by Marta Brown
Now if only phone girl was as dismissive of me as Brad was. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
“I’ll have an egg-white omelet, cooked with olive oil. No lard, or whatever you slather your pancakes with, and an order of wheat toast.”
“Would you like that dry or buttered?”
She scrunches her face like I’ve asked a stupid question. “Duh. Dry with organic butter on the side if you have it.” She glances around the brightly colored dining room that looks more like a carnival than a farmers market and curls her lip. “Although, I doubt you do.”
I scribble down her order and bite my tongue at the insinuation, wishing Jess was here to give the girl an earful. But instead, I nod since everything my hippy grandparents cook with is organic and has been since before it was cool. “We do, actually. Made locally in the Keys.”
“By you?” she says, raking her eyes over me from head to toe. “Because that outfit definitely looks like something someone would wear churning butter.” She laughs, and so does everyone at the table, except Brad, who is now the one too focused on his phone to pay any attention to what was just said. “You do know it’s like a hundred degrees out, right?”
Glancing at my jeans and T-shirt, I swallow down a hard lump in my throat—because she’s right—I’ve been burning up all day. And I still have six more days of this until Jess gets back from her cruise with my stuff.
I force on a smile. “Um… yeah, I should probably change since it looks like the clouds have finally burned off out there. Your order should be up shortly,” I say before rushing back to the kitchen so no one can see my face has turned red with embarrassment. And overheating.
I let Oliver have the table.
…
Four long, hot hours later, I fall into a sweaty heap at the foot of my bed, relieved I won’t be asked anymore times why I’m wearing jeans on such a hot day. Bitchy phone girl may have been the first and the rudest, but she was definitely not the only.
“Honey, is that you?” Grandma Betty calls from the living room before I hear her jingling down the hall, like a walking tambourine of stacked, layered, and loose silver jewelry. She stops at my door, and the music stops too. “Oh, Katie, dear, why in the world are you wearing jeans? Do you know how hot it is outside?”
I grab one of the colorful pillows stacked at the top of the bed and cover my head with it. “Not you, too, Grandma.”
There is muffled jingling before the bed sags under the weight of the two of us now. Grandma lifts the pillow away from my face and brushes back the wild strands of loose hair stuck to my sweaty face. “Me, too?” she asks, seeming simultaneously confused and concerned.
Sitting up, I stuff the pillow on my lap and huff out a long breath. “A million and one people asked me today why I was wearing jeans. And it’s not like I can explain between taking their order and fetching their food how the plane was delayed, which made Jessica late, which made her grab the wrong suitcase, leaving me stuck with one outfit for the next six days until she gets back from her weeklong cruise. They’d think I was crazier than a girl wearing jeans on a ninety-eight degree day.”
“A million and one? Well, Big Pop will be positively over the moon with how well the restaurant did today.” Grandma claps her hands in mock excitement, accomplishing what I imagine she was out to do—make me laugh.
“Grandma.” I chuckle. “I’m serious. I have no clothes, no books, and no idea how I’m going to learn to kite surf in less than two weeks either. And in what?” I toss my hands in the air, exasperated.
“Well,” Grandma pats my knee, “I certainly can’t help you with your kite-surfing problem, but the other two, I can.” She stands with a flourish, moves to Jessica’s suitcase, and flips open the unzipped top. “Ta-da!” she says, smiling, like maybe I hadn’t considered I could just wear Jessica’s clothes and the problem would be solved.
I drop my eyes to the ground, knowing she’ll never understand since she’s just like Jess. Free, outgoing, and without a shy bone in her body.
“It’s just… I could never pull off any of Jessica’s clothes.”
“And why in the world not?” Grandma puts her hands on her hips, like she’s about to defend me to me.
Standing up, I move to the suitcase, snatching up the first thing I can find to prove my point. It’s a great grab. A skintight black dress with a plunging neckline.
