Chapter 4 #2
I threw a lens cloth at him.
He caught it.
“Violence in the workplace. Gray will need a form.”
“Go teach surfing.”
“That’s why I came in. We have a noon beginner lesson, and you said you wanted instructional shots.”
I checked the time.
Eleven twenty-three.
My body shifted back into work before my brain had finished being angry.
“How many?”
“Four adults. All releases signed. Two have surfed once. One has never surfed. One says he has, which usually means he stood on a foam board in Cancun after six margaritas.”
“Conditions?”
“Small. Clean enough. Lifeguards have green flags up.”
I grabbed my camera.
Rafe’s mouth twitched.
“What?”
“You do that fast.”
“Do what?”
“Become somewhere else.”
I stopped.
It was too close to true.
Then he picked up the PFD box.
“Come on, Hale. Photograph my operational shoulders.”
Forty percent funny had lasted under three minutes.
The noon lesson began with one missing water shoe, one rash guard worn backward, and a man named Trevor announcing that he had excellent balance because he practiced hot yoga.
Rafe looked at me.
I looked at Rafe.
Neither of us said anything because Trevor had signed a release and deserved dignity.
Mostly.
The fourth client was a woman named Denise in her early forties who kept laughing every time Rafe demonstrated how to pop up on the board.
Not amused laughing.
Nervous laughing.
I recognized it because I had photographed approximately nine hundred people who smiled like they were being held at gunpoint the second a camera appeared.
Rafe recognized it too.
He stopped performing.
That surprised me.
The version of him I had seen until then could turn sunscreen application into a public event. But when Denise failed her third practice pop-up on the sand and immediately apologized, Rafe crouched beside the board.
“Don’t apologize.”
“I am spectacularly bad at this.”
“You’re spectacularly new at this.”
“I can’t get my feet under me.”
“Then we don’t care about your feet yet.”
She blinked.
Rafe lay flat on the sand beside her board.
“New plan. Paddle position. That’s it.”
“What about standing?”
“Standing is future Denise’s problem. Current Denise is learning how not to punch the ocean.”
She laughed.
A real one.
I lifted the camera.
He spent the next ten minutes breaking the movement down until she stopped trying to perform success and started actually learning.
No flirting.
No audience voice.
No impatience.
He praised what improved and corrected what did not.
When Trevor interrupted to explain something he had learned in Cancun, Rafe said, “Love that journey for you. Denise and I are busy.”
I nearly ruined a frame laughing.
By the time they reached the water, Denise was still nervous.
She was also determined.
I waded to thigh depth with my camera sealed inside its splash housing and photographed from an angle that kept the clients facing shore.
Rafe moved between all four students constantly.
He remembered who needed which correction.
He counted sets.
He watched the break.
He kept Trevor from drifting too close to another student twice without making either moment dramatic.
And when Denise finally rode a tiny whitewater wave for maybe four seconds before falling sideways into knee-deep water, Rafe celebrated like she had won an Olympic medal.
So did Denise.
I caught her coming up laughing, both hands over her face.
Then I caught Rafe behind her, smiling.
Not at me.
Not at the camera.
At her.
Click.
There he was.
The actual man underneath the marketing department.
The lesson ended at one thirty.
By one forty-five, all four clients had returned their gear.
By one fifty, Rafe had checked every board for damage and hung the rash guards to dry.
At one fifty-three, he was kneeling beside the equipment rack replacing a frayed leash cord.
I leaned against the doorway with my camera hanging at my hip.
“You know you’re ruining your image.”
He glanced up. “Which one?”
“Chaotic man who survives entirely on charm.”
“That’s a very hurtful stereotype.”
“You created it.”
“Marketing creates aspirational narratives.”
“You have a spreadsheet for these lessons, don’t you?”
His hand stopped.
I smiled.
“Oh my God.”
“I do not know what you’re talking about.”
“You have a spreadsheet.”
“It may be a shared scheduling document.”
“With color coding?”
“Colors are useful.”
I put a hand over my heart.
“Rafael Soto. Who are you?”
He stood, leash in hand.
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain conditional formatting.”
“Do not tell Gray. He’ll want to improve it.”
I laughed.
Rafe tossed the damaged cord into a bin.
“Seriously, though. Good?”
“The lesson?”
“The pictures.”
I lifted the camera and scrolled until I found Denise coming out of the water.
Rafe stepped close beside me.
His shoulder touched mine.
Just barely.
My body noticed with embarrassing enthusiasm.
I enlarged the frame.
Denise was laughing in the foreground, water running off her hair. Rafe was behind her, one hand resting on the nose of another student’s board, his expression open and proud.
He went quiet.
I was starting to like making Rafe quiet.
