Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 147136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 736(@200wpm)___ 589(@250wpm)___ 490(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 736(@200wpm)___ 589(@250wpm)___ 490(@300wpm)
I hadn’t laughed like that in months, and it felt good.
The kind of good I wanted to keep feeling, and I could’ve.
I could’ve kept her going. Lied. Revealed nothing and let her lay into me as much as she needed to. But she deserved to know I wasn’t the person she was seeking out. And her response?
“Fuck you.”
Yeah. Fuck me.
How long would I be consumed by this mystery woman?
Hours, at least. That was for certain. It was eleven o’clock and I was trying to busy myself at work on Wednesday, but nothing was taking my mind off that voice.
“Would you fuckin’ relax?” I glared down at my lap, pressing my palm against the tent in my shorts.
I got hard every time I thought about her. It was becoming a major fucking problem.
My gaze lingered until the heat in my groin subsided, then I resumed the tedious task of staring at my phone on the counter. The very phone containing her number.
Fuck this. How pathetic was I going to allow myself to become today?
I pushed away from the counter with a grunt and went to the corkboard on the back wall displaying this week’s lesson sign-ups.
I removed old advertisements and sales that no longer applied. I studied the list of names, noted the instructors posted next to them, then dropped my shoulders and glanced back at the phone.
If that piece of shit devil of a device had a mouth, it would’ve fucking smiled at me.
It was winning. No contest. I knew it. Apple knew it. It was only a matter of time before I caved and dialed her up, giving in and fully acknowledging my fucked-up obsession.
I raked a hand down my face as I remembered how abruptly she ended our conversation last night. How quick she was to apologize and get off the phone.
Red flag, right there, dick.
I didn’t even get to utter a partial good-bye before she hung up and left me reeling. She wouldn’t answer me. I’m the guy she didn’t intend on calling.
I moved back to the counter, but instead of caving and grabbing my phone, I pulled the crossword puzzle off the shelf behind me and tossed it on the wood, grabbing a pen and leaning over the paper.
I read the clues. Filled in a few answers. Got pissed when I filled shit in wrong and had to write over it, all because my mind wasn’t on that damn crossword or the answers I was filling in.
Not one bit.
I had officially run out of things to distract me.
My phone vibrated and shifted on the counter, snapping my attention off the spot on the paper I was spacing out on.
I reached for it and glanced down at the text from my sister. My hand readied to reply.
And then …it hit me.
A text …a text I might be able to coax her to respond to. It was, without a doubt, the less personal approach.
Decision made, I palmed my phone and pulled up my recent calls. My thumbs moved hurriedly over the keypad.
Wild Girl. Eaten any innocent men alive today yet?
I hit Send. I felt good.
Keeping it playful was most likely the best way to go about this. My other thought, confessing how hard I came last night after she hung up on me, might’ve backfired.
She’d respond, all right. With a restraining order.
The front door chimed, pulling my attention off the phone.
Jamie, the same motherfucker who I wanted to beat the piss out of last night, drifted into the shop with a small group of women floating in behind him. He jerked his chin in my direction, greeted me with a smug grin, then turned his head and watched as the three ladies moved to congregate by a table covered in T-shirts and board shorts.
Stopping on the other side of the counter I was standing behind, he ran a hand through his damp hair.
“What up? What are you doing?”
I placed the phone down.
“Nothing. Waiting on that shipment of boards to arrive.”
Not a lie. I was waiting. The boards were set to arrive sometime today. I just couldn’t seem to care one way or another about it.
I nodded toward the window facing the ocean. “How’s it out there today?”
“Decent. A bit choppy.” He lifted his brow. “You tryin’ to get out? I can man the shop. I don’t have any other lessons until later this afternoon. I think three o’clock is my next one.”
I shook my head, stepped back, and leaned my weight against the table, crossing my arms tight across my chest.
Jamie and I co-owned Wax, a surf shop walking distance from the beach.
We opened the store a couple years back when both of us lived and breathed sand and salt water. Back when I did surf, it was purely for enjoyment. I craved the rush of adrenaline. The freedom and adventure it provided. Jamie was the same, but it was different for him. He was a local hero. A Dogwood Beach legend. He won three world championships back-to-back and was one of the most powerful free surfers I’d ever seen.