4. Dane
FOUR
Dane
L ast month when I told my agent Lance I needed to come home, he almost had a coronary. He went as far as straight up trying to forbid me from traveling, like I was a naughty child. I shut him down real quick though.
My family will always come first, and when my mom called and told me Dad suffered a major heart attack, I didn’t hesitate to pack my bags.
I told Lance if it came down to it, I was prepared to walk away from it all. In the end, we compromised. In return for me being here while Dad recovers, I have to give surf lessons for a PR boost.
Which means instead of hitting up Dante’s for a ham, egg, and cheese sandwich with my boys, I’m sprawled out on my back in the hot sand waiting on what’s sure to be some grom that doesn’t know a nug—a good wave—from mush.
Even worse than that scenario is I could be waiting on some superfan who wants to collect a lock of my hair or some shit. Then again, said fan could be a fangirl, which I am totally down with. Especially if she’s down to fu—a shadow falls over me, abruptly ending my train of thought.
“Here for lessons?” I ask, looking up toward the interloper. The sun shines brightly behind them, making it impossible for me to really see them. Details, sure. Like it’s a she—a short and curvy she with tits to rival a porn star. Huh—maybe that train of thought won’t be derailed after all.
“Yup. So maybe quit staring and start teaching.”
Fuck. That voice. “Dots,” I say before I can stop myself. I straight up acted like I didn’t remember her the other night and here I am calling her by her old childhood nickname.
“Oh, now you know me?” Her tone drips with indignation
I shrug, trying to come off as careless, relaxed even. “Knew you then too,” I murmur fully prepared for her to yell.
What I’m not expecting is a face-full of sand. I’m so shocked when she kicks a mountain of it my way that I don’t even think to cover my head. “You piece of shit! Do you have any idea of how you made me feel?”
Blindly, I fumble for my towel. “Fuck!” I yell spitting out granules of sand. “What the fuck Dots?”
She waits until I’ve removed as much of the sand as possible before answering me. “It’s Thea now and let’s not act like you didn’t deserve it.”
I scrub a hand over my face and through my hair, finding even more sand there. “Yeah, you’re right. Shit.”
“Why?” she asks, tapping her foot, the movement drawing my gaze to her breasts.
Momentarily, I lose my words as I watch the twin mounds jiggle beneath the yellow rash guard she’s rocking like a second skin.
“Why?” she asks again, snapping her fingers in front of my face, freeing me from my titty-trance.
“Why what?”
Dots huffs and clenches her tiny fists at her sides. “Why did you pretend not to know me?”
“Honestly? At first, I really didn’t recognize you. I mean, you’re all grown up, if you catch my drift. By the time I realized you were you, I…” I shrug my shoulders, feeling helpless—which is a foreign feeling when talking to a woman.
“You what?” she asks, her hands on her hips. My Dots was never one to back down from a fight, and while it seems like a lot about her has changed, a lot has also stayed the same. “Because I can’t think of a single way to end that sentence that will justify your behavior.”
“Fuck Dots?—”
“Thea.”
“—Dots. You want me to be honest, fine. I’ll be honest. I don’t know why I acted like an ass.
At first you were just some girl, some crazy hot chick I wanted to take a spin on my dick.
When I recognized you, it threw me for a loop.
I mean, you’re you and even knowing that, I was still imagining sliding inside you and fucking you senseless.
I didn’t know how to handle it, so I slid into ‘Douchey Dane’. It was shitty and I’m sorry. Okay?”
Dots stares blankly my way. Thanks to her reflective sunglasses, I can’t tell if she’s actually looking at me, much less what she’s feeling. Finally, after eons have passed, she says, “Douchey Dane? What does that even mean?”
I sigh. “It’s what my PR teams calls my public persona. It’s how I keep most people at an arm’s length.”
“Let me get this straight. You have a douchey alter ego you adopt to keep everyone at a distance and decided to try it out on me because you were imagining fucking me and it made you uncomfortable?”
