This Sky (12 page)

     She’s surprised, maybe a little impressed. “The junior tour? That sounds serious. Is it like some kind of surfing competition thingy?”

    
Surfing competition thingy?
I shrug in a way that I hope is off-handed. “Something like that.”

    I don’t tell her that a few years after the junior tour, I was on the pro tour and almost took home the ASP title. I don’t tell her that I was voted Rookie of the Year and that there was a six-page spread about me in
Sport’s Illustrated.
I don’t tell her that two years ago I earned almost a million dollars in prize money and was signed on for a five-year endorsement deal. I don’t tell her any of this because then I would have to explain about the drugs and the arrest and my guilt. And I’d have to tell her that I blew everything.

    Standing here, she has no idea who I am, and I have to admit that I like it. Right now, I am a clean slate—there are no expectations, no presumptions, and no judgment. And I have to wonder, if Gemma knew all of it, would she still be looking at me like she thinks I’m somebody worth her while?

    “At fourteen?”

     “Yes.”

     She offers up a bright smile. “That’s amazing. I mean, it sounds amazing.”

     Her tone is definitely curious and I can tell she’s about to ask more about surfing and the junior tour so I decide to take this conversation on a tangent. “So what were you like?”

     Her head goes to the side. She frowns, punches out her chin a little. “What do you mean?”

    “When you were fourteen,” I clarify.

    She lifts her face to study me and her eyes change, lightening to a metallic green. “I don’t know. Mostly I was lame.”

    It’s such an honest thing to say that something swells inside of me. “I don’t believe that.”

    “It’s the truth. I wanted to be an actress, if that tells you anything.”

    “Drama club?” I guess.

    “Oh yeah,” she confirms. “Drama club and camp and Shakespeare quotes. My parents are total nu-hippies, so that didn’t really help matters. I showed up with things like quinoa and flax seed granola bars topped with sunflower butter in my lunch box. I liked books more than a normal fourteen-year-old girl probably should, and old black and white movies, and Walt Whitman.”

    I’m getting the picture. “It doesn’t sound lame to me.”

    “I appreciate that, but get real. In high school these are not cool things.”

    “But you had friends?”

     “I had my family—my parents and brother,” she says, something in her eyes shifting. “And at school I had Julie, but that was pretty much it. The truth is that I spent a lot of my free time playing Gin Rummy and Crazy Eights with my elderly neighbor and her friends.”

    “Crazy Eights?” I laugh because I like the idea of Gemma playing card games with a bunch of old ladies. I’m picturing her at a round table with a cigar in her mouth and a bowler on her head.

    “Exactly. Barb made a mean apple crumble and was a shark with a deck of cards.” She makes a face. “How about you?”

     I can play Go Fish and that’s about it. “I’m okay I guess.”

     Gemma absently swipes her bangs from her forehead and snorts. “No, I meant, what were you like when you were fourteen?”

     “Well, I wasn’t playing Gin Rummy with a bunch of old ladies if that’s what you’re asking,” I tell her.

     “Right.” She nods once like she’s reminding herself of something. “Even then I’m sure you had the whole hot surfer vibe going for you.”

     I lift one eyebrow. “The whole
hot
surfer vibe?”

    “Don’t be coy. You know exactly what I’m talking about.” She switches into a terrible California surf accent and extends her pinkie and thumb in the Shaka sign. “Hang ten on that gnarly swell, brah!”

    I laugh. “Brah?”

    She laughs also. “Sorry, was that offensive?”

    “Nah,” I say, shaking my head. “I love being a stereotype.”

    “Just don’t tell me that you’re not aware that girls completely lose their minds over that kind of stuff,” she says, her voice going back to normal.

    At the moment, I’m only curious about what one girl loses her mind over. “I hate to break it to you, brah, but I don’t think anyone has said ‘hang ten’ in fifty years.”

    “I told you I used to hang out with my eighty-year-old neighbor and like old black and white movies. The old-timey jargon obviously wore off on me.”

    I laugh as I rotate her hand, letting my fingers remain against her sun-warmed skin for a second more than is necessary. “And when you do the Shaka, you always keep your palm facing your body.”

    She wrinkles her nose some more. “Sorry. If I’m being honest, I’ve avoided your people like the plague.”

    “My people?”

     “Yeah,” she says, smiling like the sun. “Your ilk.”

