Float, page 19
“I don’t really—”
“You’ll do fine,” Blake said, moving his hand from my surfboard to my knee. I could feel the heat of his skin through the thick fabric of my wet suit. “Just one wave, and then I’ll take you to the best diner in Marlin Bay. Deal?”
I was hungry.
“Deal,” I said halfheartedly.
Lena giggled gleefully and started paddling farther out in the ocean, toward the bigger waves, where Jesse and Alissa sat. At first I was glad she’d left so I could fail in private, but when I looked over again, she was grinning and pointing in my direction, obviously trying to get Alissa and Jesse to watch.
I had an audience now.
“Oh God,” I groaned under my breath.
“What’s wrong?” Blake asked.
“They’re watching,” I whispered, nodding in their direction. Blake looked over my shoulder and huffed.
“You’ll do fine,” he said.
“I’ll fall off this damned surfboard, and then I’ll sink to my watery grave. I’ll wind up in Dennis Jones’s locker.”
“Davy Jones?”
“Yeah, him.” The corner of Blake’s mouth quirked upward. “What?” I snapped.
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s find you a wave.”
Blake turned and started paddling but looked back over his shoulder to make sure I was following him and not making a break for the shore. As if I was actually considering sprinting up the beach, breaking into Jesse’s Jeep, hot-wiring it and hightailing it out of here just to avoid surfing . . .
Preposterous. I didn’t know how to hot wire a car.
“Keep up!” Blake called back to me.
I made a point of sighing loudly before shoving my arms back into the ocean and paddling as hard as I could. Blake stopped moving for a moment and waited until my board was beside his before he resumed paddling, matching my pace.
“Why are you making me do this?” I grumbled.
“Because,” Blake said, “it’d look weird if you drove all the way out here just to sit on your board for five minutes and then ditch. No one’s expecting you to be a good surfer, Waverly—”
“Well, thanks.”
“But they are expecting you to try.”
Damn him for having valid points all the time.
I squinted at the expanse of ocean before me. The waves looked significantly higher than I’d ever seen them in Florida; the incoming storm wasn’t due for a couple of days, but the wind had already swelled enough to trigger a stronger tide. I watched a wave reach its crescendo fifty yards out, then come crashing down in a heap of foam. A couple of seconds later, the residual ripple made my surfboard bob and a piece of seaweed glued itself to my ankle.
“Oh ew.” I grimaced, kicking my leg wildly under the water.
“C’mon,” Blake said, ignoring my struggle and releasing his grip on my board. “Let’s get this over with.”
He began paddling out farther into the water. I dropped forward onto my surfboard a little too quickly, sending a splash of salt water directly into my face, and hurried after him.
The thing nobody ever tells you about surfing is that even someone who’s had years of practice can end up face-planting right into the ocean. One second I was staring ahead, trying to convince myself that I was looking at the ocean, not Blake Hamilton’s wetsuit–clad rear end. The next, I heard Alissa and Lena cheering Jesse’s name. By the time I turned to see what all the fuss was about, I only just caught a glimpse of Jesse standing upright on his board before he pitched to the side and tumbled into the water.
I tried to scream, but the sound came out wrong.
Blake turned to look over his shoulder—probably convinced that I’d suddenly decided to check the acoustics out on the water by practicing my yodeling techniques.
“What is it?” he asked, eyebrows drawn together.
“Jesse—Jesse fell! He—oh my God, he fell!” I cried.
Blake’s eyes drifted over my shoulder, then back to me.
“Surfers fall all the time, Waverly.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
If Jesse could fall, I was definitely going to fall.
“Did anybody call to warn the paramedics yet?” I asked, digging my arms back into the water as I tried to keep up with Blake. “Because they really should know someone’s about to drown out here. Or did you just skip ahead to calling the cemetery and telling them what I want carved into my gravestone?”
“Waverly.”
Blake’s tone was dark, warning.
“I’m thinking we could skip the classic RIP and go for something hip. You know, like YOLO.”
Blake stopped paddling and sat up on his board.
“I told you I wasn’t going to let you drown,” he said, turning over his shoulder to shoot me a glare. “Now stop being a smartass and hurry up. We just need one good wave, and then I’ll tell Lena the two of us are bailing to get you some food.”
The two of us?
As in, Blake was going to take me to lunch? Just me? No Jesse to interrupt with some dumbass question about whether or not we thought hot dogs would be advocates for democracy if they had functioning brains, no Lena to butt in with her bony elbows and shout at Jesse for being such an idiot, and no Alissa Hastings to sit there and shine like gold while I, in comparison, rusted away like an old penny?
I was going to have a heart attack.
“Let’s go!” Blake called.
I snapped out of my moment of possible cardiac arrest to find Blake Hamilton several yards ahead of me again. I cursed and plunged my arms back into the water, furiously trying to catch up with him but only really succeeding in splashing sea water all over myself.
We stopped a moment later.
I gulped when I saw how far out from the beach we were.
“What now?” I asked, cracking my knuckles just so I had something to do with my hands; I was worried they’d start shaking if I didn’t move. My nerves were going haywire.
