Float, page 17
I glanced at Blake out of the corner of my eye. He was staring forward stoically, right at the back of Lena’s headrest. Why wasn’t he freaking out like I was? I mean, didn’t he care at all that I was about to break every bone in my body? Didn’t he care about me?
Please hold my hand.
The words threatened to tumble out of my mouth, but, to my relief, I managed to stop them. It sounded pathetic, even in my head. What was I, some damsel in distress begging my knight in shining swim trunks to come save me? I scowled at the dashboard of the Jeep and started chanting my mantra again.
I am fierce, I am independent, I am Beyoncé.
I am fierce, I am independent, I am Beyoncé.
I am fierce, I am independent, I am—fuck it, I need my Jay-Z.
I took a deep, shaky breath.
But before I could turn to Blake and make my pathetic request—Please hold my hand? I’m so very fragile and weak and willing to throw away decades of women’s rights movements—a tan, long-fingered hand appeared seemingly out of nowhere to cover my shivering right fist.
It is very possible that, in that moment, I flatlined.
“Hey,” Blake breathed softly, coaxing my fingers out of their death grip with his own. I glanced up at him; his bruises looked much worse when his eyebrows were furrowed like that, like he was concerned. His voice was quiet, almost a whisper, and I was positive Jesse and Lena couldn’t hear it over whatever ungodly pop song Lena was humming to on the radio. “Your fingers are gonna fall off if you keep this up.”
He forced a chuckle, his breath white-hot against my bare arm.
“Sorry,” I replied, my voice weaker than I had hoped.
Blake didn’t say anything, but kept his hand on top of mine. By definition it wasn’t exactly holding hands, but I’d take it. My mind raced a million miles a minute, but strangely enough, none of my thoughts were about surfing anymore. Instead, I found myself thinking about the three questions I could ask Blake. Our Scrabble agreement had been pretty simple: I got to ask three questions, and he could skip one but was required to answer two truthfully.
What should I ask about?
His mom? Alissa?
Me?
Suddenly the Jeep jolted to a stop, interrupting my scheming. I was thrown forward into the space between the two front seats but managed to catch myself before I face-planted into the dashboard.
That, kids, is why you always wear a seat belt.
“We’re here!” Lena hollered.
Chapter 14
From the edge of the parking lot at Marlin Cove, I looked down onto the beach. Lena and Jesse had dragged the box of wet suits halfway down the sandy slope and were both shrugging off their T-shirts. Blake was standing a little farther off, his hands tucked in the pockets of his black swim trunks as he stared out at the ocean. What a hipster. Didn’t he have anything else to do besides stare at the horizon and contemplate life? Like, for example, start stretching, so he could help me with my rain dance.
“Hey, Waverly!” Lena called.
I squinted down at her, shielding my eyes from the sun.
“Pick out your wet suit!”
Damn it.
I’d been hoping no one would notice that I hadn’t set foot on the sand yet.
“Coming,” I called back.
I tried to sound enthusiastic. I really did.
“Blake!” Jesse called as I trudged down to where the twins had set down the box of wet suits. “Let’s go, man!”
The roar of the waves almost drowned him out; the ocean, stretched out before us like a bluish-grey oversized carpet, looked menacing today. The water was choppy and filled with foam, and the waves were higher than I’d ever seen them before.
“Waverly, are you a small or a medium?”
Lena’s chipper voice snapped me out of my so this is where I’ll die train of thought.
“Uh.” I looked down at myself, almost like I was expecting a large S or M to be printed across the front of me. If I said small and ended up not being able to fit into it, I’d look like an optimistic fatso. Then again, if I said medium and it was too big, I’d be flapping around in an oversized wet suit. But that was better than looking fat. “Medium, probably.”
Lena tossed me a suit.
I twisted the fabric around for a moment. It was heavier than I’d been expecting—the lining was thick and the seams were double stitched. After a couple of minutes of examining the thing, though, I realized I had no idea how to put it on.
“Hey, Lena, how do I—”
When I looked up, she had already stripped off her shorts and shirt and had her legs in the wet suit.
I decided to follow her lead.
The wind whipped my hair into my face as I shrugged off my shorts, kicked off my flip-flops, and stepped into the snug legs of the wet suit. Lena noticed my struggle and handed me a hair tie. I formed a tiny bun on top of my head, then hiked the suit up to my waist. That was where my understanding of how to put the thing on ended.
There were ties and zippers all up and down the front, like a complicated menagerie meant to showcase my incompetence. I glanced over at Lena, silently pleading for assistance.
Blake stepped around me, oblivious to my struggle, and grabbed a wet suit out of the cardboard box. I pretended to be adjusting one of the elastic ties on the side of my suit and watched him strip off his shirt out of the corner of my eye. If I was going to drown today, I wanted to go out with a picture of Blake Hamilton shirtless burned into my memory.
The blare of a car horn shook me out of my ogling.
Jesse, Lena, Blake, and I all looked up at the parking lot at the same time. A large white Range Rover with several surfboards strapped to the top had just pulled in. Through the tint of the windshield I could make out Alissa Hastings, her hair impeccably curled and a pair of sunglasses perched on her nose.
