Allie smiles the smile of a service professional who hears the same jokes made over and over. “Nah, you’re not a surfer until you eat it big. Sand caked in your scalp, salt water burning your throat! Let’s go!”
She’s not selling it, really. But I use that adrenaline high to get me back out into the waves. Tyler has gotten there first and Allie is positioning his arms. I feel a weird surge of jealousy seeing her hands on that body. Sure, I’ve known him all of 90 minutes, but he’s mine. Back off, hippie.
But Tyler looks at me and smiles. I turn myself around and prepare for the next wave.
“Okay, pop-up!” Allie calls.
I pop up and immediately fall off the board. I feel the swell go over me and the tug of the board’s leash on my ankle. The water is pretty calm, so it’s easy to break the surface again, but my dignity took a hit. So much for being a natural.
“You’re good, just come right back out here!” calls Allie, cheery and encouraging as a T-ball coach.
I hop back on and paddle out, my earlier exhilaration dampened a bit. Tyler joins me after his successful run to shore.
“Hey, looks like you got that sandy scalp Allie wanted you to get,” he says with that cute ass crooked grin.
“Guess I’m legit, now,” I say. I’m ready to surf for real now. Bring it.
But, in reality, what is brought is more salt water in my throat. The next three waves kick my ass and I can tell the tide is coming in because they’re getting bigger. Or I’m getting more tired. Or something. It’s sucking more and more, that’s what.
I struggle to keep my feet on the fourth swell and I hear Tyler cheering me on. On the one hand, it’s sweet that he’s looking out for me. On the other hand, it makes me feel like a child being cheered on her first two-wheeler ride. But not for long, because a wave laps up from behind and throws my delicate balance off and my increasingly waterlogged body into the surf.
I sit up and wipe the sand out of my eyes to watch Tyler riding in. He looks like a guy from a 60’s surf movie. Perfect form, tan muscles. I wave, half hoping it’ll throw him off and knock him over, too. I’m not always very nice. Instead, though, he waves back and slowly bends over, putting his hands on the deck of the board. He lifts first one leg and then the other, riding in to the beach in a handstand.
“You are a big fat cheater!” I say as he hops off the board. “No way this is your first time.”
He shakes the water from his hair like a dog and smiles. “Did I say it was?”
“You didn’t need a lesson at all, then.” I feel vaguely annoyed, the amount of sand in my swim bottoms being only a part of it.
"No, but I did need a way to spend more time with you." Now how can a girl stay mad at that?
“Here,” he says walking up the beach, “I’ll show you what you’re doing wrong.”
He digs a trench for the board’s fin thing and drops it into the sand. “Stand here.”
I step onto the board and he steps on behind me. Then, like in every movie ever, he stands very close, positioning my legs, my torso. I can barely pay attention to what he’s doing. I just feel how warm he is against my chilled skin. I feel each grain of sand pressing into my skin from his. I feel how very muscular he is. And I feel that maybe he’s kind of into standing this close to me, too.
Allie comes up from the water, totally cock-blocking me. “Hey, you guys, you still have fifteen minutes of instruction!” She looks at Tyler, moving my feet farther apart. “I think maybe you don’t need it, though.”
“Yeah, I think I got it,” Tyler says. “I’ve been surfing about ten years.”
“You look kind of familiar,” Allie says, peering at him. “What’s your name?”
“Tyler Riordan.”
She literally jumps up into the air, clapping her hands. "Holy shit! Dude, I watched your Pipeline video on like endless loop! Oh my god! Why didn’t you say anything? God, I’m so embarrassed. Like I could teach you." She’s having something close to a seizure, slapping her own forehead, leaning over like she has to catch her breath. “Tyler Fucking Riordan. Oh shit.”
