Butterflies in Honey (Growing Pains #3)(12)

“Tory is working you pretty hard, huh?”

Krista snorted. “That’s putting it mildly. And I thought you were tough.”

Sean was quiet while he waited for her to wrestle her surf board out of the car. They crossed the street in silence and jogged to the ocean.

“You still do your routine?” Sean asked as they neared the water.

It was a cold day at the beach. The weather was overcast and the beach was nearly deserted. It wasn’t at all what Krista was used to.

“I do. I tweaked it a bit. Made it harder. I figured I had to if I ever hoped to be stronger than you.” She laughed.

They were at the water line now, the waves retreating and surging forward again. Sean ran in and dove into an oncoming wave. Krista hesitated and let the wave creep up her leg.

“Holy crap its cold!” She yelled.

She very nearly turned and walked back up the beach.

“Get in fast. Like a Band-Aid,” Sean yelled as he paddled.

Krista gritted her teeth and ran in. The first dunk was a shock to her system. She paddled hard through the next wave. Then the next. More just kept coming. Sean was a ways ahead of her, so she kept her head low and paddled with all she had. Finally, after a grueling workout, she caught up with him. He was sitting on his board, floating in the cold ocean, acting like shark bait. Krista did likewise.

She was panting and shivering. Her head, hands and feet were going numb. The rest of her body wasn’t freezing, but the wetsuit didn’t keep it warm, either.

“Not used to paddling so hard?” Sean asked with a smile.

“I’m not used to so many waves coming in at one time. It is a long trek out here.”

“Yeah,” Sean said, surveying the water. “It keeps you in shape, though.”

“How often do you surf?”

“As often as the weather permits. Every morning if I can, though a few times a week is all I usually get.”

Do you do any other exercise?”

Sean glanced at her. “Gym.”

She took stock of her choice of waves. She wasn’t quite ready to try her hand on one. The paddle back out was too daunting.

“And I still do the routine. Run more, though. Figured I had to if I ever hoped to be faster than you.”

Krista heard the laughter in his voice as he echoed what she’d said. She closed her eyes against the surge of pain. Maybe one of those times, just one of those times, when she was walking on the beach, looking north and wondering if Sean was doing their routine, he was. Maybe one time they were doing it together, 800 miles apart.

“How are Kate and Jasmine doing?” Krista asked, trying to keep the tears out of her eyes. Thankfully, her face was wet. Not thankfully, it was cold, her nose was probably red, and she certainly looked ridiculous.

“Not well. They’ll tell you all is great, but they are excluded from the department for the most part. They only get accounts when I request them specifically, and I’m not able to do that very often. Otherwise, they get all the crap work. I think they do a lot of filing.”

“At least they have each other. It was because of me, though, right? Because they came on under me?”

“Yes. James resents them for it. They aren’t managed well, either. They goof off with the art department most of the time.”

At least they were liked outside of the department. Krista would have to convince them to move on. She currently had an opening in her department. She thought she might see if one of them would move to L.A..

“Okay, Marshall, do or die time. Get on a wave. Show me what you’ve learned in two years.”

“Do you hate me for that meeting yesterday?” She stalled.

“Why? Because you shut me down and made any hope of getting that account next to nil?”

“Yes?”

Sean laughed sardonically. “Actually, no. You did me a favor. Tory took my best players. I can’t physically keep up anymore. There aren’t enough hours in the day to harass Art and Research for better work. I have to have my hand in everything to keep our company going and I am exhausted. Physically and mentally exhausted. You did me a favor.”

“I probably could have been a little nicer about it, though.”

“You? Nice? I have heard about you over the last two years. More so over the last year. No, I didn’t expect nice. I expected insightful and fair. That’s what I got. Poor Larry had another thing coming, though.”

“Poor Larry, my butt! He’s a clown!” Krista laughed. So he had heard about her. She wondered if it was from Judy telling others, or from someone else. She wondered if he ever asked or just wandered into it. She wondered what his reaction had been to her Bad Bitch persona. She asked about the latter.

Sean leaned back and laughed deeply. “Well, I heard about that at the same time I heard about your promotion. I had to ask if they were talking about my Krissy. It didn’t take long to convince me. You shaped up our team in no time flat.”

His Krissy? Krista knew he was just talking about his past team member, but she flew at the words. If only he knew how truly correct they were.

“You created a monster.” Krista laughed. Waves were coming and going around them. She could have taken a dozen already, but she didn’t want to miss this time with Sean. The two of them alone, away from the world, was a treat she would probably never get again.