Surge of Lust: Pleasure Point Series Book Two, page 7
I touched his hand gingerly. “I am so sorry. The whole thing was unreal. I tried to talk him out of marrying her. Stan’s mother and I both did.”
His eyes narrowed. “You know him?”
“Jax, it’s not like that.”
“Not like what? If he hadn’t brought her over, Tyler would still be alive.” His face clouded over dangerously. “This is not good.”
I faced him. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you and me.”
“He’s your best friend? That means you spend time with him and … This is not a conversation we should be having in public,” he said.
I wanted to reach over and wrap my arms around him. He looked like a wounded little boy, and it broke my heart. Just then, his phone alerted him to a text message. He snatched it up, and I could read the words: Buoy reading is 25 feet at 17 seconds. Dungeons is on!
He sat up straight and said, “I have to go.”
I placed my hand on his arm. “Right now? Why?”
He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “It’s the way things are in big wave surfing. When the waves are good, we go.” He peered at the phone, scrolling through to what looked like a tide chart app. “We’ll leave tonight.”
“Will you be able to get a flight?” Was this really the life of a big wave surfer? Jax was required to drop everything when the waves were good?
He drummed his fingers on the table, his foot tapping impatiently and signaled for the check. “Yes, we’ll get a flight.”
“How long will you be gone?” Shoot. Why did I say that? The way I said it sounded so whiny.
“We’ll have about five days of good waves.”
He paid the bill, pulled my chair out for me, and ushered me to his truck.
On the fifteen-minute trip home, Jax drove, pedal to the metal. I huddled in the passenger seat, anger radiating off of Jax in waves.
“Jax, can we …” I reached out a hand to touch his leg.
His tone was measured, “I know you didn’t kill my brother.” He smacked the steering wheel hard with the palm of his hand, and I flinched. “But why the hell didn’t you talk that best friend of yours out of bringing her here?” Jax’s right hand was on the steering wheel, his left hand balled into a fist. “My brother … He was my best friend.”
I wanted to die. I couldn’t imagine what Jax must’ve gone through. I’d read some of the news articles about Tyler’s life and death and knew that their parents were gone as well. Jax didn’t have anyone. “I tried to talk him out of it,” I said softly.
Jax’s face was red, a vein in his neck pulsing. “Yeah, well, why didn’t someone talk some sense into the guy? You know how hard it was for me when I lost my brother? Do you know how …” Jax’s foot pressed down harder on the accelerator, and the truck shot forward. “How empty I felt, how empty I still feel? Didn’t any of you notice how screwed up that woman was?” he screamed.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be talking while you drive,” I said. The way he wove in and out of traffic made my heart race.
His foot eased up on the accelerator. He stared straight ahead. “Maybe not.”
“Jax?”
He glanced at me. “Can we please not talk?” His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. He turned his head and looked out the window, breathing deeply but rapidly.
Jax screeched to a stop in front of my house, and I was mortified when I heard myself say, “Do I get to see you again?”
“Holly, I know you weren’t the one who married that nut case, but I need to be alone for a while.”
I hadn’t known Jax very long, only those few dates, but my heart broke for him. We had a connection. I could feel it in the way we looked at each other, with the ease we shared. Jax made me feel comfortable, like I wanted to play, dance, surf, and have great sex, and not just the one-off kind of sex I’d grown used to. I hoped that maybe we’d be able to somehow get past the Tatyana thing, that he’d talk to me, that I could help him. I didn’t know how Jax could truly achieve peace after losing his only brother, but I wanted to do anything I could to make him feel better. But he had not taken the news well.
Jax sped away, and I ran into my house, slamming the heavy door closed. I leaned against it, breathing heavily. I picked up my phone and called Stan.
“Hey bud, what’s up?”
“What’s up is that I finally told Jax who married that psycho who killed his brother.” The room spun, and I felt nauseated.
Stan exhaled heavily. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Why the hell not! Your dear sweet wife, that crazy bitch we all told you not to get involved with, murdered Jax’s only brother.” The room closed in on me as I staggered into the kitchen, the puppies at my heels. “Why the fuck did you have to marry her?”
