Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
“Yeah, they are. They took me in and gave me a chance. Not many people would do that.”
He’s right, they wouldn’t.
“Once you’ve got your balance and are comfortable shifting your weight around the board, you’ll need to practice getting up and down. If you can’t get up, you won’t go anywhere. It takes a good while, but once you get it, surfing becomes a whole lot easier.”
I nod, and he encourages me to lie down on the board, explaining where to put my body, my arms, my legs, and how I’ll be paddling. We practice that, and then he shows me how to stand. I fall, stumble and trip so many times. It seems like it would be easy to just bounce up on a board—it certainly is not. After half an hour, I’m frustrated that I can’t seem to get it.
“How about we go do some paddling in the water?” Bohdi asks me, his mouth twitching at my frustration.
“So you can laugh at me drowning?”
He grins, and it takes my breath away. I’ve never seen him grin, god, I could only imagine in my wildest fantasies what he’d look like smiling and laughing. Seeing it, up close, does something to my heart. It makes me melt in a way I didn’t think was possible. The way it lights up his face—incredible. He has a dimple in his cheek that’s so incredibly adorable I don’t dare point it out because I know he’d flip.
Bikers aren’t adorable.
I say nothing, even though I want to scream with joy that he’s grinning at me. Instead, I huff and get off my board, picking it up. “Well, let’s do this.”
“After you.”
We go into the water and Bohdi shows me how to paddle when there is surf around. It’s hard, and exhausting and my god I didn’t realize just how difficult it would be. It seems so easy – it is not. We finally get past the waves and out to where it’s calmer. Bohdi climbs onto the board, and I follow suit, and we sit with our legs dangling in the ocean, out in the middle of nothingness, just the two of us.
“I see why the ocean means so much to you. Out here it’s as if nothing could ever touch you.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, closing his eyes and breathing it in. “Club brings me freedom, but nothin’ in this world brings me peace like the ocean.”
“Why did you stop surfing?”
He opens his eyes and glances at me. “I had no choice. Life got complicated. I didn’t have time. Then, I disappeared.”
I still wonder what drove him to disappear like that. Sure, I know he found out some bad news, but what in his life made him so depressed that that news drove him to act like he was dead. I don’t know if he’ll ever tell me, but I do know that whatever he’s keeping a secret, it’s big enough to change the course of his life.
“Well, I’m happy to be out here. I’ve never been in the ocean like this. Before the other night, I hadn’t been in at all.”
“That’s a fucked existence.”
“Yeah, it is. But I’m here now. That’s all that matters.”
He nods. “Yeah.”
We sit in silence for long moments, and it’s anything but uncomfortable. In Bohdi’s presence, I feel relaxed and calm.
“I gotta tell you, the other night when you kissed me, I didn’t handle it well. I need to apologize for that.”
I’m taken aback by his statement.
I didn’t think he’d say anything about that.
Hell, I wasn’t about to mention it. No bloody way.
“It’s okay, I shouldn’t have done it. I understand you don’t feel the same way, and ...”
“That’s not it,” he cuts me off. “Fuck, if you knew what I felt ...”
“Then why don’t you tell me? Why are we so afraid of whatever this is?”
“Because it can’t be anything more, and I can’t risk letting that feeling out.”
He turns and paddles in. As always, cutting the conversation off.
I’m frustrated and tired of going around and around in circles. He tells me he doesn’t know what’s going on with Isla and that he cares about me, but that’s all he gives me. No talk of the future, or what might happen. Nothing.
Maybe the time has come for me to move on.
Maybe, I need to let Bohdi go.
The problem is ... I don’t know if I can do that.
I’M STRUGGLING WITH arms full of sticks and ocean bark that I don’t see the man jogging toward me down the path. I don’t see him until I slam into him and my collection goes flying. With a loud cry, I stumble backward, shocked and confused. It takes me a moment to realize what has happened. I’ve crashed into someone because I couldn’t see in front of me, and he clearly wasn’t paying attention either.