16. Garrett
16
Garrett
“ W e’re cousins…who work together,” Emma stammers out, “…at our grandfather’s hardware store back in Colorado.”
Katie’s gaze shifts between me and Emma. I can’t blame her for being confused, and it’s not my fault that Emma refused to talk to me all morning. We should have come up with a story before we arrived.
“That’s so cool!” Katie says with an odd amount of enthusiasm. “What’s it called?”
Silence.
Emma’s gaze slides over to me as if she’s looking for help. I offer nothing but a raised eyebrow that says Nope, all you .
“Gramp’s Goods,” Emma says around a bite of her burger.
“Gramp’s Goods?” Katie repeats with a laugh. “That’s so funny…and so specific.”
“Yeah, well it’s a really small town. He’s sort of like everyone’s grandpa there, you know?” Emma rambles.
“I thought your reservation said you guys are from Denver?”
“Must be another typo,” I interject.
Katie beams at me as if I just recited a Shakespearean sonnet to her. She blushes over the millisecond of mutual eye contact and tucks some hair behind her ear.
Just what I need – a woman making googly eyes at me right in front of the woman who I kissed last night.
Correction: the employee who I kissed last night.
What a fucking mess.
I cram the last bite of burger into my mouth and stand up to toss my plate in the trash. I really need to have a word with these tour operators about their green initiatives if I decide to partner with any of them. But right now, I need somewhere to breathe outside of Emma’s orbit. It feels like she’s stealing all my air...or maybe I’m willingly giving it all to her.
Walking away from Emma in the hotel room last night was hard, but knowing that it can never happen again is harder. I can’t stay away from her. Not completely. The only defense I’ve had since she walked into my office a year ago is the knowledge that nothing would ever happen between us. That defense is shot to hell now. Something did happen. The woman who supposedly hates my guts melted into my touch. She invited me into her room and kissed me back. Now that I know how she tastes, how she feels, I’m finding it hard to think of anything else. All I can do is try to keep my distance, but that’s pretty hard to do when we’ll be sharing a tent for the next four nights.
My gut twists as I step inside the stupidly overbuilt tent and see the bed.
This is such a bad idea.
We should have left. We still could if Emma would stop being so stubborn.
Yeah, that’s not going to happen.
I sigh and walk across the room to the wetsuits that are hanging next to the dresser. It’s ridiculous that this tent has a full-sized dresser. Or any dresser at all. Admittedly, I was sort of amused by this place initially. Leave it to Emma to find a way to camp without actually camping at all. But now that I’m staying in this idiotic tent too, I find it much less charming.
Katie told everyone to change into our wetsuits after lunch, and I figure now’s as good of time as any. Emma is a slow eater, so she won’t walk in on me changing. Probably.
Yet another complication of sharing a room with her – having to figure out when the other person is likely to be in some state of undress.
I make quick work of stripping down to nothing and pulling on the wetsuit. These things never fit me quite right. Too tight in the shoulders and too short in the ankles. I’m just pulling the zipper up by the cord in the back when I hear the rusting of canvas fabric behind me, followed by a muted gasp.
“Sorry,” Emma says, backing out of the tent. “I didn’t know you were in here.”
“It’s fine. I was just finishing up.”
Emma lingers in the doorway of the tent, chewing at the inside of her cheek.
“I guess we should devise a system for this sort of thing,” she says softly, as if speaking too loudly would cause the tent to implode.
My confusion must be etched all over my face because she quickly adds, “For changing, I mean. It’s not like we can knock.”
She raps her knuckles on the canvas beside her to prove her point.
“It’s cloth. You could have just asked if I was in here and I would have heard you.”
“Right,” she mutters with a slow nod of her head.
“All yours,” I say, shoving my clothes into my bag and start toward the door – or lack thereof.
I should offer to help her. These things can be difficult to put on.
What am I thinking?
No, dumbass. Offering to help Emma slide her almost naked body into skin-tight neoprene is not a good way to keep my distance from her.
“I’ll just be outside if you need anything,” I say.
Why do I say that? No clue.
What could she possibly need from me? Unclear.