“You look trustworthy,” I said.
His gaze stayed on the screen.
“Careful.”
“Why?”
“I have a reputation.”
“For being unreliable?”
His eyes moved to mine.
The joke had landed somewhere I had not intended.
I lowered the camera.
“Sorry.”
“No.”
He leaned one hip against the equipment rack.
“Not unfair.”
I waited.
Rafe rubbed the back of his neck.
“My ex used to say I could make anything fun except a calendar.”
“Dani?”
“Yeah.”
There was no bitterness in his voice.
“She wasn’t wrong. I was late. Forgot things. Said yes to too much. Thought being good when I arrived made up for arriving whenever the hell I felt like it.”
He looked toward the beach.
“I got better.”
I glanced at the neatly stacked lesson forms.
“I noticed.”
His eyes came back to me.
That landed differently than flirtation.
Maybe because he did not make a joke immediately.
Maybe because neither did I.
The space between us changed.
Again.
Apparently Cape Mercy had poor zoning regulations regarding sexual tension.
Rafe looked at my mouth.
Unlike Cole, he did not pretend he hadn’t.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Depends.”
“Were you flirting with me yesterday?”
“No.”
He nodded solemnly. “Devastating.”
“I was flirting with your shoulders.”
“Thank God.”
“And possibly the rest of you.”
“There she is.”
I smiled.
He stepped closer.
Not touching.
Close enough that I smelled sunscreen, salt, and whatever soap he had used that morning.
“You know,” he said, “I have been making a heroic effort not to hit on the woman sleeping down the hall.”
I stared at him.
“You opened our professional relationship shirtless.”
“That was circumstance.”
“You told me you liked me before I’d unpacked.”
“Observation.”
“You have made at least six jokes about being naked.”
“Community service.”
I laughed.
He smiled, but his eyes stayed on mine.
“Heroic effort,” he repeated.
“Your definition of heroism is concerning.”
“I teach tourists. My scale is distorted.”
I should have moved.
He was my client.
My temporary housemate.
One third of a friendship structure I did not understand and absolutely did not need to detonate during the first week of a six-week contract.
Instead I said, “Maybe stop trying so hard.”
Rafe went completely still.
That was satisfying.
“That sounded like permission to flirt.”
“It was.”
His smile came back slowly.
“Dangerous.”
“I’ve been told.”
“No, I don’t think you have.”
The words hit deeper than the line deserved.
I looked at him.
Rafe’s expression changed.
Less bright.
More careful.
“Tell me if I’m reading this wrong,” he said.
I thought about Evan asking for thirty seconds.
I thought about Cole’s hand on my arm yesterday.
I thought about six weeks, temporary housing, bad timing, good shoulders, and every reason this was professionally stupid.
Then I looked at Rafe.
He wanted something from me.
So did I.
For once, the wanting felt equal.
I caught the front of his shirt and kissed him.
For one startled second, Rafe Soto forgot how to be Rafe Soto.
Then his hand settled at my waist and he kissed me back.
Warm mouth.
Salt on his lower lip.
A soft, surprised sound from him that went straight through me.
I backed him into the equipment rack.
A paddle shifted overhead.
Neither of us cared.
His other hand came up to my jaw, thumb brushing just below my ear, and the kiss deepened enough that my entire professional code of conduct packed a bag and left North Carolina.
He laughed against my mouth.
“What?”
“You.”
“That is not an answer.”
“You attacked me.”
“I kissed you.”
“Aggressively.”
“You were talking too much.”
“That’s incredibly hot.”
I kissed him again to solve the problem.
This time he was ready.
His hand tightened at my waist and pulled me closer, enough that there was no pretending either of us had misread anything.
My fingers slid into the hair at the back of his neck.
He made that sound again.
Oh.
Useful information.
Then an alarm exploded between us.
Rafe jerked back.
For half a second we both stared at each other, breathing hard.
His phone kept chiming.
He pulled it from his pocket and looked at the screen.
“Nico.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“Pickup.”
He glanced at the time.
Then he kissed me once, fast and hard.
“I have to go.”
I started laughing.
Rafe was already grabbing his keys from the hook.
“You are leaving now?”
“I told Dani I’d be there at two forty-five.”
He pointed at me as he backed toward the door.
“This is not over.”
“Go pick up your kid.”
“I am.”
“Rafe.”
“I’m going.”
He turned and jogged toward the parking lot.
I stood alone beside six surfboards, one crooked paddle, and a camera containing photographic evidence that Rafael Soto could run a beginner lesson with the organizational discipline of an elementary-school field trip.
Apparently nothing was sexier than a man interrupting a kiss because he had somewhere he had promised his son he would be.
My standards had become alarmingly specific.