“Holly, haven’t we been through this whole thing?”
“We haven’t even started,” I screamed into the phone. “Jax is a good man. I’m sure his brother was a great person too. What the hell were you thinking?”
“You’re out of line. You think I planned that?” He grew quiet for a moment. “You know, Holly, everything’s easy for you. You have great looks, you can have any guy you want, and life just seems to go your way. You’ve never understood what it’s like to be truly lonely. I’m not defending Tatyana, but you never seem to get that I needed someone. It’s not my fault she was insane.”
“But it’s your fault that you brought her to the states.” I strode through the living room and yanked the blinds open so hard the cord nearly broke off in my hand. “This is all your fault.”
“I’m hanging up now, Holly. You’re out of control.”
“You haven’t even begun to hear me out of control. I like Jax. And now—”
“What’ve you had, three dates with the guy?”
“Stop sounding so callous! It doesn’t matter how many dates we’ve had. You ruined what could’ve been a good thing.”
“Holly, I want you to listen to me—”
“I don’t have to listen to a god damn thing that comes out of your mouth. You screwed up bad. You killed that man.”
“What? You’re kidding, right?”
Anger burned through my body. “Do you want to know how upset Jax was when I told him? Do you want to know how it feels to know that your only brother, the one person you had in life, was murdered, poisoned, by some sick woman he’d only known for a couple of days?” I was on a roll. “Jesus Christ, Stan, why’d you bring that crazy lady over from Ukraine?”
Stan said, “Stop, you’re out of control. Don’t you wish I could take it all back? You think this has been a picnic for me?”
“Why don’t you take it back? “I screamed so loud, Stan’s ear drums probably burst. “Why don’t you quit living in your delusional world thinking that some hot babe from Ukraine is going to fall in love with the likes of you?”
“Holly—”
I knew I wasn’t being fair. Tatyana suffered from a split personality. Her alter personality was friendly, outgoing and personable. I’m sure that’s the side Tyler saw. “Thanks for ruining my life,” I said then threw my phone across the room.
Jax
My body thrummed with rage.
Why couldn’t things go my way just one fucking time? Was that too much to ask? I really liked Holly, and then she broke that news? She knew Tyler’s killer? On an intellectual level, I knew it wasn’t Holly’s fault, but that didn’t keep me from reliving Tyler’s death, remembering what it was like to identify his cold body as it lay on a slab in the coroner’s office, his handsome face bloated and purple. He’d clearly died in pain.
I paced my studio apartment, violent anger threatening to overtake me. I got out my suitcase and started slamming things I would need for my trip into it; passport, wetsuit, booties, pull over surf cap, rashguards, flotation vest, and my lucky charm, my Love Bone T-shirt.
I clutched the T-shirt to my chest and fell to my knees, slumped over my bed, a sob caught in my throat. Holding the T-shirt to my face, I inhaled deeply, hoping to somehow pick up a scent of my brother. But all traces of him were gone for good. Why? Why did he have to get involved with that woman? It’s not manly for a man, an athlete, a big wave surfer who everyone thought was larger than life, to cry. But I sobbed that night as I clutched the T-shirt that Tyler had given me. “It’ll be your lucky charm when you’re out there dropping into those gnarly waves,” he’d told me. I wanted to curl into a fetal position and stay there, but I couldn’t afford to wallow in grief because Dungeons called and I had a plane to catch.
For those who don’t speak buoy language, Buoy reading is 25 feet at 17 seconds means the waves are fucking huge.
The local fisherman think we’re insane for surfing out there. Directly in from the farthest west section of the Dungeons reef is a seal island named Shark Alley where thousands of seals frolic, creating a buffet for hungry sharks. Insanity sounded like a pretty good option right then. The swell looked predictable, and we’d have about a five-day window in which to catch the big waves.
The phone rang. It was Butch. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, took a deep breath, and answered.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself. You excited?”
