalade on our way to the airport.
It’s not until we’re safely in the air and Archie announces he’s got a place for us to live that things get weird. Britta, sitting next to me, our shoulders brushing, suddenly leans away.
“Wait.” Across from Britta, Stella looks up from her magazine, which, ironically, is plastered with the face of the rock star sitting across from her. “You’re not staying at the apartment with me?”
Britta looks at Archie, who shakes his head.
“It’s gotta look real from the start. We talked about this,” he says to her. “It’s better if you two move into the beach house right away.”
“The beach house?” Britta and I say together at the same time Stella says, “What about me?”
