The Wrong Mr. Right (The Queen's Cove Series #2)(28)

She nodded and we paddled out of the surf to where the water was calm.

“Hand me your leash, would you?” I held my hand out and she undid the velcro around her ankle before tossing it to me. I fastened it around my ankle. Now she wouldn’t float away from me. “How are your feet?”

She hoisted herself up on her board and wobbled into a seated position, cross legged, before wiggling her toes. “Pretty cold but they’ll warm up out of the water.” She closed her eyes and tilted her face up to the sun. She sighed. My throat felt tight.

She opened her eyes, taking in the blue sky dotted with wisps of clouds, the forest beside us, the seagulls gliding through the air. “It’s nice here.”

We floated there for a few minutes, listening to the sound of the waves lapping the shore and the seagulls calling out to each other. The thought of leaving this place one day if I went pro broke my heart.

Going pro had been all I wanted since that summer I had stayed with my aunts when I was sixteen. Aunt Rebecca had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, and her wife, my Aunt Bea, struggled to take care of her alone, so I moved in to help out with things. In the mornings, I surfed, and in the afternoons, I picked up groceries, cleaned the kitchen, took the garbage out, or mowed the lawn. I had surfed since I was a kid but that summer, it became everything to me.

I couldn’t stay in Queen’s Cove and go pro. I wanted to compete, and I wanted to win.

Last night, I had watched footage of my competitors, surfers who had been competing since they were kids. They were used to the pressure. They were used to everyone knowing their name.

“What’s wrong?” Her hands rested flat behind her, holding her up.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“You don’t have your usual stoned surfer look today.”

That made me smile. “I’m never stoned while surfing.”

“You know what I mean.”

I inhaled a long breath and let it out. “You know when we were at the bar and I said I wasn’t worrying about Pacific Rim?”

She nodded.

I didn’t answer. The words were stuck in my throat.

“You’ve been worrying?”

I gave her a quick nod. “Not so chill, huh?”

She tilted her head and gave me a soft smile. “You don’t have to be ‘so chill’ all the time. You’re human, Wyatt.” She regarded me, thinking. “What do you worry about?”

“That I’ll get out there and choke.” Again. “That I’ll do well, place in the competition, and have to leave Queen’s Cove.”

She gazed out across the water. “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”

I huffed a laugh. “Yeah. Something like that.”

Ripples radiated from her fingertips as she skimmed them through the water. She pulled her lip into her mouth between her teeth. “Can’t you come back to Queen’s Cove in between competitions?”

“Sure, but it won’t be the same.”

“No. It won’t.” Her gaze flicked up to me. “What do you think about out there when you’re surfing?”

“Nothing. My mind goes blank. My body knows what to do, my instincts tell me when to paddle and hop up or when to stay put.”

“Why do you think you’ll choke?”

Because it happened before. At last year’s competition, I had panicked.

I cleared my throat. “I have a good life. I surf, I have the shop, and I love living here. I shouldn’t mess with a good thing.”

The summer with my aunts taught me everything was temporary—relationships, jobs, even love. The idea of going pro and surfing around the world was both electrifying and terrifying.

Once I had it, I could lose it.

My chest was tight with anxiety, so I cleared my throat again. “What about you, bookworm, would you ever leave Queen’s Cove?”

She chewed her lip before answering. “I can’t leave. I have the store.” She let out a long sigh and stared up at the sky. “I’d love to travel, though. I’ve never been anywhere except to university in Victoria. I read about all these places in books and it’s like I’m there but,” Her mouth twisted in a rueful smile. “It’s not real. I want to go there for real.”

“Could your dad run the store for a bit? Or Liya?”

She shifted her weight on the board, wobbling but maintaining balance. “Um. I guess. I don’t know, it’s a lot of responsibility and I don’t think Liya wants that. And my dad hasn’t worked at the store in a while so doesn’t know where anything is.” She lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “I’d have to close the store for a couple weeks and then the customers would be all grouchy because they couldn’t get their books.”

I pinned her with my gaze. “Have you talked to Liya about running the shop when you’re away?”

She shifted again. “No, but she’s busy and I don’t want to make her uncomfortable by asking too much of her.”

“So you’re trapped.”

She sat up and shook her head. “I love the store. I wish—” Her throat worked and she frowned. “My dad’s stuck.”

The guy had been handed a rough deal, losing his wife like that. But it wasn’t fair to Hannah to have to run the business like a monument to her mother. Hannah was in charge now. She had all these incredible ideas to change the store and they sat idle in her head.