“This is why.” I hold up the revealing frock, so Grandma can get a good look. Not only do I not have the body to pull this off, I also don’t have Jessica’s confidence either—which is a requirement for an outfit like this—or anything else in her wardrobe.
“I think you would look adorable in that dress.”
I roll my eyes. “Grandma.”
“What? I do,” she says, taking the dress from my hands and hanging it up in the empty closet before turning back to me. “I just don’t understand what all the stink is about. You’re young, beautiful, and could wear a potato sack and still look gorgeous.”
Staring at the tiny excuse for a dress hanging in the giant, empty closet Jess and I normally share, I decide I’d feel more comfortable in a potato sack than that any day.
“But,” Grandma continues, “if that’s not your particular style…” She reaches down and grabs a light yellow cotton sundress from the suitcase and holds it up. “How about this one?”
I take a step forward and run my thumb over the thin fabric. It’s soft, summery, and best of all—it’s not all that short. “Lucky pull,” I say to her raised brows and assured smile. Like she knows she has me. “It’s probably the only thing in that bag I would actually consider wearing.”
“Well, good,” she says, handing me the dress. “Then it looks like you now have two outfits to get you through the week. And also something to wear while I wash the airplane and pancake mix off that one.” She scrunches up her nose as I slip off the offending garments and into the airy sundress. “Better?”
Glancing in the mirror hanging on the wall next to the door, I decide it could be worse. “A little.” I smile. “Thanks, Grandma.”
“And how about now?” she asks, pulling out a thin, green card from the pocket of her silky tunic with an image of an anchor on the front. Monroe County Library System is printed above in gold and aqua blue.
I throw my arms around her neck and kiss her smiling cheek. “Better. So. Much. Better.
Now if I can only figure out a way to learn to kite surf without having to wear a bathing suit, I’d be all set.
Chapter 6
Oliver
Carefully laying out the lines of my trainer kite on the wide, white sands of Smather’s Beach, I shake my head. Why did I agree to this again? Oh, yeah—because my sister tricked me into it, and I couldn’t say no to my mom. It means too much to her and her job.
And apparently, she’s not the only one I can’t say no to since I trucked all the way across the island to this beach instead of going to the one closest to the actual course we’ll be riding, all because Katie asked.
But after the disaster yesterday at the restaurant with that bitchy girl giving Katie a hard time, I don’t blame her. Smather’s Beach is a bit more secluded. And I’m sure the last thing Katie wants is a bunch of prying eyes on her while she learns how to kite surf for the first time—and in one of Jessica’s bathing suits to top it off.
“Hey,” Katie calls out, breaking me from my thoughts and returning my focus to the kite.
I start to pump air into the leading edge valve of the kite and then glance over my shoulder. “It’s about time,” I tease since it’s so freaking rare she’s late, and this time, she can’t blame it on a delayed plane, when my hand involuntarily drops the pump I’m holding to the ground, letting a steady swoosh of air escape as my jaw hangs loose.
Katie is in a dress.
In shock at seeing my best friend in a dress for the first time, I try not to stutter, but my brain doesn’t communicate this hope to my mouth. “Hey, up? I mean, you…” Shit. “I me
an, hey you, what’s up?” I finally choke out, feeling exactly like the idiot I must sound like. No wonder I’m in the friend zone.
Running her hands over the nonexistent winkles in the light yellow dress that hits mid-thigh and looks amazing on her, Katie scrunches her face at me. “Stop looking at me like that.”
Whoops.
I clear my throat and try to stop ogling, but since I haven’t been able to keep my eyes off her in the same old T-shirt and jeans she’s been wearing since she landed two days ago, I totally fail. She’s beautiful in anything she wears. But seeing her in a dress is altogether new and… totally hot.
“What?” I say, trying to play it off as I pick up the sandy pump, and my jaw, from off the ground and get back to work setting up the kite for her first lesson. “I wasn’t looking at you like anything.” Lie.