“I’ll go help with the boards!” Jesse blurted.
I think I was the only one who noticed the sheepish look he shot over his shoulder before he started up the sandy slope, Lena lagging behind and mumbling something about making sure Jesse didn’t drop a surfboard on his toe again. Unable to help myself, I grinned and chuckled at his love-struck eagerness.
My happiness was short lived, however, when I found Blake scowling at me.
“What?” I demanded, the grin on my face disappearing.
Blake’s eyes dropped to my wet suit. It was still resting around my hips, the top part flapping around in the wind. The frown on his face deepened.
“Aren’t you going to put that thing on?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I huffed.
I reached for the sleeves of the thing and pulled them up, but they were twisted around. Blake watched me, his expression blank, as I spun in a circle, trying to figure out how to untangle the suit. Finally, he got impatient enough to step forward, grab me by the arms, and hold me still.
“Here, let me do it,” he said.
“Fine.” I sighed.
At Blake’s insistence, I held my arms out at my sides as he walked around me and untangled the sleeves of my suit, which I’d practically tied into a knot. He pulled the back of the suit up to my shoulders, then grabbed my right hand and guided it into the right sleeve. Once that was secure, he grabbed my other hand and poked it through the left sleeve. The material of the wet suit was heavy and rubbery, but it slid over my skin like cotton.
“There,” Blake said, stepping back around me so we were face to face. His blue eyes sparkled with triumph. “Now you just have to zip it up and—what’d you do to the elastic?”
I followed his gaze.
The elastic tie I’d been tugging on in an attempt to look like I knew how to put on the suit was poking out at my side, forming giant loops.
“Dunno,” I mumbled.
“Do me a favor,” Blake said. “Don’t touch anything.”
He dropped to one knee and reached for the elastic to untangle the loops. While his fingers worked against my hip, I looked up at the parking lot. Lena had two surfboards stacked on top of her head and was starting back down the beach. Alissa was standing against her car, her hands clutched over her mouth as she fought to hold back a laugh. Jesse was beaming at her, his arm slung around a surfboard he’d propped on its tail end.
Attaboy, Jesse.
I felt a sharp tug on my side and squealed.
“Sorry,” Blake said, not sounding in the least bit apologetic.
When he finished fixing the elastic, I thought he’d stand up and be done with it, but then his hands went to my other hip and started pulling at a different elastic tie.
“What are you—”
“It’s too loose here,” Blake explained, cutting me off and pinching at the bulging excess of rubbery fabric around my waist. “It’s supposed to be skintight. What size is this suit, anyway?”
“Medium.”
Blake’s lips twisted.
“Yeah, I guess you’re too tall for a small,” he said. “I think Lena might have an extralong one somewhere, though. You can try that next time.”
“Next time?” I snorted comically. “What, are you planning on burying me in a wet suit?”
Blake stopped fiddling with the elastic and stood up, so I was staring directly at his chin.
“You’re not going to drown,” he told me.
I glanced up at his eyes. They were soft, comforting.
“How do you know?” I asked.
I’d meant to sound snide and teasing, but my voice came out a little bit hoarse and very, very small. I sounded pathetic even to my own ears. Blake must’ve heard the fear in my voice, too, because he reached out and grabbed my chin between his thumb and forefinger.
I stopped breathing for a second.
“Trust me,” he said, his voice rumbling straight through his fingers and into my bones. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I took a deep breath.
“Promise?”
“I promise,” he replied.
I felt heat rush to my face and wondered if he could feel it beneath his fingers.
“Because, you know, if I die, I’ll come back from my watery grave to haunt the shit out of you, right?” I teased, trying to break the invisible tension that’d appeared between us.
“I figured you would,” he said, releasing his hold on my chin and tapping me once on the tip of my nose with his finger. It was painfully endearing.
“Blake!”
The high-pitched wail of Alissa Hastings shattered the moment. Blake and I both turned to see the offending girl skipping down the beach, her tank top billowing in the wind and her tanned skin glittering in the sunlight.
She was so pretty. It wasn’t fair.
“Hi,” Blake responded.
I turned to look for Lena, not wanting to witness Blake and Alissa’s interaction. I’d have rather put my own hand in a blender and made a cannibal smoothie.
“Long time no see, huh?” Alissa quipped. “I heard I really stole the show at Ethan’s house.”
The self-deprecation was unexpected. Even more unexpected was the little twitch of her eyebrows and mouth that betrayed the truth: Alissa was embarrassed that we’d had to rescue her from the party.
“I wouldn’t know,” Blake said. “I took a few punches to the head. Don’t remember much.”
He sounded . . . civil. Not flirtatious, not love struck. Just like he was talking to an old friend.
“I’m good, I’m good.” Alissa nodded, then set her hand against his arm, briefly, before letting it drop. “How are you?”
“Good,” Blake replied instantly, glancing over at me. I took the opportunity to pull my lips back into a grimace and stick out my tongue. I even crossed my eyes, just for added effect. The corners of Blake’s lips curled upward a little, like he was holding back a laugh, and he turned back to Alissa.