The only thing that is clear is the fact that I need to get out of here. Emma looks slightly concerned as I brush past her. The ocean breeze fills my lungs and eases some of my tension as soon as I step outside. I sit on the weird mound of decorative pillows and drag my hand over my face.
Rustling and zipper sounds and a tiny yelp come from inside the tent. Like I said, those things aren’t easy to get into.
A few minutes later, Emma emerges wearing her wetsuit. She seems surprised that I’m still sitting there.
“You look uncomfortable,” she says.
She has no idea. These bedazzled pillows are the least of my problems.
“Ready to go?” Emma asks.
I nod and stand up, trying not to notice the way the wetsuit sticks to all her curves. We make our way down the sandy path without another word. Once we hit the beach, we’re swept up by the instructors and the crowd. The buzz of excitement is palpable as everyone lines up on the beach with their surfboards.
After listening to My Dude rattle off an hour’s worth of safety information that he’s clearly memorized off a pamphlet, we spend the rest of the afternoon practicing popping up and paddling out. Katie pays way too much attention to me, considering that I’m clearly the only person here who’s surfed before.
My Dude splits his attention evenly between all of the women. Every time he makes his way over to Emma to correct her form, I want to hit him over the head with my surfboard. Not violently, just a little warning bop on the head. But I’ve already shoved a guy because of Emma on this trip. Beating up every guy who looks at her would probably be bad. Todd deserved it, of course, but My Dude doesn’t. He’s just doing his job, which apparently involves holding onto Emma’s hips while she laughs at his jokes.
“You’re a natural,” Katie says with a big smile. It’s the third time she’s come over in the last twenty minutes.
“Yeah, uh, I’ve surfed before.”
“Oh really? Where?”
“A few places. Costa Rica, North Shore…”
Katie’s eyebrows fly up and she cuts me off. “Wow, really? That’s, like, my dream. I’d love to surf the North Shore one day.”
“Yeah, it’s great,” I say.
She gives me a dreamy look, but I’m not sure it’s the North Shore she’s dreaming of.
Katie seems nice enough. Under different circumstances, she might be the type of woman I would date. The type of woman I’d convince myself was right for me, only to find myself uninterested after a few dates.
But right now, I have way too much on my plate.
Like watching Emma get felt up by My Dude under the guise of surfing lessons.
And hating myself for caring so much that Emma is getting felt up by My Dude.
And being torn between kicking myself for not sending her home when I had the chance and wanting to spend the next four days locked away in the stupid tent with her.
Once they tell us it’s time to paddle out, I paddle way out. I catch a couple decent waves while everyone else wades closer to shore. It feels good to surf again. It’s been a few years since I’ve had time to do this. It’s not something I grew up doing, but I fell in love with it on my first trip to Costa Rica with Ethan ten years ago.
It’s a welcome distraction from thinking about Emma. I watch the waves rise up and crash down, waiting for one worth jumping on. I let the sound of the water drown out my thoughts. I let the sea breeze wash away my worries. For a few hours, I can almost forget about this whole mess I’ve created for myself.
Of course, that’s shot to hell the minute the water carries me a little closer to shore. Emma’s there straddling her board, legs dangling in the water. She’s laughing at something one of the nearby women just said. Her hair hangs in a soggy braid over one shoulder. Her wetsuit clings to every curve, and suddenly I’m very jealous of a surfboard.
I’m in hell.
Emma loves to joke that I’m the devil. Normally, I’d say that’s a little harsh. I know my particular brand of quiet is often misconstrued, and it doesn’t help that I’m in a bad mood more often than not these days.
Okay, these years .
Maybe she’s right. Maybe I am the devil. It would explain why I seem to be trapped in my personal hell, or at least some level of purgatory. Maybe this is the price I have to pay for checking Emma out the day I met her.
People say that love and hate are closely related, but I think that’s bullshit. We toed the line between the two last night, and Emma only came away from it hating me more. I can’t help but wonder if the scales tipped the opposite way for me. I’m not saying I’m in love with Emma, obviously. That would be insane. But I’m finding it difficult to convince myself that I’d be better off hating her back.