“We wait for a good wave,” Blake said, narrowing his eyes as he scanned the ocean ahead of us. “I’ll tell you when we get one. You’re just going to keep on your stomach for a second, and when I tell you to pop up, you do it. Just try not to stand up all the way.”
“Why not?” I frowned.
“You’re too tall,” Blake said.
Ouch. That was like a punch to the stomach. As if I hadn’t already known I was practically monstrous next to someone petite and dainty like Alissa, Blake had to go and make that clear.
You take up too much space, I reminded myself.
“Yeah, I know,” I replied, my voice dry.
Blake shot me a funny look.
“I mean you’ll want your center of gravity lower to the board so you don’t fall over so easily,” he said. “I didn’t mean—”
He coughed, seemingly unable to finish his sentence.
Well, this was sufficiently awkward. I turned to the beach, hoping that if I angled myself away from the sun, Blake wouldn’t be able to see me blushing like a freaking tomato.
“Hey, hold on,” Blake said, grabbing the back of my surfboard and towing me backward until I was staring right up into those blue, blue eyes of his. For a heartbeat, I imagined him opening up his mouth and saying something sappy. Something that you only ever heard in bad romance movies. Something like, You’re just the right height. Instead, I got, “This wave looks good.”
My stomach damn near flipped over.
“Wait, I don’t think I’m—” I started to protest, but Blake was already on his stomach. He reached across and slapped a hand between my shoulder blades, forcing me to join him in the ready position on my own board.
“Keep low, okay?”
If you’ve ever ridden a roller coaster, you know what it feels like when you’re going up the incline before a steep drop. As the wave beneath us swelled, lifting our surfboards forward and up, I knew what kind of drop was coming. It was the type of drop that made your heart plummet into your feet and ripped a scream out of your throat. I just hoped it didn’t involve any splashes.
“Pop up!”
I barely heard Blake’s command over the roaring in my ears.
Somehow, as if on their own accord, my hands slapped down on the board beneath me and pushed my shoulders up. I swung my legs forward until my feet were planted beneath me and then I rose, my arms poised outward to steady the rest of me.
For a moment, I was flying.
And then came the drop.
I don’t really know what happened, and I probably couldn’t articulate it even if I tried. All I really know is that I must’ve looked really fucking hilarious to anyone watching as I tumbled forward, four parts flailing limbs and zero parts grace, and smacked my forehead against my own surfboard.
My arms and legs, splayed in every different direction, curled up and locked around the board beneath me in a desperate attempt to keep me from slipping into the water.
A wave crashed onto my back.
For a moment, I was submerged. I was trapped in a dark, cold, soundless void, and all I could do was cling to my surfboard. What felt like minutes but was probably only seconds later, Lena’s hearty laughter rang in my ears as I broke the surface again and bobbed, slowly and steadily, up to the edge of the beach.
I pried my arms out of their death grip on my board and rolled back so I was sitting upright. My legs only managed to stretch out a few inches before I felt sand squish beneath my toes.
“Good try, Waverly!” Lena bellowed.
I turned over my shoulder.
She and Alissa were doubled over in laughter, but Jesse was whooping and hollering and clapping for me. I offered them a weak wave, still not sure how exactly I’d managed to survive. I heard water sloshing at my side and turned to see Blake walking up to the beach, knee deep in the water, dragging his surfboard behind him. The ghost of a laugh hovered on his lips, and his eyes were bright and teasing.
“I must admit,” he said, “your surfing techniques are a little unconventional, but I’m glad to see you’re alive.”
I winced.
“On a scale of one to ten, how graceful was that?” I asked, suddenly very aware of the fact that Blake stood well over six feet tall and I was still sitting on my board, which hovered a good two inches off the ground. I had to squint to look up at him.
“A solid negative seven,” Blake replied without hesitation.
“Nice. So when can I go pro?”
“I’ll call the World Surf League immediately.”
We stared at each other for a minute, me enjoying the moment more than I should’ve, before Blake cracked a smile and offered me his hand.
“See?” he asked as I hooked my fingers around his. “I told you I wouldn’t let you drown.”
Being as oversized as I am, I’m used to people not being able to lift me up. I didn’t consider the fact that Blake, with his thick arms and swimmer’s shoulders, could toss me over his shoulder in a way a lot of people couldn’t.
So I overcompensated.
As Blake yanked on my hand, I planted my feet in the sand and pushed myself up. I was unsteady, partly due to the uneven ground and partly due to the fact that I still had that I’m about to die adrenaline rushing through my veins, and so I hurtled forward. My chest smacked against Blake’s, our wet suits squishing together with all the dignity of two soggy Pop-Tarts.
“Sorry,” I blurted.
I planted my hands on his shoulders and pushed myself back, trying desperately to escape the awkward situation I’d managed to create. My heel clipped the edge of my surfboard, which was still resting behind me in the shallow water, and I tumbled backward. Blake’s arms shot out to catch me, but he wasn’t quite quick enough.
I landed on my ass, hard, and the rear end of my surfboard sent a geyser of sea water into the air.
Lena’s laugh was explosive, even from out across the water.
“Are you okay?” Blake asked.