“Just shut up.” She tugs at the hem of the skirt before letting it fall from her fingers, seeming to realize no amount of pulling is going to make it any longer. “I know I look ridiculous, but it’s so flipping hot out that Grandma made me wear it so I wouldn’t get heat stroke in my jeans.” She crosses her arms over her chest, looking like she’d rather test her luck in the jeans anyway. Heat stroke be damned.
“While getting heat stroke isn’t the worst idea I can think of to get us out of this stupid contest,” I smile, “Grandma Betty’s right. Knowing my mom and how badly she wants this whole promotion thing to go off without a hitch, she’d probably still make you race. And jeans can get kinda heavy when they get wet,” I joke to lessen the weirdness for both of us.
It works. Katie drops her arms, along with the tension in her shoulders, and lets out a small laugh. “Well, you are the expert,” she says, kicking off her flip flops and burying her toes in the sand, her teeth tugging at her lip. “Um… do I… need to be in my bathing suit yet?”
With her hair pulled into a messy ponytail, the light purple strings of her bathing suit peek out of the dress’ neckline—strings that look a whole lot like a bikini top’s strings. I gulp.
“Uh, no. Not yet.” Damn it. “We’ll need to get you up to speed with the basics of kite control before we get anywhere near the water.” Which is a whole other lesson I haven’t quite prepared myself for, and not because it’s likely Katie will be in a bikini, but because I haven’t been out myself since last summer.
At the mere thought, a flash of being slammed against the surf after attempting a big air-tail grab and then losing control hits me in the chest like a wave crashing against the shore and steals my breath. And my nerve.
“Hey, you okay?” Katie asks, eyeing me like I must look on the outside the way I feel on the inside. Freaked the eff out.
I push back the memories of my last invitational and focus back on the job at hand. Teaching Katie how to kite surf. No tricks included.
“Nah, I’m good,” I say, almost meaning it as I finish inflating the leading edge of the kite before motioning to the black harness on the ground near her feet. “Let’s get you hooked in and comfortable with launching the kite, okay?”
Katie, looking relieved she doesn’t need to strip down just yet, grabs the harness from the ground, gives it a quick shake to knock the sand off, and then slips it on and clips it closed. “What’s this thing for?” she asks, pointing to the small, metal hook poking out of the front of the harness.
“That’s to hook the control bar to. It helps take some of the strain off your arms by putting the kite’s power at your center of gravity. It also keeps you tethered when you’re doing tricks and stuff.”
Katie’s eyebrows shoot up. “Tricks?”
“No. No tricks.” I let out an uncomfortable laugh. “Just the basics to get you on the water, comfortable enough to circle Sunset Key, and then make it back to shore in one piece. With less than two weeks until the contest—I might be good,” I wink, “but I’m not a miracle worker.”
Katie rolls her eyes and gives me a small shove. “Funny.”
“I do what I can.” I smirk, our easy back and forth feeling like… well, us again. At least until I get the balls to tell her how I really feel and hopefully not screw up our friendship while I’m at it. “You ready?” Because I’m not sure I am.
“As I’ll ever be.”
With a quick check that the flying lines are correctly attached to the bridle, we’re ready to start. “Okay, first things first.” I hand Katie the control bar and then move so I’m facing into the wind, directing Katie to stand with her back to it. “See how the wind is blowing parallel to the shore?” I motion with my chin to the palm tree fronds. “That’s called a side shore wind and it’s the best kind of wind you can hope for, so we lucked out today. But for the future, as long as you keep your back to it, it doesn’t matter if its side shore, side onshore, or cross shore. All right?”
“Got it. Side shore. Keep my back to it.” Katie nods, a deep line creasing between her eyes as her knuckles turn white from the amount of force she holds the control bar with. “Now what?”
“Whoa. Someone’s an eager beaver?” I tease, picking up the kite and shaking off the sand holding it down.
“What?” She shrugs, the sun pinkening her nose and cheeks. “If I’m being forced to participate, I at least want to do well.”
“You do know no one is grading this, right?”