I was silent. “Guess so.”
“What’s up, buddy? You sick? You sound stuffed up.”
I stared out the window. “I’m not sick.”
“Are you packed? Which boards are you bringing?”
I stood up, and my legs felt like lead. “You got a minute?”
“Sure, what’s up? You okay?”
“Not exactly.” I combed a hand through my hair. “You know Holly from Mystic Seaweed, the woman I’ve been seeing?”
“Yeah, you seem to really like her. What about her?”
“Well, I thought maybe we could’ve had something.”
“Well, that’s cool. Why’s this in the past tense?”
“She’s best friends with Stan Sutherland.”
Butch sucked in his breath. “You have got to be kidding me. What are the odds?”
As I paced the small room, heat surging through my body, I told him what had happened at dinner. He listened patiently as I ranted and raved. Then he said, “Buddy, this sucks big time, but we’ll sort it out. You know what you need?”
“What?”
“I think you need to surf.”
“I need to punch something is what I need.” My hand clenched and unclenched into a fist.
“Jax, listen to me, I know you’re angry. Hell, you’ve got a right to be, but—”
“But what?” My eyes flicked to Tyler’s guitar and his surfboard. “Our parents are dead, and Tyler was the one thing I thought I could count on and now he’s gone. And Holly is best friends with this guy?”
“That does suck.”
“Damn right it sucks.” Blood pounded behind my eyes. “I want to kill that Ukrainian bitch.”
“They say she’s sick,” Butch said.
“Oh, she’d be more than sick if I got a hold of her. She’d be drilled down to the bottom of the ocean and drowned under a hundred foot wave if I had my way.”
“Jax, you’ve got to calm down. Listen to me, this girl you’re dating, it’s not her fault the guy’s wife killed Tyler.”
I sat on the edge of my bed, head in my hands. I knew that if I was going to be able to live any kind of life with meaning, I had to come to peace with my brother’s death. “You’re right.” I took a few deep breaths and felt myself relax a little. Talking to Butch always calmed me.
Butch said, “We’re going to South Africa, we’re getting some gnarly waves, and we’ll talk. Jax, it’s going to work out.”
Suddenly, all I wanted to do was drop into the biggest wave I could find. The scarier, the better. I stood up. “You and me, we’re going to tear it up out there at Dungeons.”
We spoke for a few more minutes and made plans for Butch to pick me up on his way to the airport. The life of a big wave surfer was like that. We had to drop everything on a moment’s notice, which made it difficult to plan anything in life. Including relationships.
After we hung up the phone, I stood and wandered to my dresser drawer where I kept the photo of Rosalyn. Her smiling face looked up at me, and I smiled back.
I thought I’d put Rosalyn in the past where she belonged, but meeting Holly and having been reminded so much of Rosalyn, well, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about my love for Rosalyn in days. Jesus, I missed her.
On impulse, I opened my laptop and googled her name, as I had done periodically over the years. Rosalyn Richards. For a second I got excited because there was a furniture designer in Soho who had her name, but when I saw her picture, it definitely wasn’t my Rosalyn. I opened Facebook and typed in her name, only to come up with a girl living in Buloxi, Mississippi, who looked to be about thirteen, and a woman who looked like she could be my grandmother, living in Perth, Australia. Next I went to whitepages.com. Nothing. Sometimes I panicked, wondering if she was okay, but I had to respect what she wanted, and Rosalyn didn’t want to be found. I felt a pang at what I’d lost when I thought of Rosalyn’s warm eyes and her contagious laugh. I could still remember what it felt like to kiss her, to feel her warmth as I fell asleep next to her with a smile on my face.
Big waves had saved me. And it was with that thought in mind that I finished packing, eager to get out there and charge the monster waves at Dungeons.
