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“So, back to your girlfriend,” I say.
Luca frowns and grabs ahold of the frame of the truck as we bounce along the dirt road that leads back to my house. “You don’t get to meet her—ever.”
“What? What about if you decide to marry this one? You’ve been with her for, what? A month? That’s a new record for you. She might be the one. I need to vet her first. And I’ll have to meet her at your wedding anyway when I’m your best man.”
Luca shakes his head. “Not happening. You are never going to meet her. You don’t even get to know her name. You don’t even get to meet her at my wedding or even after we get married.”
“You do know, it’s not possible to hide her from me forever? Hawaii is a small island. I will figure out who she is.”
“Not if we move far away.”
I chuckle. “Not going to happen, dude. Once here, no one moves away from Hawaii. They move to Hawaii.”
Luca shakes his head. He’s not going to tell me right now. And I don’t blame him for not telling me. He knows that I have been looking for a bigger challenge, a harder chase. Most of the girls around here have been too easy to steal from their unsuspecting fiancés or husbands. That’s the nice thing about living in Hawaii though. Everyone comes here to get married. So, I always have an endless supply of women to hit on and steal. But, lately, it’s been too easy and the damage I have done has been minimal at best. If Luca really is in love with his girlfriend like I think he is, if he can see himself proposing to her in the future, then they could be my biggest challenge yet.
But I need to make sure they are really in love first, that they want to get married. Then, I can plan my move. So, for now, I’ll wait. I’ll wait for my best friend to fall in love, and then I’ll destroy him. It might destroy our relationship, but I doubt it. Most of the men blame their cheating girlfriends, not the guy their girlfriends fell in love with. Well, on second thought, they do blame me, but after a good square punch to my jaw, their anger at me usually dissipates. Occasionally, it lasts a bit longer, but then I’ve never been friends with any of the men whose girlfriends I have stolen. Luca might hate me after this, but it is a chance I’m willing to take.
I park the truck outside my shack of a house and climb out. “Give me two minutes, and I’ll be ready to head out,” I shout to Luca.
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I run up to the door of my house. Luca doesn’t answer me, but I hear my truck door slam behind me, indicating that he climbed out of the truck. I push my unlocked door open; I never bother locking it. There isn’t anything in here that is worth stealing anyway. I don’t even own a TV. The most expensive items I have are my surfboards. Nobody wants to steal mine when they have their own. And, even if they did, my sponsors would just supply new ones.
That’s the key to life—not having anything worth stealing. That’s why I don’t own anything worthwhile. That’s why I don’t fall in love.
I walk toward the back of my shack. It’s just one room with a fridge and small stove that I rarely use for cooking, a bed, and a dresser. I don’t even have a bathroom inside. I have an outdoor shower and toilet. But it satisfies all my needs and ensures that any woman who gets close to me isn’t going to stick around for long. No woman wants to live in a shack on the beach, no matter how beautiful the sunsets are.
I reach my dresser and pull out a fresh pair of swim trunks and a new T-shirt. I only own one pair of clothing that isn’t swim trunks, and I’m not going to bother wearing it tonight. I prefer to live my life in swim trunks. For one, women find them sexy as hell. They know right off that I’m a surfer without me having to say a word, which makes my job easier. Two, they are way comfier than any other clothing around. And, three, I never know when I’m going to want to go for a swim or go surfing. It’s better to always be prepared.
I grab the fresh clothes and lay them on my bed before stripping and heading out into my shower. I rinse the salt water out of my brown hair that is far too long before drying off and heading back in to put on compression shorts, my new trunks, and T-shirt.
I walk outside and see Luca standing with his hands in his pockets, staring out at the sea.
I know he’s still nervous about getting back out there again. He took quite a hit the last time he was out there. It was a life-changing, almost life-ending, event. I know he still doesn’t know what he’s going to do now. He was never the best surfer out there. I’ve always been better. Always gotten more sponsors. Won more championships. I’m not bragging; it’s just the truth.
But a surfer doesn’t know how to do anything else. He doesn’t know how to live a different life. I know his comment about wanting to move somewhere else to keep his girlfriend away from me was just as much about him. If he stays here and decides he can’t surf anymore, he is going to have to face his decision every day for the rest of his life. If he moves where there isn’t an ocean staring back at him everywhere he goes, then maybe he can move on.
I get it. I just don’t know how he could ever give this life up, no matter how dangerous it is. Life isn’t worth living if you aren’t doing what you love.
“Ready to go?” I ask.
Luca nods and turns toward me, and then he laughs. “Why did you even bother changing if you were just going to put trunks back on?”
I shrug. “At least they are clean.”
“It’s no wonder that you don’t have a girlfriend.”
I grin. He’s right about that. I don’t have a girlfriend or a fiancée or a wife. I never have and never will. The swim trunks help ensure that. I’m a fling that women think they can fall in love with, but when they realize they can’t change me, they move on and deal with the heartbreak they caused when they left the men who actually loved them. While I get freedom. And that’s how I like it.
“You’re going to give yourself a heart attack with the way you eat, man,” Luca says, staring down in disbelief, as I scarf down my second double cheeseburger.
I shrug and then shove a couple of fries into my mouth. “At least I’ll go out doing what I love and not eating that healthy crap you eat.”
“It’s called fish and vegetables. You should try it sometime. You might actually find that you like it, and you will feel better when you’re working out and surfing.”
“Nah, I’m good.” I drink down my beer. “So, when do you think you and that girlfriend of yours are going to be moving to the mainland? I need to know when I need to get a new wingman.”
“I’m not talking about her. I already told you that.”
