With This Heart(32)

“ Beck! You made it!” the girl from earlier called. I never did catch her name, so I dubbed her She Who Shall Not Be Named in honor of the Dark Lord. I’m sure they had a lot in common. I knew Beck was a few feet behind me, so instead of waiting for her to make her way over and tackle him into the sand, I headed over to the drinks. I couldn’t have alcohol because of my transplant, which sort of sucked in that moment. It would have been nice to take the nervous edge off a tiny bit, not to mention everyone would assume I was fifteen if I walked around all night with a coke can in my hand.

As I was reaching in the cooler for a bottled water, a shadow fell behind me and blocked the fire’s light. I twisted around to find Jason, the surfing instructor from earlier, standing behind me. He looked surprised to see me, but definitely happy about the coincidence. Huh.

“ Abby, right?” he asked, reaching past me to grab a bottled water and a beer. He handed me the water and then popped open the can of his beer so that it echoed through the night.

“ Yup. Jason?”

He smiled wide and motioned for us to move so other people could grab their drinks. I followed him a few feet away, trying to take in more of his appearance. He was really cute in a slacker way: kind eyes, easy smile, messy hair. He had on board shorts and a surfing competition shirt. I tried to guess his age, but I had no clue. He was somewhere between 15 and 45.

“ I didn’t realize you’d be here,” he offered, taking a sip of his beer and then tilting his head to the side.

“ I wasn’t really invited. Beck was invited and he brought me along,” I admitted.

“ Ah. Are you guys together or just friends?” he asked over the brim of his beer. His posture hinted that he might have hoped it was the latter.

What an interesting question. I glanced over to where Beck was standing with She Who Shall Not Be Named. He wasn’t smiling, but he nodded at whatever she was saying.

“ We’re just friends on a road trip,” I answered truthfully, I think.

I didn’t miss the smile that took over his features. “That’s great.”

“ How old are you, Jason?”

I think my direct question surprised him. “Twenty-three.” Not too old.

“ How long have you been surfing?” I asked before he could ask me my age. I didn’t want to admit to being nineteen.

“ My whole life. I grew up on the beach in California and then moved here to go to school for marine biology.”

So he wasn’t really a slacker, just looked like one.

“ That’s so cool!” I answered, because I instantly pictured him befriending dolphins. Oh wait, I think that’s only people who work at Sea World. Alright, I had no clue what marine biologists actually did.

He nodded and took a microscopic step closer to me. Smooth . “Are you in school?”

I almost answered truthfully, but then I remembered how many details were involved, and I just decided he didn’t really need to know about my life. We were having fun at a party, so I lied.

“ I start in the fall.” Damn, that sounded truthful. I was getting pretty good at this whole deceit thing.

He nodded and then we awkwardly stood there for a moment. We’d pretty much exhausted all of the small talk I could think of. What was Beck talking about with the Dark Lord? Did they have a lot in common? More than he and I had in common? Was she explaining how hard it was to have big boobs? Fuck girls.

I peered over to the spot where I saw them earlier, but they weren’t there anymore. A sinking feeling developed in my gut like my insides were being ripped out. Did they go back to the hotel? Were they making out on our bed?

Jason took another step toward me and I could smell the ocean on his clothes. Or maybe I could just smell the ocean in the air. My head was spinning with images of Beck with another girl.

“ Did you like surfing? You were really good at it.” He was practically an inch away from me then and I could smell beer on his breath.

I forced myself to look up into his brown eyes. “Yeah, it was really fun. I’d like to do it again.”

“ I could take you again. Maybe in the morning?” His voice held so much promise of what else we could do in the morning.

I nodded and smiled up at him because I felt like crap and I wanted him to flirt with me. I liked the way it felt and I told myself it was okay because he was cute.

“ Abby, there probably won’t be time to surf before we hit the road tomorrow,” Beck stated behind me with a sharp tone. My heart leapt into my throat and I turned to find him staring past me, toward Jason. She Who Shall Not Be Named was staring past Beck at me. Oh please, enough with the stare off.

“ What? Last time I checked, our itinerary was fairly loose .” I crossed my arms over my chest, wondering what his motive was. If he liked me then he should do something about it, not just stand there.

Beck answered me simply with, “Not tomorrow.”

Interesting .

I pulled my gaze from him and looked toward the girl behind him. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Abby,” I mentioned, extending my hand out toward her. She looked down at it with a puzzled expression before reaching to shake it.

“ I’m Lia,” she answered with a genuine smile. I was offering her a truce, and in that moment, the tension in the air started to melt away. Slightly.

As soon as we released our handshake, a random drunk girl shouted from the other side of the bonfire, “Let’s play Drink or Dare!”