Chapter 23
“Ifeel like such an idiot,” I say as I propel myself forward. “Here I am paddle boarding while those guys surf big waves around us.”
I turn over my shoulder, watching some guy ride the surf.
“Paddle boarding is cool too,” Remi says.
She’s like some kind of balance goddess. Her board never wobbles or even acts like it’s unstable.
“Yeah, right.” I use my paddle to point to the surfers. “If you were given a chance to come to Galveston with one of those guys instead of me, you would’ve chosen them.”
“Actually, one of them did invite me to come to Galveston with them, but I’d already said yes to you, so I couldn’t go. I could be surfing right now if it wasn’t for you.”
I push my paddle into the water, sending a spray up to Remi. “Don’t lie to me.”
She flinches, but the threat of falling isn’t even a problem.
Her eyes go wide with excitement. “Do you know what would make paddle boarding even cooler?”
“What?”
Her lips creep into a big smile. “Yoga.”
“Somehow, I knew you would say that.”
“We’re going to do yoga poses on the board and impress all of those surfers.” She shifts her weight and moves to one foot. “The first pose we’re going to do is the warrior III.”
I watch as she slowly leans forward into a tabletop position with her arms extended out in front of her.
“Don’t you think we should start with warrior I or II first?”
She laughs but doesn’t break from her position. “It”s your turn.”
I try to copy what her body is doing, but the second I dive forward, I lose my balance and awkwardly flail into the water. When I come up, Remi’s laughing at me.
“You need to find your center,” she says.
I swim over to my board, hoisting my body out of the water. “It’s not as easy as it looks.”
“That one was easy.” She moves her body so her forearms are against the paddleboard and slowly lifts her legs until she’s in some kind of handstand. “This one is much harder,” she grunts, trying to hold the pose.
I shake my head. “You’re incredible.”
Her legs slowly come back down to a kneel. She shoots me a cocky smile. “Are you impressed?”
“I’m more than impressed. I love you, Remi.”
Whoa.
I wasn’t planning on saying that.
I feel it. In fact, I’ve been feeling it for several months now, but I haven’t said anything because I didn’t want to freak her out. Remi isn’t the type of person who says ‘I love you’ after only six months of dating. You have to ease her into it.
Her eyes widen, and I know there’s no way she’s ever going to say it back to me. All I can do now is minimize the damage.
“Don’t freak out,” I say. “And you don’t have to say anything back. Let’s just leave that out there, and we’ll talk about it someday when you’re ready.”
She bites her lip. “Okay.” She looks around nervously. “What do we do now?”
“We pretend like that never happened and keep paddle boarding.”
She nods.
I’m learning with Remi. Sometimes I need to pull her closer, and sometimes, I need to back off.
This is one of those times when I need to back off.