Chapter Twenty #2
After another great fall, Kelsey rode the next one in perfectly, nailing the turn. “I did it!” She ran back, splashing through the shallows, board bobbing behind her. “Rowan, I surfed at North Shore!”
“You did,” Rowan said. Pride swamped her, unexpected and pure.
It hit the place in her that had shrunk in that dark year after her father died, when she’d stopped letting herself feel much of anything.
Dad would’ve loved watching Kelsey learn and grow, calling her “grom” and teaching her how to read the sets with that slow patience of his.
For a moment, she swore she felt him in the wind, teasing her hair free from the messy bun she’d wrangled it into. It was the first time in a while the connection held.
They cycled through waves. Kelsey wore that private glow surfers did when they’d left a piece of themselves inside a moving wall of salt and come back changed.
Everett never moved or reached for his phone.
He clapped and swore under his breath when she fell and came up laughing.
Once, he caught Rowan’s eye after a longer ride.
Their gazes held. His mouth softened and her stomach did that slow dip.
She wasn’t a woman who got butterflies, yet being around the man felt like she was caught in a free fall.
After an hour, her knee ached, but her chest felt loose and warm and dangerous. Alive. “I can’t feel my arms,” Kelsey announced, delighted and horrified.
“Welcome to surfing,” Rowan said, grinning. “That’s your tax. You pay in triceps.”
“I love it here.” She leaned into Rowan as they walked out, board tucked under Rowan’s arm. “I wish we lived at the beach. I wish I could do this every day.”
“We can visit a lot,” Everett said, coming to meet them. He had a towel slung over his shoulder and indecently wet feet for a man who claimed he didn’t go in past his ankles. He reached for the board without asking. “You were amazing!” he told Kelsey. “You were fearless.”
“I wasn’t fearless. I just did what Rowan said to do, and it worked.” She leaned back to look up at him, blue eyes shining. “Can we get food? The shrimp truck is right there. I’m starved.”
“Sounds good to me,” Rowan said. Her own stomach had gone feral five waves ago. The scent had gotten thicker as the day heated.
“Giovanni’s.” Everett nodded toward the blue-and-yellow truck up the strip. People clustered under the palms at picnic tables.
“Perfect choice.” They took off across the sand. Everett hissed when it hit his feet. “Hot,” he repeated, as if the beach personally offended him.
“City boy,” Rowan teased. “Need me to carry you?”
He looked at her, deadpan. “Please. It’d be good for your knee.”
Rowan snorted and kept walking.
The line moved fast. The grill sizzled and popped, and smoke curled up in a garlicky halo that got caught in the palms. A woman in a visor worked the orders like an air traffic controller.
The hand-painted truck was a riot of blue-and-yellow swirls and a shrimp wearing sunglasses. Kelsey stared at it as if it were art.
They sat at a picnic table under a palm, still damp from the ocean, the rough wood warm. The plates came—white Styrofoam cratered under scoops of rice, shrimp slick in garlic butter, a corner of mac salad creamy with mayo.
Kelsey peeled a shrimp with concentration. “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”
“Better than chicken fingers?” Everett grinned with indulgence. He looked like a man who’d forgotten about luxury hotels and deadlines. He leaned back, long legs flung out, feet dusty and bare. Sun had pinked the straight line of his nose. The sight tugged at something she shouldn’t name.
“Maybe?” They laughed. “Why do beach food trucks taste better than city food trucks?”
“Because we’re on vacay,” Everett said.
Kelsey made a face. “Dad—you are so not on vacay. I wish you were more like you are now, though.” Rowan caught his posture stiffen as the words registered. “I love today.”
“Me too, honey.” His voice had thickened but Kelsey didn’t notice, too happily eating shrimp.
Rowan felt the pressure in her chest and turned away.
She licked salt from her lips and watched the water tuck itself into shore.
The reef flashed. A guy wiped out in the outside break and came up laughing, hands raised.
“Rowan, my pop-up felt better when I looked where I wanted to go. That was so weird. Like, I know you said it, but it was like my body didn’t believe my brain until it happened.”
“That’s most of life,” Rowan said. “Your body learns. Then it teaches your brain to shut up.”
Everett smirked. “Hmm, I kind of like my brainpower. Especially in my job.”
