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“It was also Andy’s idea to sell Mary’s Surf Suds here in the first place,” Luke added, shooting her a warm smile that did funny things to her belly.
All eyes swung to Andy, and she blushed. “Well, uh, he came up with the name,” she mumbled, face warming even more as her mind went right back to that little brain-storming sesh in Luke’s shower.
God damn it, why couldn’t she stop thinking about it? She should be fantasizing about getting steamy with Kyle, not Luke.
“Aw,” Mary said, suddenly throwing her arms around Andy and hugging her tight. “Thank you, Andalise Rhodes. I’m so glad you joined our team.”
Andy swallowed under Mary’s heartfelt whisper. “Me too.”
Mary stepped away, gaze flickering between Andy and Luke with interest. “I’m also happy to see you two getting along so well.”
Andy was saved from having to respond to the woman’s scrutiny by the sudden distant blast of a car horn.
Mary frowned, attention swinging towards the parking lot. “Oh, no. I forgot Paul’s been waiting for me to finish up.”
Luke snorted. “He can go right on waiting.”
Mary rolled her eyes as she finished up the hug-fest. Enfolding Reg in a warm embrace, she admonished him to stay out of the surf zone for a while.
Reg chortled out a laugh at this. One that said she might as well have asked him to stop breathing.
Mary sighed and, hooking her arm through Rashida’s, headed for the door. “You and Andy will keep these guys in line for me, won’t you, Rash? You two are the last line of estrogen in here, and I’m trusting you with this.”
“We won’t let you down, boss.”
The two disappeared into the workshop, Reg and Dylan drifted off to talk waves, and Andy found herself alone with Luke and Kyle.
“I’d say that went well.” Luke’s cheeks lifted in such a happy smile that Andy couldn’t tear her gaze away.
Even for Kyle, who stood by with his own megawatt grin. “Yep. Plan well executed, you guys.”
“Yeah. We make a good team.” Luke wasn’t looking at Kyle when he said this. He was looking right at Andy and, of course, her belly flipped again.
Stupid, flippin’ belly.
Look away,Andy told herself for what must have been the hundredth time in so many days. But, of course, she found that she couldn’t. Why this man affected her this way was a mystery.
She should be so freaking tired of him after getting up nearly every morning for the last two weeks to meet him at the beach. Sure, the sessions had been productive. She’d managed to stand up on her learner board plenty of times now and ride those little whitewater foamies, but catching a real wave still eluded her.
And then there was Luke encouraging her with gems like,“Well, at least you’re getting acclimated to the wipeout”and“What are you doing? Waiting to be knighted? This ain’t Camelot! Stop dropping that knee!”
Andy was convinced it was impossible not to drop one’s knee during a pop up. How anyone could spring up from a prone position on a surfboard to a crouched one without dragging their knee up the deck was mystifying to her. Especially a surfer with legs as freakishly long as Luke’s.
But anyway, the pop up was freaking annoying.
And her surf instructor was freaking annoying.
And his stupid homework texts —Don’t forget your push-ups tonight. All twenty-five of them! And add a rep of burpees. I want you springing up like a fucking ninja in the morning —yeah, those were freaking annoying too.
And yet still, for all this, Andy found that shewasn’ttired of hanging out with Luke. Not even a little.
Maybe this was because she’d grown to appreciate that Luke challenged her both inside the water and out. There was no hand-holding or sugarcoating things with him. He didn’t baby her. He didn’t talk down.
He treated her like an equal.
Maybe it was because Andy was a woman, or maybe because she was an autistic woman, but that hadn’t always been her experience when interacting with men. Certainly not some of the ones she’d worked with at ManCave.
But with Luke it was different. With him, she truly did feel like she was part of a team. Would that change if he knew she was autistic? Would he treat her differently? Would he stop challenging her during their lessons? Hell, would he stop their lessons altogether?