     I can’t help but smile back. “You know most people just don’t get it. There’s this feeling you have on a good surfing day. It’s you and the water and the air rushing all around you. It’s the closest I get to living all the way to the edges and only a surfer knows that feeling. Everything seems endless.” I pause to think about it. My eyes close and my free hand goes out to my side as if reaching for the water. “It’s pure oblivion.”

    When I finish talking, I worry that she’ll laugh at me for taking the description so far. But she doesn’t. She blows out a breath and says, “That sounds wonderful actually.”

    “It is. You should try it,” I say, noticing the way her dark lashes look against her light skin. For a moment, I let myself fall into a fantasy about putting my mouth there and feeling her delicate lashes flicker against the sensitive skin of my lips.

    “No way,” she says, blinking away the image.

    “Why not?”

    “Um…
because
.”

    “You live in California.”

     “So?”

    “That means you’re a Californian.” Now my heart is speeding up. Maybe it’s because five seconds ago I was thinking about attacking her with my mouth, or maybe it’s because right now I’m picturing Gemma on the water, a wetsuit clinging to every curve of her body and her wet hair trailing down her back.

    “And what does that mean?”

    “It means you have to try to surf at least once. It’s part of our state code of honor.”

    “Like a voting requirement?”

    “Right. It’s like cheering for the Lakers, hating Fresno for no real reason and thinking avocados and fro-yo make everything better.”

     For a moment, she goes quiet, considering it. “Have you forgotten that I fell off a stool the other night?”

    My chest rumbles as I recall the scene. Gemma splayed on the floor, her blue dress twisted around her thighs, her face on fire. “No, I haven’t forgotten. I don’t think I will ever
forget.” And I won’t.

    “Then you know there’s no way I could manage to balance myself on a tiny plank. On top of the water.”

    “Excuses, excuses.”

    “It’s not an excuse. It’s fact. Some things are immutable. Newton’s law of inertia. Kepler’s laws of planetary motion. Relativity. Gemma Sayers and athletics do not mix.”

    I laugh some more. Fuck. I like this girl. I like her a lot.

    “Just one time,” I urge her.

    “I’d have no idea what to do.”

    “I can teach you.”
Please say yes.

    She shakes her head. “It would be a disaster.
I’d
be a disaster.”

    “Everyone is bad in the beginning. The first time I surfed, I split my lip open and gave myself a black eye with the end of my board.”

    She points her finger at me. “Umm, if you’re trying to reassure me, you’re doing a crap job of it.”

    My chest rumbles. “I’ll borrow a wetsuit from Claudia and we can try later this week.”

    She stares at me with those multicolored eyes for a long moment. “I can’t imagine Claudia surfing. She seems more of the ass-kicking emo type.”

    I shrug. “She’s not half-bad actually. Our uncle was a big surfer back in his day. He made sure we were both on boards by the time we could walk.”

     Gemma thinks about this. She sucks her bottom lip in between her teeth.

    “Say yes,” I urge her in a low voice, my head swimming and my lips strangely numb. “Say yes,” I repeat, hating how much I want her to agree to this.

    She frowns and I can tell I’ve got her. I hold back a whoop of victory and wait for her to speak. “
Maybe
.”

    “I’ll take it,” I whisper quickly, before she can change her mind. “And Gemma?”

    She tips her head my way and moves her glasses up the bridge of her nose with one finger. Adorable. “Yeah?”

     I don’t think about it. I reach forward, lightly cup her chin and run my thumb against the soft corner of her mouth right where her lips meet. It’s rash but I can’t be sorry. Her skin is feathery under my touch and she’s close enough that I can feel her warm breath against my fingers. I think I even catch a hint of strawberry-flavored lip gloss.

     She laughs, but this time it’s a delicate kind of laugh. Almost like a sigh that changed its mind halfway through. “I had a hair?”

    “No,” I say, dropping my arm and backing away from her slowly, my eyes still holding hers. Wyatt follows, sticking close by my feet. “No hair this time.”

Gemma

The next few days pass by in a strange sort of blur.

    I spend half of my time crying over Ren and checking to see if he’s called or emailed me, and the other half obsessing over Landon and our morning at the beach. I remember the way his body had looked, glistening with sunlight as he toweled seawater from his skin. And I think of the feel of his fingers on my cheek and I catch myself shivering. Actually shivering.

    I tell Julie that my heart might be suffering some form of romantic schizophrenia. Her advice? Another scoop of ice cream.