Rowan laughed. “Our brain is critical—not saying we don’t need it. But I bet your best decisions in your career came from your gut and soul. Not your head.”
He blinked. “Not sure my gut will drive a multimillion-dollar hotel to be a success.”
She leaned forward, elbows on the picnic table. “Disagree. The brain is for the endless tasks taken after that big gut decision is made. You can usually trace a win or loss back to what you felt was the right thing.”
“Explain.”
His gaze narrowed with that sexy focus that made him the best at his job.
“Okay. The good stuff comes from our human instincts. The right brain, let’s say.
The human part. The left is required, of course, but usually when you’re faced with a decision, the information is processed like a giant computer and the lizard brain presents our options.
Most revolve around avoiding fear at all costs.
” She saw both father and daughter were transfixed.
“The body has no fear. It’s pure. That’s how students are taught to go with their first instinctual answer. ”
“There’s nothing wrong with analysis, logic, and good sense. If Kelsey suddenly feels like jumping off a cliff because her friends do, and her instinct is to follow, I’m not going to be happy.”
“I won’t do that, Dad. I hate the dips on a roller coaster.”
Everett shook his head at her teasing remark.
Rowan continued. “I’m not saying there’s nothing wrong with it.
Neither way guarantees the right decision, or the one that will bring massive success.
Life is a series of wins and losses so we learn better.
” She thought of that moment when the wave came—when her head got stuck with all the reasons she should take it—and she ignored her instinct to wait.
She pushed the memory away and forced a smile. “Just something to think about.”
Everett narrowed his gaze, as if sensing her withdrawal. Without hesitation, he slid his hand across the picnic table and tangled their fingers together. “Is that what surfing teaches you?” he asked quietly.
The warmth of his grip comforted her. Kelsey didn’t seem to notice or care about the first public display of their connection. “Every day,” Rowan said.
“Sounds like I’m missing out.”
“Dad, you should learn to surf! Rowan can teach both of us!” Kelsey blurted, her voice a little too gleeful.
“Not sure I’m a great candidate for surfing.”
“Why not? I thought I was clumsy until I got on a board. Plus, you always say trying new things creates growth and better life lessons.”
“I meant new foods,” he said dryly. “Like . . . fried avocado.”
“Gross,” she said. “No, surfing.”
Rowan bit down on laughter. “I don’t know if your dad is built for it,” she said, light and teasing. She tipped her head toward Everett. “He’s a fast walker, though. The rash guard would look good. We’re halfway there.”
He narrowed his eyes. “This is target practice! I see how it is.”
“Come on,” Kelsey begged. “Just once. You can go on a big board with me and Rowan. We’ll hold on to you. You won’t die.”
Everett wiped his fingers on a napkin as if he could remove the butter and the panic at the same time. “That’s a relief.”
She thought of Everett in the water, and a tiny part of her longed to see the moment. To try out a part of her world and see it the way she did. “Suit can’t get his hair wet,” she said, half smiling. “It might make him late to a meeting.”
He smiled like he couldn’t help it. “I don’t have meetings today. I blocked off the calendar. Miracles happen.”
He squeezed her hand, staring at her with dark eyes that promised things after dark. She refused to blush. “Let’s stretch our legs,” she suggested.
They dumped their trash and started a slow walk down the beach.
Kelsey ran ahead. She found a piece of coral shaped like a heart and showed it to them like a trophy.
Everett walked beside Rowan, step for step, letting the waves lick their ankles.
His hand was still wrapped around hers. The weight and warmth of the connection kept surprising her.
Kelsey glanced at them once, smiled secretly, and ran off again.
“Must have been nice growing up here,” he said. “You make it sound like a small town, not . . . this.” He nodded to the expanse of blue, the tourists, the surfers sunning themselves like seals on the shoreline. A dog chased a ball like its life depended on it.
“It’s both,” she said. “You can know everyone and still get swallowed. There’s a choice. Probably like living in the city. Tons of people but you can isolate yourself.”
Everett nodded. “Exactly.” He glanced at her knee. The scar caught the light. He didn’t ask. She was weirdly grateful. Most people wanted the story like they were owed it.
Kelsey bounced back to them. “Dad, can we come again? Tomorrow? Or next week? I don’t care. I just want to come back.”
“We can make that happen.”