Chapter 26
The sun has barely risen, but Parker is outside my window clad in a slick wet suit. He’s holding a coffee, and it’s the only reason I let him in.
“Let’s go catch some waves.”
“I just wanna read on the beach,” I groan dramatically.
“You can read on the beach after you catch some waves.”
Reid is here too, also in a wet suit, but his looks two sizes too small. “Addie, if I can surf, so can you.”
He’s deathly afraid of sharks. I’m admittedly surprised he would even consider surfing. The last time we were at a beach, he barely dipped his toes in the water. “I don’t have a wet suit.”
Reid, standing halfway out of the van door, bends down and hands me a hot pink wet suit. It looks tiny—there’s no way I’m going to get it up over my hips. Parker must sense my apprehension to the size. “They’re all small, Addie. That’s like, kind of the point.”
The fabric is stiff, with almost no flexibility to it. “I can help you if you want,” Reid offers. His hand is up in his hair, and his bicep is straining against the fabric.
I shoo them both out and try to squeeze myself into the thing. Underneath, I have on a bikini I would not have chosen if I had known I’d be surfing. I know how to surf, but not very well. I’m dying to spend the day lying on the beach. At least if we’re in the ocean Reid can’t make me run ten miles.
My toe is throbbing—I stubbed it on the back of a cabinet trying to jump into this straight jacket. It’s up over my hips, so the hard part is over. I’m panicking thinking about having to peel this off of my skin once it’s wet and molded to my curves.
Almost dislocating my shoulder, I try my best to zip it before I give up and go ask Parker. Reid is standing right outside my van holding my coffee and his own. He probably saw me shaking the whole damn van trying to get this shit on. Now I have to fucking ask him to zip me up.
“Can you, uh…?”
He nearly drops one of the coffees. “Yeah, uh, turn around.”
Hot breath tickles my neck as he slowly slides the zipper into place. The baby hairs on the nape of my neck are standing up straight. My skin craves more connection, and I almost turn back around. Reid swipes his hand up under my messy hair and brushes it to one side.
“Hold this,” he grunts. “The zipper is lost in here.”
I grip onto the ends of my hair like some sort of lifeline. This all feels way more intimate than it should. It’s innocent, just one friend helping the other get dressed. There’s nothing sexual about it.
His hand dips between my bare skin and the edge of the wet suit. I know he’s looking for the zipper—it’s innocent—but I swear he lingers there. Reid’s fingers feel worlds better than Callum’s ever did. It’s not even a competition.
Parker chooses this moment to walk over to us, right when Reid’s forearm is halfway down the back of my suit, and I’m blushing hard. “What are you two doing there?”
Reid yanks his arm free. “I found it.”
Our blonde friend is laughing. “Found what?”
We both sheepishly defend ourselves, and Reid turns me around so my back is facing Parker to show him the closure piece. He’s still laughing as he hands us each a borrowed board and leads us down the dune to the shoreline.
Together, Parker and I give Reid a crash course on how to stand up on the board. I’ll be impressed if he manages to even sit on his board out there, and I certainly don’t expect him to try and stand up, but Parker insists.
We critique Reid as we watch him practicing how to balance properly.
His board is sitting on the dry sand, and we critique as he launches into a squat over and over.
Every other time he does it, he switches his footing—he can’t seem to decide if he wants to ride with his left foot first or his right.
It’s hard to hold back a laugh. I’ve never seen a professional athlete look so uncoordinated, and we’re not even in the water yet. He clamps a handful of sand in his fist on his next rise and throws it right at me. “Adelaide, it’s not kind to laugh at people.”
“I’m not. I swear.” It comes out broken.
“Bad girl.”
My stomach clenches a bit at that, and I grasp at the front of my suit. Parker wraps the leash around Reid’s ankle. “Alright. I think it’s time to cool off.” Parker has the wrong idea here. This whole thing between Reid and I is one-sided.
Reid is gasping for air as he paddles over the crashing surf. You’d assume that with arms as big as his, he’d have no issue doing this, but he looks like he has genuinely forgotten how to swim.
He lays his head down on his board, and a small crest lifts him slightly into the air, damn near knocking him off. “I’m a lost cause.”
Parker abandoned us a while ago. He never was a very good teacher. Surfing comes so naturally to him that he has a hard time comprehending how challenging it is for everyone else. He’s been surfing since he was a literal toddler, to him it’s as easy as walking. Maybe even easier.
I don’t want to offend Reid, but I do genuinely think he should give up. We’re straddling our boards side by side, letting the ocean bob us up and down a little. He’s staring into the water below him, and I can tell he’s doing his best to hold back his terror.
“Why don’t we go in and get some lunch?”
Relief washes over Reid just as an actual wave does and knocks him off his board.
He’s flailing like a little kid, and he nearly punches me in the face as I try to help him up.
Finally, I manage to push his massive body back onto the surfboard, and he spits salt water at me. “Sorry, that was embarrassing.”
My hand rests on my hip and I hold my chin up high as I giggle. “Yes, yes it was.”
It’s unfortunately satisfying seeing him finally struggle with something—a piece of karmic revenge for his typical perfection.
Eventually, I help him catch a tiny little wave so he can make it back to shore.
He doesn’t even attempt to stand up, and I’m relieved by that.
I catch a slightly bigger wave behind him and coast until my board hits the sand and I casually dismount.
Reid is staring at me with his mouth slightly agape. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“There’s more to me than meets the eye, Hastings.”
“Oh, don’t I know it.”
I’m blushing, and it’s not just because of his words.
He’s unzipped his wet suit, and it’s hanging low on his hips.
His hard abdomen leads into a delicious-looking V that disappears into his pants.
There’s a small mark of black ink I don’t think I’ve ever seen before near his left hip bone.
I find myself wishing he’ll ask me to take a picture of this so I can look at it again later.
I don’t have long enough to commit this sight to memory, but I want to…
I’m leaning in closer than I should to see what it is when he notices and yanks up his wet suit. “Don’t objectify me Blondie.”
He hasn’t called me that since before his crash.