Page 133 of A Love Letter to Whiskey
“I want to. I’ve been here almost two months now and still haven’t surfed. And that’s one of the biggest reasons I wanted to come to California, anyway.”
I tried…
I tried to get her to stay…
I tried to get us out of this…
At least, that’s what I told myself.
With a nod, I stood. “Alright, then. Go get dressed. I’m parked in the G Lot.”
I grabbed her board and headed for my Jeep, and I gave myself a stern talking to while I waited for B.
“She is not yours. You cannot have her. Let it go. Let her go.”
When she bounced across the lot to my Jeep with a blazing smile on her face, I knew it was futile.
We got her a wet suit when we made it to the beach, and then as the sun stretched and bid us good morning, we paddled out for my little surfer girl to catch her first wave. It felt like home, sitting next to her on my board as we talked and waited for the next wave, and we existed there — just the two of us — all morning and afternoon.
It was around two when she said she needed to get back to campus. I’d teased her about not being prepared for the Cali waves, only to be told shut the fuck up immediately by her delivering news that she had a date with Ethan.
I did my best to school my emotions when she told me, and we surfed one last wave before packing it in.
As we made the hike back up the boardwalk to the Jeep, we were both silent. But I felt it, already, the devil himself stirring inside me. I knew before it happened that I was about to do something stupid. I just didn’t know how to stop it.
I loaded our boards, throwing on a t-shirt and trying not to watch as B stripped out of her wet suit and slipped on an oversized sweater, instead. She still shivered a bit as she gazed out at the water, at the sun making its descent over the ocean. Her hair blew all around her, like a golden halo.
I slid up beside her, resting my elbows on the rail next to hers.
“I can’t believe we’re in California,” she breathed.
I smiled. “Together.”
She squinted against the sun when she turned to look at me, her gray eyes almost blue in that light. “Thank you for today, Jamie. Yesterday, too.”
“We’re just getting started,” I said.
We stood there a moment, both of us silent.
Kiss her, the devil whispered.
But I fought him off a little longer.
“By the way, I have to ask. How come you left the push-up bra at home? I was kind of looking forward to seeing you try to surf in it,” I teased.
She glared, nudging me with a smile playing at the corner of her lips. “It was a pool party, okay? I needed something a little more showy than my surf tops that make me look like a boy.” She glanced down at her chest then, as if she couldn’t see that she had plenty of cleavage for any straight man to appreciate.
“Oh, so you were putting on a show that night, huh?”
“Well, you see, someone had been ignoring me,” she teased back. “So I needed to find a way to get some attention.”
She scrunched up her nose, sticking her tongue out a bit at me, and I wanted to laugh. God, I wished I could have just laughed and got in the Jeep and held that just friends façade in place.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t smile. I couldn’t do anything but look at her with longing bursting from my chest.
“You don’t look like a boy, for the record,” I said.
She laughed, and the sound undid me.
I stepped closer, finally giving in to what I wanted. My hand slid into her salty hair, and she stopped laughing. She stopped breathing, and so did I.
“And I wasn’t ignoring you. I was avoiding you. I was trying to stay away.” I swallowed, searching her eyes before my gaze fell to her lips.
Kiss her.
My other hand slipped into her hair, too, framing her face.
Kiss her.
“I was trying to stop myself from doing this.”
I pulled her into me, claiming her lips with my own, and the devil cheered.
We both held our breath, the kiss so powerful it felt like the whole universe shifted with it. I half expected her to shove me away.
But she didn’t.
She pressed up onto her toes, wanting more, her hands fisting in my shirt, and mine gripping her hair tight as we both exhaled together. I became an animal at the sound of it, at knowing she wanted it, too. I sucked her plump bottom lip between my teeth with a groan, letting it go only to kiss her even harder, to slide my tongue along the seam of her lips until she let me inside.
