Page 22 of For Butter or for Worse
Meg doesn’t slap King, which seems to genuinely surprise him, but she does glare daggers at him when he leaves the bakery. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with me now that I’m not just a helping hand, eventually choosing to pretend I don’t exist as she goes about her tasks, and I decide I should probably watch my back from here on out.
Just in case.
Chapter Eight
King
I’m always so muchhappier on the water.
Taking my first student of the season out to try some waves feels like plugging in a piece of my soul that fell out two months ago when the last of my family slipped away. As I straddle the board, giving my student a few minutes to get comfortable on his own board, I tilt my head back and soak up the sun. I’m always eager for summer, when I have enough students to keep me busy and my shop really takes off, but things got a lot more complicated when Bill got sick.
I haven’t had a peaceful moment like this in months, and now that I have a wife, I doubt I’ll have many for a long time to come.
A wife.Georgie. It’s been three hours, and it still doesn’t feel real. And yet…
I can’t get the name Georgie Kingston out of my head, which is going to be a problem even if she has no plans to actually change her name. It’s like she was meant to be part of my family, which for generations has been of the opinion that only the names of the British monarchy are acceptable. UncleBill—William—and my dad, Edward, were only a small part of the Henrys and Elizabeths and Charleses that have made up my pedigree pretty much since the first colonizers arrived in what is now the eastern United States.
Maybe that’s why Kingstons don’t live to see old age. It’s our own hubris in thinking we deserve such lofty names.
I always liked the name Royal.
Georgie is the only person I ever willingly allowed to use my first name, and a part of me loves hearing it on her tongue again. I shouldn’t let her, but after our little truce this morning on the way back from the courthouse, my resolve is slipping. Ten years ago, I would have died happy being able to say that Georgie is my wife. Now… Now, I have to make sure I don’t let myself start to think any of it is real. She said herself that she’s not going to last long once she gets the bakery in her name, and then she’ll be gone.
Just like before.
I shake my head and return my focus to the man in front of me. “Okay, Sean, how are you feeling?”
He’s shaking a little as he bobs in the water with me, but the ocean is pretty calm today. Maybe a little too calm to get any good surfing in, but it’s perfect for his first time. “I’m feeling pretty good,” he says, his voice bouncing with nervous excitement.
We spent half an hour practicing his take off on the beach, and he’s been paddling around for a good fifteen minutes to get the hang of moving around on his board. If he’s going to try surfing, now’s as good a time as any.
“Ready to try to hit a wave?” I ask, almost hoping he says no so I can have an excuse to stay out here a little longer. The shop will be open for a few more hours, until the sun goes down, but I’ve got Brody behind the counter. I don’t have any other lessons today, which means there’s nothing holding me back from heading to the bakery and making sure Meg hasn’t murdered Georgie with a cake knife. She wasn’t happy when I left, and I don’t think her anger was entirely directed at me.
I probably shouldn’t have left Georgie there on her own.
“I’m ready!” Sean says with a lot more enthusiasm than I expect, given his hesitation so far. Then again, the guy did jump at the chance to move his lesson to today after I bailed on him yesterday, so he has probably been wanting to learn for a while.
I walk him through the process of getting out to the point where the waves are starting to break, telling him how to feel the waves and know when he needs to start paddling. “You’re going to miss a lot of the waves,” I warn him. “And even if you get up, you’re bound to fall. A lot. Just make sure you fall away from the beach so you don’t get hit with your board.”
He’s got a foam board, so it’s less dangerous than my fiberglass, but I’d still prefer he avoid getting whacked in the head if he falls forward instead of back. When I started teaching lessons as a teen, one of my first students got knocked unconscious by his board, and I’d never been so terrified in my life. The guy was fine in the end, but I’ve been more cautious ever since.
We get in position and face the beach, looking behind us for the next good wave.
“This could be it,” I tell Sean, grinning when he gets in the perfect position. “Okay, start paddling when I tell you, and as soon as you feel your momentum pick up with the wave, stand up. Ready? Go!”
He paddles wildly but doesn’t get up in time to catch the wave. He seems okay about the mistake and simply gets back in position, a little more eagerness in his face.
It takes three more tries before he catches a good one and gets up on his feet, and he rides a few yards before tumbling sideways.
“That was awesome!” I tell him when I reach him. I help him back onto his board, and we get into position again. “Do you feel how you need to balance?”
“I think so.”
After another forty minutes, we head back to shore, and Sean tells me he’s going to recommend me to all his friends the next time they come to Willow Cove on vacation. I smile and thank him, chatting for a few more minutes as I stow his board and help him out of his wetsuit, but I know I’ll never see him again. I rarely do. There have been a couple of people over the years who comeback, either for a refresher lesson or to say hi, but outside of the rich folk who have permanent summer houses here, Willow Cove tends to be a one and done destination.
I’m fine with that. Summers get crazy as it is, and the last time I interacted with a regular visitor, I got my heart broken.
With Sean gone, I return to the shop and grab my phone from behind the counter to check my messages, chuckling when I see several texts from Coop asking if Georgie and I have killed each other yet. I’m not going to bother gracing him with a response, especially because I watched him fly off with some tourists not long ago so he’ll be plenty busy for a while.
