I would never not say those words. I loved her fiercely, even if our relationship had changed.
By the time I found my suit, dressed, strapped my board to the top of my beat-up SUV and made it to the beach, the weight of the day was threatening to suffocate me. But as soon as I set my board in the water and slid on, my arms finding their rhythm in the familiar burn that came with paddling out, I began to breathe easier.
The surf in South Florida was far from glorious, but it worked for my purposes. It was one of my favorite ways to waste a day, connected with the water, with myself. It was my alone time, time to think, time to process. I used surfing like most people used fitness or food — to cope, to heal, to work through my issues or ignore them, depending on my mood. It was my solace.
Which is why I nearly fell off my board when Jamie paddled out beside me.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he mused, voice low and throaty. He chuckled at my lost balance and I narrowed my eyes, but smiled nonetheless. Everything I thought I knew about his body was erased in that moment and I swallowed, following the cut lines along his arms that led me straight to his abdomen. There was a scar there, just above his right hip, and I stared at it just a second too long before clearing my throat and turning back toward the water.
“Thought you had plans with Jenna.”
He shrugged. “I did. But there was a cheerleading crisis, apparently.”
We met eyes then, both stifling laughs before letting them tumble out.
“I’ll never understand organized sports,” I said, shaking my head.
Jamie squinted against the sun as we rode over a small wave, our legs dangling on either side of our boards. “What? You’ll never understand having a team who works toward the same goal?”
I scoffed. “Don’t be annoying. You know what I meant.”
“Oh, so you hate fun?”
“No, but I hate organized fun.” I glanced sideways at him then, offering a small smirk, and I grinned a little wider when the right side of his mouth quirked up in return. “I didn’t know you surfed.”
“Yeah,” he answered easily. “Believe it or not, us organized-fun people enjoy solo sports, too.”
“You’re really not going to let this go, are you?”
He laughed, and I relaxed a bit. So what Jamie was impossibly gorgeous and had the abs of the young Brad Pitt? I could do this, be friends, ignore the little zing in my stomach when he smiled at me. It was nice to have a friend other than Jenna. Where she made friends easily, I tended to push people away — whether by choice or accident. Maybe the Jamie-B-Jenna tricycle wouldn’t be so bad, after all.
But when I truly thought about that possibility, of having a guy as a friend, my stomach dropped for a completely different reason. A flash of Mom bent over our toilet hit me quickly, her eyes blood-shot and her truthful words like ice picks in my throat. I swallowed, closing my eyes just a moment before checking the waterproof watch on my wrist.
“We should try to catch this next wave.”
I didn’t wait for him to answer before I paddled out.
We surfed what we could, but the waves were sad that day, barely offering enough to push our boards back to shore. So eventually, we ended up right back where we started, legs swinging in the salt water beneath us as we stared out at the water. The sun was slowly sinking behind us, setting on the West coast and casting the beach in a hazy yellow glow.
“Where do you go when you do that?”
“Do what?” I asked.
“You have this look, this faraway stare sometimes. It’s like you’re here, but not really.”
He was watching me then, the same way he had the first day we met. I smoothed my thumb over one of the black designs on my board and shrugged.
“Just thinking, I guess.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
He grinned, and I felt my cheeks heat, though no one would know but me. My skin didn’t reveal a blush the way Jenna’s did. “Probably is. You should steer clear.”
Jamie chewed the inside of his lip, still staring at me, and opened his mouth to say something else, but didn’t. He turned, staring in the same direction as me for a few moments before speaking again.
“So what are you thinking right now?”
I let out a long, slow breath. “Thinking I can’t wait to get out of here, move to California, and finally surf a real wave.”
“You’re moving?”
“Not yet. But hopefully for college.”
“Ah,” he mused. “I take it you have no interest in going to Palm South University, then?”
I shook my head. “Nah, too much drama. I want a laid-back west coast school. Somewhere with waves that don’t suck.”
Jamie dipped his hand into the water and lifted it again, letting the water drip from his fingertips to the hot skin on his shoulders. “Me too, Brecks. Me too.”
I cringed at the use of my name. “It’s just B.”
“Just B, huh?”
I nodded. “You want to go to school in California, too?”
“That’s the plan. I have an uncle out there who has some connections at a few schools. You have a specific one in mind yet?”
“Not yet. Just somewhere far from here.”
He nodded once, thankfully not pushing me to expand on that little dramatic statement. We sat in silence a while longer before paddling back in and hiking our boards up under our arms as we made the trek back to the cars. The sand was a bit course under our feet, but I loved the way it felt. I loved everything about the beach, especially surfing, and I glanced over at Jamie, more thankful than I thought I would have been running into him.
He helped me load up after we rinsed off, strapping my old lime green board to the top of Old Not-So Faithful. And just like the reliable Betty that she was, the 1998 Kia Sportage failed to turn over when I tried to start her up.
“Great,” I murmured, my head hitting the top of the steering wheel. Jamie had just finished loading his own board a few cars away, and he made his way back over.
“Not starting?”
“Seems to be my lucky day.”
He smiled, tugging the handle on my door to pull it open. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
I didn’t know it then, but that one small gesture, those six small words, they would be what changed everything between me and Jamie Shaw.
Chapter 2
Buzzin’
As much as I loved the beach, I hated what it did to my hair.
I was a product of my parents, taking equal features from each. I had my father’s eyes, my mother’s hair, a smooth mixture of their skin tones. With my dad being white and my mom being black, I fell right in-between them with a creamy mocha latte. I was short like my mom and stubborn like my dad, and somehow I inherited the fiercest combination of their work ethic. My mom was petite, with virtually no curves to speak of and I mirrored her in that respect. I loved my athletic build, even if it didn’t grab the attention of boys the way Jenna’s hips did.
All that being said, salt water mixed with my hair about as well as water mixed with oil. I tried my best to tame it in the small visor mirror in the passenger seat of Jamie’s Jeep, using my fingers to try to breathe life back into the tight spiral curls. I wiped my fingers across my cheeks next, rubbing the leftover salt away. My gray-blue eyes looked tired that day, and I let them flick to the freckles on the apples of my cheeks for just the shortest second before flipping the visor back up and settling back in the leather seat.