Page 62 of Catch a Wave

but you can not take the surf out of a surfer.

~ Bob McTavish

Mavs and I walk side-by-side down the street leading to the beach. She’s walked with me every morning this week. An entire week has passed since I kissed her shoulder in the middle of the night. I can’t shake the way she smelled, the feel of her skin on my lips, the little “oh” sound she made when I stepped over the line—a line I can’t risk crossing again. But I’ll never forget the sweetness of what passed between us, like a stolen piece of chocolate melting into my urchin heart.

I may mark the rest of my life by that kiss. Before shoulder. After shoulder.

Shaka follows along behind us, sometimes to one side or the other of us, but he never ventures ahead. You have to spend months training most dogs to walk in a pack formation, following their leaders. Not Shaka. He’s so aware of where hecame from, he’ll never risk being left behind, and he’d rather stay home than consider outrunning us.

He’s still sleeping in Mavs’ bed every night. We’ve got a little routine going.

He whines when he hears me walk through the hallway each morning. Mavs sleeps through his plea to come out. I crack her door and he trots out to join me in the pre-dawn darkness of the hallway. I let him out to do his business, and then he and I take our spots in the kitchen staring at the coffee pot while I brew enough for me and Mavs.

Once the coffee is ready, I crack Mavs’ door open again, and Shaka leaps onto her bed, smothering her in kisses until she rouses and joins us for the morning surf.

No. She’s not surfing—yet.

Yes. I ask her every day.

It’s gotten nearly comical and slightly frustrating—our little exchanges. I ask. She declines. I playfully push. She pushes back.

But I’m relentless for her. She needs this. Maybe what I needed was Kai leaving me alone just enough so I would make the decision to get back in the water on my own. But Mavs isn’t me. She needs me to annoy her until she gets so riled up she faces the ocean just to spite me or to shut me up.

I’m switching it up on her today to make things interesting and to keep her on her toes.

“I’m not going to ask you this morning.”

“To ask me to surf?”

“Yep. Not asking.”

“Why?” She narrows her eyes at me.

“I’m sick of being a pain in your tush. You’ll ride when you’re good and ready.”

“Or not.”

She’s feisty. That’s a good sign. Better than the hopeless resignation I’ve seen her slip into on occasion.

“Or not. But the way I figure it, you wet your feet in the shower. You even soaked your feet in that little foot massaging tub Kai got for you. What’s the difference between that and the ocean? You might want to put your feet in the shorepound—especially today.”

“What makes today so special?” Her expression is curious, or skeptical, I can’t tell.

“I’m thinking of taking Shaka out.”

“What? Bodhi! No! He’s not a surf dog. He could get hurt.”

This is not the answer Mavs would ever have given before her accident.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to him on my watch. I’m just going to play around with him in the shallow stuff. Let him stand on the board, get a feel for whether he’d like it or not.”

Mavs’ brows raise high, her eyes go wide and her mouth turns down.

“Mavs.” I stop walking.

We’re right at the edge of the sand. Shaka stops right beside us and looks up.

“I won’t let anything happen. I promise.”

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