* * *
I held on to the grab bar in the Land Cruiser Butch and I had rented. The truck bumped over the road, and I took in the landscape of the densely forested valley surrounded by mountains, expensive homes looming like sentinels. Sandy Farnsworth could buy a house here, I mused—a mansion where she could set up her private oasis with boy toys, far away from her husband’s prying eyes. I shook my head with amusement at the meeting I’d had with her. I had to give the woman credit. She was creative, she knew what she wanted, and she’d come up with a plan. She was probably searching for her next Jax Priest right now.
Jammin Energy Drink had us booked into a big house on two acres of the valley floor. There was a sparkling pool and spa, and I let out a low whistle when I walked in. It felt like a palace, so different than most of the places we’d stayed on our travels. If anyone thinks that the lifestyle and travel of a big wave surfer is exotic and glamorous, they’re wrong. We usually crashed out in sleeping bags on basement floors or on pull-out sofas on a fellow surfer’s living room. In Costa Rica we’d stayed in hostel-style cabinas, and toothless fisherman greeted us in the early morning light as we paddled out to the lineup.
Filled with adrenaline we pulled up to the surf break and raced down to the shore. Butch pushed the hair from his face, shaded his eyes with one hand, and said, “It’s insane.”
The swells were accompanied by the brutal fronts that created them. Most of our sessions over the next couple of days would be amid a mess of wind and chunky swell. Even on its prettiest days, the wave is unpredictable, and on its uglier days, well, I only hoped I’d live to tell about it. Standing on the shore, staring out at those waves, I was glad my mother wasn’t around for me to give grey hairs to.
Jet-lagged, but amped for the surf, I set out into the ocean with a handful of crew members. It was freaking loud and scary. I paddled up to Butch, who had gotten out a bit before me. “It’s fucking sketchy! I’m catching one and getting the hell out,” he yelled.
A sane person would have turned around and paddled back to shore. No one ever accused me of sanity, though, so I paddled furiously and went into the zone that I always reached when surfing big waves; the whole universe shrunk down to just me, my board, and the powerful ocean I was a part of. Nothing else mattered. I needed every last whit of strength I had. It’s why I trained so hard all year long. I was ready. Looking back on it, though, maybe that paddle out wasn’t my brightest idea.
A macker caught me inside, and my leash was pulled from the strings. My board washed into Shark Alley. I lifted my hand up, and a safety ski grabbed me. We fetched my board, and I reattached the leash and paddled back out. I waited about half an hour, while adrenaline coursed through my system, my head buzzing, my body on full red alert when another macker swung right to me. I whipped my board around, and paddled hard as the wave jumped. I looked straight down, my board clinging vertically to the face and realized I had put myself in a bad predicament. A chop caught the nose of my board at the top and swallowed it, sending me cartwheeling forward onto the wave’s pitching face. I flew backward and caught an upside-down glimpse of Sentinel Cliff. People say that when accidents happen, it feels like slow motion. I remember looking at the cliff and thinking, Neat view! There was a tranquil moment then I was over the falls and that monster wave smacked me down with a vicious explosion that compressed my head. I thought, Wow, you really do see stars.
Luckily, the hold-down wasn’t too long, maybe fifteen seconds, but the impact was brutal. When I broke the surface, I couldn’t judge up from down because my head was spinning. My board was, amazingly, still in one piece. I clung onto it just as Butch wiped out on the wave after mine and ended up near me. “You okay?” he yelled. I must not have looked okay because he headed me into the channel. Another wave on the last section nailed us and pushed us into the safety of the deeper water.
“Man, what a ride!” I said, whooping and hollering at my friend.
“Jax Priest, you are one sick bastard,” he said with a grin over the roar of the ocean.
I suppose I was one sick bastard. And you know what? I didn’t really care.
Holly
“Are you still mad at me?” Stan asked.
“I guess not. I really liked Jax, though.”
Stan and I were walking the puppies through Heisler Park in Laguna Beach, unwinding after a long day’s work. Heisler Park was one of the world’s most photographed spots, known as The California Riviera because of its majestic cliffs that overlook an expanse of brilliant, blue ocean. The historic Hotel Laguna stands front and center at Main Beach with green grass, vibrant flowers, and verdant palm trees swaying in the breeze.