His lips quivered as he tried to hold back a laugh.
Lena was still cackling in the distance.
“You know what?” I huffed, clapping wet sand off of my hands. “I think I’m ready for that burger.”
Chapter 16
Blake and I dragged so much sand into the front seat of Jesse’s beat-up Jeep that the car could’ve been considered a mobile island nation. I felt guilty about the mess until Blake reminded me that Jesse had a collection of empty gum wrappers and used toothpicks in the glove box, so he had no right to complain about a little sand on the floor. Still, I couldn’t help but feel like a certified asshole as I dusted little grains from the crease behind my knees.
“Where are we going again?” I asked as Blake pulled the car out of the lot by the beach.
“Only the best diner in Marlin Bay,” he replied, tapping the steering wheel in time to the faint beat of the pop song playing on the radio. He paused at the edge of the lot and shot a grin at me, then hit the gas and took a sharp turn onto a cliff-side road.
“Do they have burgers?” I asked.
Blake nodded, still smiling. “Milkshakes too.”
“Drive faster, please.”
I sank back into the worn leather upholstery of my seat and closed my eyes, savoring the deep, rumbling sound of Blake’s laughter. For a moment, while I’d been peeling off my wet suit and Blake had been paddling back out to tell the others we were heading off for lunch, I’d been so worried about being alone with Blake in a car with nothing but a few feet of air between us.
The last few times we’d been sitting side by side like this, I hadn’t had sand in all my nooks and crannies and my hair wasn’t matted with salt water. And I probably hadn’t smelled like seaweed either. But even if I did reek of the ocean, Blake didn’t seem to notice.
Or maybe he did, and he was too nice to point it out.
We drove for two minutes before we passed a large sign made of driftwood painted with pastel blues and greens. Marlin Bay, it read in elegant white script.
The nice thing about Blake Hamilton was that he didn’t feel the need to fill the silence with mindless small talk. He was perfectly content to keep his hands on the wheel and his mouth shut while I watched the small seaside town roll by. We passed a little white stucco chapel and a gas station that looked like it’d fallen straight out of a ’50s movie.
Blake took a turn at a fork in the road, and we started down a street lined with little shops. Marlin Bay was so different from Holden; the town felt older and more sophisticated with its redbrick façades and black wrought-iron railings on second-floor balconies. Holden was a place for tourists and rich vacationers. Marlin Bay looked like the kind of place only locals and history enthusiasts would care to see.
“Where is this diner?” I asked, my eyes scanning the shops we drove past. I didn’t recognize a single one of them; they were all family owned and local. Not a McDonald’s in sight.
“Last building on the right,” Blake replied.
On the corner of the block, across the street from a small parking strip perched at the edge of the cliffs overlooking the ocean, sat a window-lined restaurant that looked like it’d dropped out of a small midwestern town from the ’50s. The exterior walls were brick and the awning over the front door was striped white and pale blue. Written on one of the awnings, in cursive script on a doily-shaped patch of orange, were the words Bayside Burgers. It was quaint, the type of place Aunt Rachel would’ve added to her Pinterest board in two seconds flat.
Blake pulled the Jeep into an empty space across the street, and my heart nearly did a backflip when I realized that we were separated from a fifty-foot drop into the Atlantic Ocean by only a less than trustworthy-looking wooden guardrail.
“Is it safe to park here?” I asked warily.
“I’ve parked in this spot at least a thousand times,” Blake replied, pulling the keys from the ignition. “Not once have I come back to find my car missing.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” I grumbled.
I released the buckle of my seat belt, tugged down the hem of my white T-shirt, pushed open the passenger-side door, and was promptly smacked in the face by a gust of wind. I spat hair out of my mouth as Blake exited on his side.
“Hold on one second,” he called as he started toward the trunk of the Jeep. “I think Jesse has some sweatshirts back here.”
I was still trying to figure out where the pieces of hair plastered to my lips were connected to my scalp when Blake jogged around the car, a sizeable bundle of wadded-up sweatshirts tucked under one arm. He held up the first—a navy-blue crew neck—and sent me an inquisitive look.
“Will this work?” he asked.
I grabbed the top and tugged it on over my head. The sleeves were several inches short of hitting my wrists, and the hem was so high it look like a crop top on me.
“It’s a little small.” Blake snorted.
I shot a glare at him, but it was really hard to be mad when he was grinning at me like that. I sighed and pulled the crew neck back over my head, cringing as I realized my hair was probably starting to resemble some form of wildlife. Blake was smart enough not to comment on my appearance as I handed him back the child’s size medium crew neck.
“Jesse really needs to clean out his car,” he said. “I’m pretty sure that was Lena’s when she was, like, eight. Here. Try this one.”
Blake handed me a faded dark grey sweatshirt with a hood—one that was big enough to slip on over my massive tangle of windblown hair—and frayed drawstrings. The sleeves were just a little long and the hem hit so close to the bottom of Rachel’s shorts that I was sure, from one angle or another, it probably looked like I wasn’t wearing any pants. But the sweatshirt was thick and warm and, compared to the crew neck, fit pretty well.
