Page 10 of Wilder Love
“So, you have a training schedule?” Oz asked. “I thought you just surfed.” He scratched his head, baffled by the concept that you had to put the work in if you wanted to be good at something. I didn’t just want to begood. I wanted to be the best. “What did you do yesterday?”
“I surfed. Indo Boarded my ass off. Did an intense interval session at the gym and finished the day off with hot yoga.”
“What would you do if you couldn’t surf anymore?” he asked, presumably for this blog post he would never write.
“I’d die.” I was serious. Not surfing was inconceivable. Surfing was my life. Ilivedfor it. I wanted to still be chasing waves at ninety. I wanted to be world champion. So, sitting around talking shit with Oz wasn’t getting me any closer to achieving my dream. I eyed a bump on the horizon. It was going to be a good set, I could tell. “Are you ever going to start this blog?”
He bobbed his head. His long brown hair wasn’t even wet, proof that he’d been sitting around, drying in the sun like a lizard. “Yeah, sure. Tomorrow.”
Slacker.
I caught the next wave. A long, fast, bowling right. It never got old. The rush you get from a good ride. And that was when I saw Remy. Her wild waves of jet-black hair lifted in the breeze as she walked away.
When she reached the top of the staircase, she turned around and even from a distance, I could see those damn ocean eyes. Aquamarine rimmed by long, black lashes. I had never seen eyes like hers before.
Get her out of your head. She’ll only fuck with it.
For the next few hours, I worked on developing my favorite moves—aerials, tailspins, and 360-degree cutbacks. I zoned out everything around me and it was just the waves and me, competing against myself.
After a good day of shredding, my body was all loose and relaxed, my mind at peace. Until I stopped by my dad’s surf shop to pick up some wax for my boards.
The bell over the door signaled my entrance and she lifted her head from behind the laptop, her eyes on the door. The fuck? I stared at her then scrubbed my hand over my face as if that would make her disappear. Nope. Still there. Standing right next to my dad. She was wearing a cobalt blue Jimmy’s Surf Shack T-shirt. This was starting to feel like a joke, and the laugh was on me.
“Shane. This is Remy. My new employee.”
His new employee. Holy mother of God. My gaze narrowed on her. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“It’s nice to see you again too,” she said calmly.
“Did you know this was my dad’s shop?”
“How could I have known? I didn’t even know your last name. I’m not one of your groupies or whatever…” I glared. She planted her hands on her hips and exhaled loudly likeIwas puttingherout. “I needed a job. And I looked everywhere. Nobody was willing to give me a shot…”
“Why didyougive her a shot?” I asked my dad.
He gave me an amused look, enjoying my little exchange with Remy. My dad had a sick sense of humor. “I had an ulterior motive. Hiring Remy will benefit you.”
“I doubt that,” I muttered.
He set a stack of photos on the counter. “She’s going to work on your videos too. We’re shit at it.”
Grudgingly, I flipped through the photos. They were good. Better than good. And they were all of me. Which was… flattering? Weird? Fuck if I knew. “So, you’re not a groupie? Just a stalker?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not stalking you.”
“Remy wants to learn how to surf and I volunteered your teaching skills,” my dad said, barely holding back his laughter.
I glared at him. “Not happening.”
He was chuckling as he went to assist a customer with a wetsuit. Remy came around from behind the counter and I tried not to notice her mile-long legs in those tiny shorts, but I was all too fucking human, so I noticed, and I committed the sway of her hips and the shape of her ass to memory.
“I taught myself to skateboard,” Remy said, refolding a stack of T-shirts that had been rifled through. “I can teach myself to surf.”
“It’s not the same. You can’t just—”
“I wasn’t asking for your opinion.”
“I wasn’t offering to teach you to surf.”