    On Monday, I started my new job at Aunt Zola’s and discovered that waitressing is both exhausting and surprisingly fun. That first night, Claudia lets me shadow her as she waits tables. By Wednesday, I’m on my own with two high-tops and three booths.

    I keep hoping to see Landon at work or around the apartment complex, but on that front, I’m disappointed.

    I consider walking over to his apartment and just knocking, but I have no idea what to say. Should I make up some neighborly excuse like, “I’m in the middle of making cupcakes and am wondering if you happen to have any eggs?”

    Ugh. Everything I think of ends up sounding completely contrived, so I stay away.

    And I console myself with the knowledge that watching old movies with Weebit is far safer than opening myself up to another guy anyway.

    Just when I am almost convinced that Landon Young was simply a figment of my grief-addled imagination, he appears at the door in flesh and bone. He’s holding two surfboards.

    “Hey,” he says. “Are you up for your first lesson?”

    I have to blink a few times to make sure that I’m not seeing things.

    “You were serious?” I’m in my pajamas again and my hair is bad news. There’s a half-eaten bowl of soggy Cheerios in my hand.

    Landon, however, is standing in front of me in a pair of board shorts and a plain t-shirt looking like a modern day Greek god.

    He rocks back on his heels and my heart does a little flip.

     “You were serious?”
I ask again, thinking that just once I’d like this guy to see me when I’m not dressed like a hobo or falling off a stool. Is that too much to ask?

    “Of course I was serious
,”
he answers me, taking a step closer, his eyes searching my face. “Weren’t you?”

Landon

“One.”

    She rotates her arms.

    “Two.”

    She positions her hands flat on the deck just below her shoulders.

    “Three.”

    A spray of sand whips in the air as she comes up fast and throws both of her arms out for balance like I’ve shown her. She bends her legs at the knees to absorb the impact and centers her weight above the stringer.

    We’re on the beach and I’m taking her through a simulation of the pop-up. We’ve been at it for forty-five minutes and I’ve already talked about the basic mechanics of catching a wave and how to paddle out.

    “Well?” she asks, turning her head and looking at me expectantly. The sunlight catches on the dark gold
streaks in her hair and floods her eyes with an improbable glassy blue.

    “Better,” I say and step over the nose of the board so that I’m behind her, close enough that I c
an smell her shampoo and the sweat on her skin.

    “It felt better,” she says, nodding.

    “Good. Now, next time try turning your left foot out a little more.” I watch with an appraising eye as she repositions her foot farther out on the board. “And you’ll feel more stable if you widen your legs another couple of inches and arch your back even more.” I press my fingertips just above the waistband of the stretchy dark grey bikini she’s got on to the bare skin of her lower back. 

    She nods again. “Got it.”

    “I know you naturally want to look down to see where your feet land on the deck, but remember that if you keep your chin and eyes up you’ll have an easier time maintaining your balance.”

    “All right.”

    “And your hips,” I say, my hand skimming across the slope of her waist to align her hips with mine, “should be like this.” My thumb touches the edge of her suit and I have to fight to keep my fingers from pushing farther.

    “Okay,” she says, angling her neck so that my breath is moving over her ear.

    I swallow hard and force myself to take a step back. Shit, all morning, I’ve been questioning every move I make. Scratch that. I’ve been questioning myself all
week.

   
Should I go over and talk to her? Or is it best to keep away? My thoughts about her have been all over the place. On Monday, I even asked Tish to switch up the schedule because I wasn’t ready to face Gemma at work. I figured I’d end up staring at her the whole night. How juvenile is that?

    Really, it’s almost embarrassing how strongly I react to every movement
she makes. And being so close—touching her body, feeling her soft skin, watching her lithe muscles stretch as she pushes herself through the moves—has been a special kind of torture for me.

    Her eyes flutter and my stomach twists. She laughs and my heart pounds. Her fingers casually brush my wrist and my insides quake. What twenty-two year old gets buzzed and jittery like this over a girl?

    Gemma stretches her back, inadvertently pushing her chest forward. “So, sensei, what’s the verdict?”

    “You’re doing really well,” I tell her, my eyes cutting away so I don’t get caught staring
at her breasts.

    She blows out an irregular breath and rubs her hands together. “Thanks. This is even harder than I thought it would be and I’m not even on the water yet.”

   
You can say that again.

    “It is hard,” I find myself saying, “but once you figure it out, there’s nothing like it. Everything else disappears.”