Tyler steps off the board and walks over to shake her hand. Her knees kind of buckle under her. Seriously, it’s nuts. I wouldn’t be that starstruck to meet the damned President. Not knowing a thing that everyone else seems to know makes me cranky. I’m about to just get off the board when Tyler waves his arm back toward me and says, “I’m going to get back to Kiera here, though. Nice to have met you, Allie. You’re doing a great job.”
He comes back to me and Allie walks away to never wash her hand again. He grins, “Eh, I slipped her a twenty to react like that. It makes a good impression.”
“Uh-huh. So, I take it you’re like a professional surf god or something?”
“I’m lucky enough to get to do this a lot and I love it, so yeah, I’m pretty good. But I don’t get paid to do it, so I guess I’m just an amateur surf god.”
“Were you this terrible when you started?”
He laughs. “Well, I did fall off a lot. But keeping at it is key. It takes time to be able to just feel what you’re supposed to do.”
He picks up his board and says, “Been a while since I rode a rental foamy. I had to get a feel for it again before I started showing off. C’mon, let’s catch this rising tide.”
I’m utterly exhausted but I’m surprised to find I don’t want to disappoint him, so I trail behind him into the waves. The sight of his back muscles rippling under the rash guard does help fortify me, though. Popping up with my feet placed the way Tyler showed me, I have a successful run in. That rush comes back and I get a few more in before I’m smashed off my board by a big incoming wave.
The water is churning now and it’s hard to figure out which way is up. Luckily, we aren’t out very far, so when I touch bottom, I can just go the other way. But when I finally make it to shore, sputtering, sand caked, throat and eyes burning, I know I’m done for the day.
“That’s it for me,” I gasp when Tyler glides effortlessly to my feet. “I’m just beat.”
“It’s hard work,” he says. “You deserve dinner. My treat.”
“I look like a hermit crab,” I tell him. “I need a shower and clean clothes. I’m a city girl, we don’t go to dinner covered in salt.”
“Need a ride back?” he asks. “I have a jeep,”
“Um, I took the shuttle here, but sure. How will you change, though?”
“My clothes are in the car,” he says. “I’m always prepared.”
My body is exhausted, but
my mind is racing. Looks like I might get that island hook up after all.
Kiera
After turning in our boards and rash guards and enduring more gushing from Allie, I follow Tyler to the parking lot. There’s an adorable red jeep there with a surfboard in the back.
“Why didn’t you bring your own board down?” I ask him.
“I wanted to get a look at the waves first. Honestly, if you hadn’t turned up, I’d have just gone.” He smiles at me. “No offense, but there’s not very good surfing in Aruba.”
“Why would I be offended? I didn’t make the waves. But yeah, I could barely keep my feet in those little wading pool waves.”
“It’s great for beginners!” he says, like he’s trying to convince me not to feel bad.
I get in the passenger side beside him. “It’s fine,” I say. “I didn’t think I was going to make the cover of Surf Magazine or whatever. I didn’t even really want to come, I’d gotten the lessons for Andrea.”
Starting the car and backing out, Tyler gives me a look free of his usual joking manner. “I’m glad you did. And I’m glad she didn’t come.”
It feels a little intense for the first couple hours of knowing someone, so I grin and look out the window, saying “Me too.”
We can’t really talk as we drive, even at the slow island speeds, it’s just too loud. But the silence is comfortable. Tyler follows me into the hotel and I think that I never really invited him, he just assumed.
At the door of my room, for a moment I think about thanking him and promising to meet for dinner. I was going to be different, no more one night stands… But then I see those sky blue eyes, that crooked grin. That chest.
I open the door and usher him in.
“It’s a suite, so there are two bathrooms. Feel free to use Andrea’s, she’s not coming back until Friday.”
“Where’d she go? Camping trip, boating excursion?”
I turn toward my room. "I’ll tell you over dinner. I need this shower."
And I need to sort out my thoughts. As the cool water washes all the salt and sand out of my hair and out of every little crevice of my body (good lord, how does sand get in there?), I try to figure out what I want from this.