I shift on my feet. “Well, when you say it like that…”
She huffs out a breath. “There’s no good way to put it. But whatever, you’ve always been a little bit of a d-bag, so I’m not really surprised.”
Now I’m huffing, because what the fuck? “Me? How?”
Another stare down—I think, damn tinted lenses—ensues before she finally says, “Uh, does the summer before high school ring a bell?”
Well, shit. She’s got me there. Now the question is how do I play this?
I contemplate bullshitting her for about point-two seconds before dismissing the notion.
Telling the truth has worked well so far, plus, Dots would call me on my shit faster than I can pop up on my board—which is pretty damn fast.
“I’m gonna be real with you Dots. You’re not gonna like what’s about to come out of my mouth.”
“Because I’ve loved everything else you’ve said?” Is it wrong that her sass gets me hard?
“I was fourteen. I was noticing girls and they were noticing me. I wanted to…” I trail off, trying to think of the best way to phrase what I want to say.
“…I’m just gonna say it. I wanted to round the bases, Dot, and I couldn’t very well do that with you tagging along.
Sounds harsh, but I was a shit then and I’m sorry. ”
She laughs, but I can’t tell if it’s in humor or spite. “You’re a shit now Dane Foster.”
I shuffle a step closer. “But I’m a sorry shit.”
“You’ll hear no arguments from me there. Lord knows, only a sorry shit would ditch a lifelong friend to get his dick rubbed.”
“Wait, that’s not what I meant.”
She shrugs. “Your words, I’m just choosing to interpret them differently.”
“You’re impossible,” I tell her, all the other times I’ve said those exact words to her playing through my mind like a highlight reel.
Like the time she wanted to scale the side of my house and jump from the roof onto the trampoline so that she could bounce into my pool.
I tried like hell to talk her out of it, but she insisted.
Spoiler alert: she broke her ankle and spent the entire summer in a cast.
Or the time she begged the neighbor on the other side to pull her behind his car on her rollerblades—thankfully he refused and told her parents. She was grounded for a week.
Oh, and I can’t forget the time she talked me into marrying her.
We couldn’t have been older than seven. I came over like I did every weekend and instead of wearing her play clothes, she was dressed up in a white church dress with flowers plucked directly from her front yard, roots and all, clutched in her small hands.
I asked her what in the heck she was up to and she proudly announced to me that she was a woman now since she’d lost both her front teeth and that we were getting married.
I told her guys usually did the asking. Dots shoved me down and told me that was stupid.
I told her she was impossible. We exchanged vows and dandelion stem rings all the same.
“You mean amazing,” she retorts.
“I definitely meant impossible.”
She grins and my heart thumps a little harder in my chest. “I’ve heard it both ways.”
I groan. “You did not just quote Psych.”
“Shawn Spencer is a God.”
“Whatever.” I move another step closer. “So, we good?”
She doesn’t immediately reply and the sweat dotting my brow is more from nerves than the heat. Finally, she says, “As long as you can rein in Douchey Dane, yeah, we’re good.”
“I think I can manage.”
“Then you’ve got yourself a deal.” She holds out her hand for me to shake. I clasp her hand in mine, pumping my arm once before yanking her toward me. The move is unexpected and her unchecked momentum sends her plowing into my chest.
She moves to push away from me but I band my arms around her and hold her to me, secretly loving the way her small, soft body feels against mine.
Before I can think better of it, I’m mumbling into her hair how much I’ve missed her and how I’m glad she’s here. “For real, you were my ride or die and I left you. I’ve missed you like hell.”
“You could have called. Texted. Facebooked, anything Dane.” Her warm breath fans against my chest, but she still makes no move to pull out of my embrace.
“I know, Dots. I know.” After a few more quiet moments, we break apart. “You ready to surf?” I ask, knowing damn well she doesn’t need the lessons.
“Yup.” We grab our boards and head toward the water. The breaking waves rock us gently as we wade out. “Hey Dane,” Dots says once we’re knee deep.
I turn and look at her, only to find her belly down on her board, staring straight ahead. “Yeah?”
“I missed you too,” she calls over her shoulder as she paddles out.