Page 16 of Wilder Love
Every morning for the past month, I woke up at sunrise and crept out of the apartment before anyone else was awake for a morning surf session with Shane. Mom had gotten a bartending job and didn’t get home until two or three in the morning. Knowing her, she’d managed to find the roughest neighborhood and the diviest bar, but she had a job and that was all that mattered. Dylan had gotten a kitchen job as a dishwasher at a seafood restaurant at the marina. Say what you will about the St. Clair’s, we were resourceful, our survival instincts strong. At least we weren’t dumpster diving for our food in Costa del Rey.
“Get ready,” Jimmy said at quarter to five.
I wasn’t sure I could have ever been ready for this. A line was already forming outside the door. Jimmy’s Surf Shack, in conjunction with HartCore, the local surfwear company that sponsored Shane, was hosting a one-hour signing at the shop today. A free poster of Shane for each of his adoring fans for as long as supplies lasted.
“Are they all girls?” I asked, trying to hide my dismay.
“Looks that way.”
I sighed. Shane looked relaxed, with an easy smile, like he did this kind of thing every day. I guess he did. It was part of his job. I spent the next hour seething with jealousy as Shane posed for photos, his arm around willowy blondes, brunettes, redheads, and signed his autograph. Sure, there were a few groms and some giggling tweens, but his fan base mostly consisted of girls in their late teens and early twenties.
I watched him from behind the counter as a girl stuffed a slip of paper into his pocket. How many cell phone numbers had he collected? Would he hook up with any of them? I rang up a woman’s purchase of a HartCore wetsuit for her son and handed him the free ballcap with the HartCore logo that came with every purchase made during the signing. The kid grinned at me and put the ballcap on backward over his shaggy blond surfer hair. He was about ten or eleven and someday he’d be a heartbreaker.
“I see you down at the pier surfing sometimes. With Shane Wilder.” His eyes lit up when he said Shane’s name. “Someday I want to be just like him.”
“You want to be a pro surfer?” I asked, smiling at him.
“Yep.” His eyes strayed across the shop to Shane. “He’s a mad surfer. Like, how does he do those aerials? I’ve been working on them all summer, but I can hardly catch any air.”
“Yeah, he’s pretty great. He practices a lot.”
He nodded, a serious expression on his face. “How many hours?”
“Um…” I was now the resident expert on Shane Wilders surf training.
“Honey,” his mom said, laughing. “Stop badgering the poor girl.”
“It’s okay.” I looked at the boy. “I’d say four to six hours a day in the water and then he does a lot of other training. He says Indo Boarding is really good for surfers.”
His eyes widened. “Wow. Okay. That’s what I need to do. Well… see ya around.”
“See you. Good luck.”
He gave me two thumbs-up.
After the boy and his mom left the shop, I looked over at Shane again. He was kind of a big deal, I guess. A god on a stick. He could have any girl he wanted, and I wondered why he had chosen me that day.
Since then, I had been friend-zoned. Which was for the best, really. I didn’t want to get hung up on a guy like Shane. On the first night, I had told him far too much and had been too honest. I regretted that now. What had I been thinking? I hadn’t. I’d just let it all pour out, this inexplicable need to show him who I really was and see if he still liked me, despite that. Most guys just wanted to skip the talking part and move on to sex. Shane hadn’t been like that. He’d asked me questions and listened to my answers like he actually cared about my opinions. But not only had I told him too much, he had seen Mom in action. It wasn’t her at her worst but from the outside, I could only imagine how it looked.
6
Shane
“You ready for Teahupo’o?” my dad asked over dinner—grilled salmon, wild rice and salad from the garden.
The sun was just setting, and we were sitting on the back patio where we ate most of our meals whenever I stopped by for dinner.
“Guess we’ll see when I get there. My training has been going well and I’ll have a few days beforehand to study the waves before the heats. I’ll just go out there and do my best. Try not to piss myself,” I joked.
“Not many people get to say they surfed the fabled Teahupo’o.”
“I’m lucky as shit.” There was no denying that.
“World’s your oyster.” He sounded wistful like he did when he was thinking about my mom or his dreams that had died right along with her.
“Do you ever regret giving it up?” Every few years I asked him this question, wondering if his answer would ever change.
“Nope. My heart wasn’t in it anymore. Competing is stressful. If you’re not there mentally, physically, and emotionally, you’ve already lost before you even paddle out. But I don’t have to tell you that. You handling the stress okay?”
