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Still, when I fall asleep, I’m thinking about summer girl.
six
. . .
Maren
Ride the Wave
Half the peopleon the beach are staring.
It’s all I can do not to stare myself. Tuck and his friend-slash-boss Riley are on their surfboards in the water several yards out. The ocean is relatively calm today, but that doesn’t stop the two of them from putting on a show. They’re both shirtless, wearing only swim trunks and focused expressions as they ride the mellow waves coming into shore.
It’s a gorgeous day. Sunny, a little breezy, not too hot. So after I picked up Katie from camp, we decided to put on our bathing suits and head to the beach. Reason number ten thousand why I love living on Bald Head: I get to build sandcastles on one of the prettiest beaches on earth on a Wednesday afternoon.
As luck would have it, Tuck was on his way out to surf with Riley. “Wedding shit is hitting the fan. Stress relief is in order,” he’d said, explaining that Riley is hosting his friend Cooper’s bachelor partyandrehearsal dinner later this week. So Tuck, Katie, and I piled into a golf cart and headed for East Beach, where Riley was already surfing. It’s the island’s best,a wide, flat beach that’s usually pretty empty, especially on a weekday.
Tuck’s strength is on full display as he paddles farther out. He glides effortlessly through the water, the muscles in his shoulders flexing in an almost obscene show of beauty.
In my experience, guys like him—handsome, rich, never mind ex-Navy SEALs and expert surfers—are usually vain, selfish assholes. But Tuck seems oblivious to his gorgeousness, and to the attention he’s getting here on shore, as he leaps into action over and over again. His movements are steady, smooth. Quick too. No small feat for someone his size.
I’m a pleaser.Did he mean what I think he meant? I’ve had several orgasms over the past couple days imagining what he’d do, exactly, to please. He doesn’t need to be generous. A giver.
Something tells me he is, though.
I still don’t understand what possessed me to spill my secrets to him the other night. He just makes me feel... comfortable, I guess. Safe. Like nothing I could do or say would turn him off. Again, I didn’t think men were capable of being so open and vulnerable because I’ve never met one who was.
“Mare, look!” Katie cries. “Look what I found!”
Blinking, I turn back to Katie and smile when I see her holding out a handful of shells. “They’re perfect! Should we use them as a roof for the tower?”
“That’s a great idea. Can you show me?”
Smiling, I scoot over to the biggest sand tower we’ve made so far. The castle we’ve got happening is pretty epic if I don’t say so myself. Tuck, being Tuck, had an enormous bag of shovels, buckets, and sand toys ready to go. Katie and I have had a blast using all of them. We’ve made sand towers, a moat, even a life-size mermaid who “guards the castle from zombies”, as Katie solemnly informed me.
“How about we line the shells up?” I hold out my handand Katie dumps some of her shells into it. “Like this. That way the rain doesn’t get inside the tower.”
She watches me for a minute before she starts to help. I marvel at her cuteness as she works: the unicorn rash guard she’s wearing, the little furrow in her brow. She’s very focused when she’s in the middle of a task.
It’s sweet, watching her lose herself like this. She’s totally absorbed, the furrow in her brow replaced by a smile as we play side by side. The two of us make quick work of the roof. Then Katie decides she wants to dig a big hole “to make a pool for me and you.” So we grab some shovels and head closer to the water.
I catch a pair of passing women in bikinis holding up their hands to their foreheads to watch Tuck and Riley surf.
“You were right, Natalie,” one of them says. “This place is... paradise.”
“Best views in the Carolinas,” the other responds.
“It’s hot today, isn’t it?”
“It’s been a very hot summer, yes.”
I bite back a smile, even as I feel a twist of jealousy. Completely inappropriate, nonsensical jealousy. Tuck is a grown man. So what if he’s slept with women like Natalie and her friend here? He can do what—who—he wants.
I can’t help wondering, though, if he shares truths with his hookups underneath the stars too. The idea that Tuck has conversations like that with other people...
It bothers me.
Shoving the thought aside, I get to work. Together Katie and I create a small crater at the edge of the surf. The waves lap at its edge, the larger ones filling it with water, and Katie and I climb in and proceed to pretend-eat ocean soup out of our cupped hands. The sun is warm on my shoulders. Katie is happy as a clam.
