My eyes zero in on a guy in a wetsuit. He’s with a group of four other guys, all bobbing on their boards. While the others laugh, his eyes are focused straight ahead on the water, like he sees something they don’t.
He starts paddling, though I can’t see an approaching wave.
The other guys stop chatting and watch him too.
He keeps paddling and paddling.
And then the wave starts to form.
He turns his board around and I watch in awe as he catches the large wave, possibly the best one all day, though I haven’t been watching, and rides it out.
There’s something about him that’s magic on water.
He rides the wave like he owns it, not like it’s a creation of Mother Nature that could crush him at any moment.
When he successfully catches the wave and rejoins his friends they exchange clasped hands and fist bumps.
I return my eyes to the pages of my book but I can’t help but peek up every now and then and find him.
An hour passes, and Meredith stretches beside me.
“I’m going to grab a smoothie, you guys coming?”
She looks at me and Harlow on my other side.
Harlow puts down her magazine. “Yeah, I’m starving.”
Meredith stands and brushes the sand off her body. Even with each of us sitting on a towel it’s impossible not to get sand on yourself.
“I’m good,” I tell them.
“Are you sure?” Harlow asks. “You don’t want a water? Maybe coffee?”
“Yeah grab me a water, thank you,” I tell her.
I watch them disappear into the distance, turning into tiny specks as they head off to get drinks and food.
My eyes return to the ocean and my throat catches when I see the guy I was watching get out. He sticks his board in the sand and unzips his wetsuit, tugging it harshly off his arms and letting it hang down to expose his chest.
Tucking his board back under his arm, he starts up the beach.
He doesn’t seem to be looking anywhere at first, but then somehow his eyes land on me, and I gasp.
“Oh, shit,” I mutter. “It’s him.”
The guy Perry almost mowed over, the guy who opened the door at T.J’s parents’ house. This can’t be happening.
Nope.
I watch his face switch from curiosity to recognition.
I jump up, dropping my book. I pick it up hastily—never leave a soldier behind, or a book—and try to make a run for it.
Well not quite a run, but I do speed walk in the opposite direction.
“Hey!” I hear him call out.
He’s not talking to you. He’s not. Keep walking.