    “Oblivion?” She has her hand cupped over her eyes to block the sun. A light wind picks up, whipping around us, blowing the ends of her hair against my forearms.

     “That’s right,” I say, smiling and reaching for our wetsuits. “So, are you ready to paddle out and see what you can do?” 

    “Now?”

    I look back and see that her jaw is agape. “Yes, now.”

    With a dubious head nod, Gemma takes the wetsuit we borrowed from my sister and sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. “Do you really think I can do this? Don’t I have more beach work to do? I thought it would take a week to work our way to the actual water.”

    Working my foot into my own suit, I nod and point out to where the waves are breaking in an easy, predictable rhythm. “You’re not going to get much better conditions than this. And those guys out there are mostly beginners so we don’t have to worry about anyone getting too aggressive.”

    She blinks. Half under her breath, she asks, “Aggressive?”

    “Well, surfers can be territorial about their breaks, but out there,” I say, lifting my hand and pointing to the dozen or so people out on the water, “no one looks very serious. They’re just having fun.”

    “How can you tell?”

    “Trust me,” I say to her. “These waves are too mushy for anything intense.”

    She scrunches up her nose. “Mushy?”

    “It means that they’re soft and moving slow—perfect for learning.”

    “Okay.” Her voice is full of uncertainty, but she starts to wiggle her foot through the leg of her wetsuit.

   
“Here, let me help you. Actually, if you turn it inside out, it’s a lot easier to pull it up over your feet.”

    Gemma looks at me like I’ve just given her instructions in Mandarin. “Turn it inside out? How do I get it on if it’s inside out?”

    I laugh and move toward her. “Like this.”

    There’s no way to be delicate about this. Wetsuits are intended to be tight, like a second skin, and putting one on is very physical. As I help her squeeze into the thing, my hands have to touch her. Everywhere.

    Carefully, I slide my palms up her long legs, tugging the supple neoprene over the fine rise of her ass and smoothing it over her hips. I bite back a groan. The material is slick—cool black oil masking her pale, creamy skin.

    
When her arms are in place, I gather her dark hair in my hand and push it over her shoulder. My fingers gently brush along the nape of her neck, touching that tiny, sensitive place where her jaw meets her ear.

    Gemma sucks in a tight breath and releases it slowly.
I do the same.

    “Thanks,” she says over her shoulder, attempting a crooked smile.  

    “No problem.” I zip her up and step back. My chest is rising and falling more than it should—more than is normal.

   
Pull your shit together, assclown.

    I bend down and hoist both of our boards from the sand. I cradle the Driver under my arm, but stand the longer board—the one I brought for Gemma—upright. “I’ve got you on the longer board for stability. That’ll keep you from bogging even on waves that are moving at this speed.”

    Now she turns to look at me fully. Her face flickers. “Bogging?”

    “It’s basically the same thing as sinking. In surfing, the slower you’re going, the more likely you are to bog under the water.”

    Her eyes pull together. “But—”

    “
But
,” I stop her. “You’ll be on a longer board with thicker rails. One—because it’s less squirrelly when you’re trying to learn how to balance. And two—it’ll hold more weight at a slower speed.”

     “Landon, I can’t even remember all the terms you’ve taught me. I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

    “You’re ready,” I tell her in what I hope is a reassuring tone. “And you don’t have to know the terms to surf. Just try to keep your arms alternating when you paddle and stay far enough back on the board so the nose stays flat on the water. My suggestion is not to even attempt to get all the way up the first couple of times. Stay on your knees.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I cringe.
Nice sexual innuendo.

     Luckily, Gemma doesn’t pick up on it.
She croaks, “And if I fall?”

    “
If
you fall? You mean
when
you fall.”

    She buries her face in her hands and mewls like a cat.

    I laugh and say, “You’re going to fall more than you stand for a while. When it happens, try to move back and away from the board so you don’t hit your head. And keep in mind that it’s just water. At the speeds we’ll be going today, you have nothing to worry about.”

    Gemma peeks at me through a slit in her fingers. Damn, she’s cute.

   “And where will you be throughout all of this?” she asks me warily.

    She doesn’t need to be scared or
stressed out about anything. I’m finding that I want her to have fun. I want her to love this as much as I do.

    I bend so that our faces are level because she needs to know that I’m serious, that I mean what I say. Gemma blinks, her
clear, attentive eyes locking onto mine. I have to stop and swallow hard because it feels like my chest might explode. “I’ll be right where you are. The whole time.”