“Really?” she asked, eyebrows quirking up.
“Great, actually,” he revised. “I’m great.”
Alissa smiled. “Good. I’m glad.”
And she sounded like she genuinely was. Which made me feel like I was intruding on some very important getting over each other moment. I turned and looked for Lena, trying to resist the urge to grin like an idiot. Now Jesse and Alissa would be in the clear to have whatever sort of romantic relationship an idiot like Jesse could manage, and Blake and I could—could what?
I thought back to the note he’d left me.
I am also sorry for that thing I tried to do after you won Scrabble. I will not try to do it again, I promise.
He regretted almost kissing me. The thought blew a hole through my heart and sent it sinking into my feet. Just because Blake was single now didn’t mean I had any more of a shot with him than I had at the start of the summer.
I was still the weird, pale chick from Alaska.
He probably just wanted to be friends. But hey, that was better than nothing, right?
“Oh, hi there, Waverly!” Alissa said, as if only just noticing my presence. “I didn’t know you could surf!”
“I can’t,” I replied.
“I’m teaching her,” Blake interjected.
“That’s sweet of you!” she chirped.
It was right then that I realized Alissa Hastings naturally sounded flirtatious; she wasn’t trying to win Blake back, and she wasn’t trying to compete with me for his attention. She just had those eyelashes that naturally fluttered and a voice that naturally took on a squeaky quality. Which, now that I thought about it, was probably why she had so many guys falling for her.
Including a certain lanky goofball.
Jesse suddenly appeared at my side, kicking up sand and grinning from ear to ear. He threw a bony arm over my shoulder and flicked the bun on top of my head.
“You excited, Waves?” he asked.
Waves? Was that my new nickname? Oh, the irony: death by nickname.
“Superpumped,” I lied, throwing a fist up halfheartedly.
Blake’s eyes narrowed.
“Why don’t you guys all go ahead and hit the water,” he said, nodding at Alissa and Jesse. “I’ve gotta teach Waverly some of the basics so she doesn’t eat foam all day.”
Jesse gave me a squeeze and wished me good luck, then tagged along behind Alissa like a lost puppy. I watched the two of them meet up with Lena, who was already at the edge of the water, and pick out their boards.
I took a deep breath and turned to face Blake.
“Do you think they’d notice if we ditched and went to get some burgers or something?” I asked hopefully.
“You know I’d never let you drown, right?” he asked. I pursed my lips, pretending to think.
“Oh, c’mon,” Blake grumbled, reaching out to punch my arm so lightly I barely felt it. “Give me a little credit.”
“But what if—”
“No.”
“But you never know—”
“Stop.”
“But—”
“Waverly,” Blake said. “Shut up.”
I snapped my mouth shut and clenched my teeth, willing the nervous chatter to subside. Why did I always talk so much around Blake? I was the type of person who never put up their hand in class. So how come I could suddenly tell another human being—an attractive one, at that—everything?
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“It’s all right. You’re allowed to be nervous. Go grab a board.”
“What? Why?” I croaked in terror.
“Calm down,” he huffed, grabbing me by the elastic tie on my hip and dragging me farther down the beach. “I’m not letting you anywhere near the water yet. We’ll do the basics on land.”
I stumbled after him, my heart still pounding erratically.
Blake grabbed two surfboards and dragged them a bit farther onto the dry sand. I alternated between watching the muscles in his arms flex and staring out at the tumultuous ocean, where Lena, Jesse, and Alissa had already started paddling out to the taller and more violent waves.
“Hey, space cadet,” Blake called. “Get over here.”
I jumped and turned around to see Blake several yards up the beach, rubbing his hands together to rid them of sand. I hurried up the slope to join him.
“Which one’s mine?” I asked, nodding at the boards.
“The smaller one,” Blake said, tapping the board in question with the side of his foot. “Just go ahead and sit down on it.”
I plopped down on one end, the rubbery fabric of my wet suit screeching against the board. Great. That was so attractive. Before I even had time to adjust my seat so I didn’t look like I was straddling a plank of wood—which, essentially, I was—Blake was crouching in front of me, fiddling with a thin line of black rope attached to the end of the board.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s your tether,” Blake explained, holding up a circular band of Velcro. “This part goes around your ankle, so you and your board stay attached.”
“That’s good,” I said.
Yes, attached was good.
Please tie me to a flotation device before you throw me headfirst into the Atlantic Ocean to fend for myself.
“Here, give me your left foot,” Blake said.
But his fingers were already wrapped around the back of my calf and he had my foot a good several inches in the air. He wrapped the Velcro band around my ankle and pulled it tight, making sure it stuck. Then he let my foot drop.
“Are you sure it won’t come off?” I asked, tugging the band.
“I’m positive.” Blake swatted my hand away from my ankle. “Now roll over and lie down on your stomach.”
I climbed onto my hands and knees, and then, with all the grace of a beached whale, plopped down onto the board. Which, of course, was painful. Especially considering whoever invented the surfboard clearly hadn’t possessed boobs.