She blows out a long breath and drops her arms, the control bar still in her hands. “You sound like Jess.”
“Sorry.” I hold up my left hand while keeping the kite clutched tightly in my right one. “I was just kidding. But… speaking of Jess, you should try and channel her a bit, you know? Let loose, relax a little, and I promise you’ll get the hang of it before you know it.”
“Be like Jess? Not likely.” Katie laughs. “But I’ll try to relax if you think it’ll help me learn more quickly.” She lifts her arms so they’re parallel with her shoulders and then let’s the control bar rest more comfortably in her hands. “I just don’t want to make a fool of myself and get body slammed into the rocks or something.”
I flinch. “A fool? Like me?”
Letting go of the control bar with one hand, she covers her mouth. “Ollie, I didn’t mean it like that. I promise.” Her eyes are wide and pleading, and I know she didn’t. But it still stings to think about her seeing me fail so hard at the only thing I’m even good at. It’s not like I was very good in school, or did a bunch of extracurricular activities like yearbook or honor society like she did. And if I’m being honest with myself, I’m pretty sure the only reason I am more than just some stupid jock in her eyes is the fact I was the best in my sport. Islamorada champ two years running in my division. Until my accident landed me in the ER with a dislocated shoulder, two broken ribs, and a punctured lung.
But now? What am I?
A wuss that hasn’t been back in the water for almost a year. A fool is right.
I shake my head as humiliation courses through my veins. The small voice that has for so long kept me from telling Katie how I feel about her is now screaming. Why in the hell do I think I’m worthy of a girl like her in the first place?
“No, I know you didn’t mean it like that,” I say to reassure her, and maybe myself, too. “Let’s just forget about it and get back to the lesson.”
Katie nods, but I can tell she still feels bad as I move to the left and create a forty-five degree angle from her to me, while keeping the flying lines taut and straight.
“Now, I want you to imagine there is a dome above you, okay? That dome is what we call the wind window.” I motion to the invisible arc above her, starting from one end of the wide, sandy beach near the parking lot all the way to the other side at the edge of the water, so she can get a scope of how big the window is. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She smiles.
“Good. Now at the very top of the window is what we call the zenith, but to make things easy, we’ll just call it twelve o’clock,” I say, guiding the kite from the edge of the wind window up along the edge of the arc before letting go an
d watching in amusement as Katie’s eyes go wide when the kite zips through the air and starts to bob in the wind above her head in the twelve o’clock position.
“Whoa, am I doing this right?” she asks, her eyes darting from the kite to me and back again. “I’m not going to blow away, am I?”
I let out a small laugh. Despite her tiny frame, as long as she keeps the kite high above her head at the edge of the wind window, or the shoulder, she should be okay.
Unless she—shit.
Without notice, Katie drops her left arm, moving the kite out of the twelve o’clock position and closer to ten o’clock before quickly pulling down on the right side to correct her position, but it’s too late. The kite dives through the power zone and launches Katie forward a few inches above the ground until her body slams into mine, knocking us both down with an oomph.
“Ollie, are you okay?” Katie asks in a frantic tone as her body presses against mine. “Do you need me to call for help?”
Despite my back taking the brunt of the force when we hit the ground, it feels fine. Actually, for having just bit it so damn hard, everything feels better than fine—but that might just be the adrenaline talking since Katie is laying directly on top of me with my hands on her waist and her lips just inches from my mouth.
Yeah. I’d say I’m more than fine.
Chapter 7
Katie
Oliver emits a low, strangled growl as our bodies press against one another, a tangle of kite strings, arms, and legs keeping us entwined after my spectacular fail.
For a split second, I worry the sudden tension radiating through his body is because of me. Considering I’m probably the last girl in the world he wants lying on top of him, not to mention I managed to ruin his first kite-surfing lesson within moments, I freeze. However, when he tips back his head and mutters ‘shit’, I realize it’s not because of me at all, but the two guys who have joined us on the beach that are the problem.
