Page 58 of The Surfer

“Yeah, I can clearly see you enjoyed that, Ripley Sailor.”

So, I’m not hiding it that well.

I’ll probably won’t walk straight for a week after what he’s done to me.

I brush my head up against his shoulder and Cove wraps his arm around me. I snuggle in against his hot muscular chest that rises and falls with his breathing. I can hear his steady slow heartbeat like a rhythm in my ear. I’m safe. I’m protected. This man has me in his strong arms. I try to blow away a strand of my brown hair that falls over my nose and Cove laughs at my pathetic little attempt.

I’m not like one of his other girls. I’ve changed him, and he’s changed me. For one thing, I can now stand on a surfboard, and I hadn’t even been in a proper ocean until a few weeks ago.

Maybe, if he’d gone this far, maybe I can get him to get back on the board. Maybe I can encourage him to surf again.

That’ll be ideal.

That’ll be amazing, it will be the best thing to see happen. Cove standing on a surfboard again in the ocean. I bet doing that again will change his whole life forever.

“Tell me something,” I say, smirking.

“What, Ripley Sailor?”

“Your tattoo, the one of a dolphin. I’ve constantly been seeing it. What does it mean? Why did you get it?”

Cove breathes in. I know he’s thinking, I know he doesn’t really like talking about himself, especially his inner thoughts and emotions. I know he never speaks like this to anyone else. He trusts me like I trust him. “They’re my favorite animal,” he replies softly like he’s telling me a secret. It is a secret. His secret.

I know I’m being let into some information he rarely divulges to anyone. He’s no longer the carefree bad boy of New Water in my eyes, instead, he’s Cove Finn to me, my surfing teacher. The man who held my hand and guided me to a secret beach that only he and I know of.

My lover.

“Your favorite animal? Why?”

“They’re free, I guess. They’re free in the ocean, and plus, they’re smart. They just get to ride the waves. That doesn’t sound like such a bad life to me.”

This is my chance to press him, to find out more about him. I’ve been wanting to unpeel his protective layers for so long and now, finally, he’s opening up to me. “Is that what you would want to do forever? Ride the waves?”

Cove sighs and runs his hand through my hair. My head tingles as he carefully massages my scalp. “I only wish I could. It’s just… these scars make things difficult.”

“Yeah.”

“They’re so hard to live with, and they were so painful during the surgeries. They’re just a permanent reminder of my failure every day I look at them. I don’t think I’ll ever surf again. You saw how James treated me, I’ll be laughed out of every beach in the Southern Hemisphere, and that’s something Dad and Sandy don’t understand. They don’t see the faces of the people I grew up surfing with when I see them, they don’t see the pity and the snide remarks I have to see. I’ll never show my face at a populated beach ever again. So, no, you won’t see me standing on a surfboard anytime soon.”

My heart just crumbles hearing him speak like that.

“You shouldn’t say those things,” I reply. “They’re not true.”

I wish he could see what I see. What I see of him.

“But they are true, Ripley. I hate that accident and I hate these scars.”

I know he’s going to say that he hates himself, but he bites his tongue.

So much shame inside him. So much pain.

Cove Finn portrays himself as a reckless playboy to the outside world, but inside, he’s hurting like a little boy. It’s his only defense but, with me, it crumbles completely. I see right through him. I see the little boy who’s hurting.

We don’t speak a word. I hold his body closer and I feel his arm tighten around me. We stayed, cuddling, for the next hour in his bed until Sandy’s scheduled to come home from work.

* * *

Mom’ssoft voice echoes down my phone. Hearing her familiar voice immediately calms me. It’s good to hear her again. I’m immediately transported to our little kitchen table back in Queens like it’s one of our late-night conversations.