Page 42 of I Can't Even

Kill me now. Maybe showing my hand to Ten had been a bad bet.

Once on the beach, I found a place off to the side to practice, away from the other surfers. I pulled off my T-shirt and shorts and dug my wetsuit out of my bag. It still fit, yay, and I felt as if I was slipping on an old familiar skin. I wore a thick wet suit in winter months. Since summer was coming, I had lighter gear that kept my core warm but didn’t cover my arms and legs. The Pacific was cold, but it was a lot of work to surf, which kept a girl warm.

Ten stopped on the beach to do his usual sun salutations. He always did a series of them before he entered the water. For some reason, the continuity of this, the feeling that the more things changed the more they stayed the same, gave me great comfort.

I glanced up at the cliffs, hoping to see Liam’s familiar head of dark hair. Instead, I saw a shock of blond hair, a pair of aviators, and a navy hoodie. It took me a second, but I remembered the man who’d been staring at me in Liam’s coffee shop. I couldn’t be positive, given the shades, but I got the distinct feeling he was watching me, and my creeper meter went into the red zone.

Well, he could watch me all he wanted, but if he couldn’t surf, he couldn’t catch me. With that, I jogged out into the ocean with my board tucked under my arm and the water churning around my knees as if eager to play.

My dignity was the first thing to go. It had been a long time since I’d surfed and as much as some of it was like riding a bicycle, I was nine years older and not nearly as strong as I was back in the day. It was a battle to get past the surf and out to where the waves were breaking. There were about thirty surfers out today and the lineup was well established. Ten, who had done his warmup and still managed to beat me out to the break, waved me in and introduced me to a few of the locals, including a woman named Ruby. Like her name, she had deep red, not natural, hair and a sleeve of tattoos most of which depicted mermaids.

“Ten says you used to be good,” she said.

I shrugged. I knew it was best to keep it humble until I got my cred back. I straddled my board riding over the top of a set of waves. I needed to catch my breath and get my head together before I dropped in. Also, I was preoccupied with watching the cliff looking for Liam. I didn’t want to be cruising a wave and miss him.

The blond man had left his perch and was walking down the trail to the beach. In addition to the hoodie, he was wearing jeans and sneakers, not exactly beach attire in May.

A big roller came our way and I watched as Ruby and another surfer got ahead of it and started paddling. Ruby caught it but the other surfer didn’t. It washed right over him, but she rode it almost all the way to the shore, whipping her board around and diving into the surf at the last second. I felt a surge of adrenaline hit me. I hadn’t surfed in so long and I’d missed it so much.

“It’s yours, surfer girl!” Ten called to me and I glanced behind me to see a perfect wave rolling my way. In the lineup it was clearly my turn and I decided to take it. Belly down on my board, I started to paddle, trying to build momentum. I knew the minute my board merged with the wave, and I popped up into a crouched position. It took me longer than I would have thought to get to my full height but when I did, I felt the same sense of glory sweep through me that I always had when the wave and I became one. Best feeling in the world.

As I neared the shore, I saw the blond man, bent over my stuff. I stared until I noticed he was rifling through my bag! What the hell?

“Hey!” I shouted. He couldn’t hear me over the roar of the surf, so I waved a fist at him and yelled again. “Hey, that’s my stuff!”

Of course, that’s when Liam appeared, walking down the beach, carrying his board, staring at me as if seeing a ghost. I tried to gesture for him to grab the man, but at that moment, the wave dropped out from beneath me. I went one way and my board went another and the next thing I knew I was sucking in saltwater and getting a sand facial. Damn it!

Chapter Fourteen

I was yanked out of the water by the collar of my wetsuit and dragged up onto the beach.

“Jesus, Blumer, what the hell were you thinking?” Liam snapped. “You can’t just jump on a board and think you’re going to be as good as you were as a kid.”

I was too busy hacking to put up an argument so I was left to wheeze and shake my head violently, which he completely ignored while he continued his rant.

“Don’t you realize what could have happened? You could have drowned, given yourself a concussion, or worse, hit another surfer with your board,” he said. “How would you feel then, if you caused someone else an injury?”

I squinted at him and tried to crawl up the beach toward my stuff. The blond man was gone but I could see my bag was open. My arms and legs felt weighted as if I’d eaten enough beach that I was now just one big useless sandbag. I sank onto the ground on my belly not even caring that the waves continued to wash over my feet.

“Aw, shit,” Liam cursed. He knelt beside me and pushed me until I flopped over like a dead fish, looking up at him. “Are you hurt? Can you breathe?”

His brow was furrowed in concern. He cared! I almost let him think I needed mouth to mouth but felt like that might be overplaying my hand; besides he’d already used that move on me and we really needed to make a fresh start. Also, I really wanted to check my bag.

“Fine, I’m fine,” I choked. I craned my head to look at my bag and then I pushed up to a sitting position, forcing him to give me a little space.

“You are not fine,” he said.

“I need to get to my bag,” I said.

“Easy,” he said. “Don’t rush, you’ll only make it worse.”

Liam reached down and released my ankle tether. He dragged my board up onto the beach, dropping it next to his. He crouched beside me and put my arm over his shoulders. With little to no effort, he helped me to my feet and I hobbled toward my bag. I let go of him and sank to my knees. I moved aside the beach towel and there was my stuff. I dug through it—wallet , house keys, clothes. Nothing was missing. Phew!

Perhaps I was crazy and didn’t understand what I’d seen. I mean, who the heck would steal stuff off a beach in front of everyone? But why had I run into this guy twice? And why was he going through my stuff? I checked and my cell phone was still in the zippered pocket on the side. WTF?

Maybe I had lost more oxygen than I’d thought when I was rolled by the wave. Maybe I had seen it wrong and the guy hadn’t been digging through my stuff. I pulled my fluffy striped beach towel out of the bag and dried my face off.

“What are you doing here, Blumer?” Liam asked.

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