Kai’s feels perfect.
I nod softly, pulling my lip between my teeth, my cheeks growing warm with embarrassment. I can feel the flush move to my chest, and Kai shakes his head, giving me a sweet smirk.
“The ocean looks good on you, Quinn, even when you overreact to being touched by my foot,” Kai tells me, and again, that flirty banter has me wanting to spend more time with him.
“Thanks. I’ll admit, it’s been really fun,” I tell him, and he sits up a little taller on his board, confident in his decision to push me. “Seriously, though, thanks for this.”
It’s been so long since I did something for myself, always putting Sean first, and sometimes I wonder if that’s why I held on so tightly to my job. It was my own.
And out here on the water, this feels like mine.
“Anytime, Quinn, anytime.”
He looks back over his shoulder, his face lighting up, and I know the perfect wave is coming in.
“Ready?” he calls out. “You’ve got this one!”
And I do. Feeling confident under Kai’s watch, I begin to paddle, the wave bigger than any I’ve caught so far.
Kai intentionally brought me to this part of the island to surf, telling me the waves are smaller and easier, but this one coming in is either going to ruin me or make me.
I feel the wave under my board, and I manage to pop up, shocking myself and eliciting a shout of approval from Kai.
But that’s where the excitement ends. Losing my balance, I can feel I’m about to go ass up, and boy, do I ever.
The board shoots up in the air like a damn rocket, taking my leg with it, but not before I hit the water with such gusto that it sucks off my bikini bottoms.
The surfboard disconnects itself from me, floating away, and my bottoms are lost in the vast emptiness of the ocean, never to be seen again.
When I finally pop up from under the water, I realize I can only see out of one eye. The ocean just keeps taking from me: my bikini bottoms, my contact lens, my dignity.
“Quinn!” I hear Kai call, and if I thought I was embarrassed before, it’s about to get even worse.
How the hell am I going to get out of the water without bottoms and without everyone on this beach getting a full-frontal show? This is a public beach, not a strip club.
“Oh my god, Kai,” I wail, closing my eyes as he paddles up next to where I’m currently bobbing in the water, my cat getting a full cleanse from the ocean.
“You okay?” he asks me, holding out a hand, as if he’s going to pull me onto his board, but hell no.
“I think I lost every bit of self-preservation along with my bikini bottoms,” I admit, and Kai glances down at the water, not even on purpose, just instinct.
“Shit,” he says, his eyes wide. He looks around, taking in all the people on the beach, the surfers that dot the water. “Hang on.”
And just when I think he’s going to run back to the shore, grab me a towel or whatever, he hops into the water next to me.
Pulling off his boardshorts, he hands them to me. “Put these on. All these people expect me to do something stupid anyway.” Shrugging, he smiles and begins to walk out of the water, his board in front of him, his ass crack on display for all the world to see.
Who said chivalry is dead?
“We all have a story like that,” Kai says as we’re walking back to the surf shop. “It’s like a rite of passage. You should feel honored that the ocean kept a piece of you. Actually, several pieces of you.”
He now has a towel wrapped around his waist, but not before he did his walk of shame to leave his board in the sand. Returning to the water to retrieve the one I lost.
I laugh out loud at his joke, enjoying that I can laugh at myself and feel zero remorse or guilt for having fun.
“What’s your story?” I ask him, my brows going up as I wait for his answer, assuming he probably doesn’t have one since he grew up on the water.
“Oh, I don’t remember ever getting rocked by a wave. Probably did as a kid, but I’ve embarrassed myself plenty,” he says, elusively.
