Page 60 of Playing the Field
Gracie squints for a moment as her eyes acclimate to the light, but she immediately smiles when she sees where we are. “I’ll take a view of the beach any day. This is gorgeous.”
She’s right. It’s a bluebird sky day, and the few fat, white clouds look like they were painted there to make the sky look better. There aren’t a lot of cars on the road. We glide past the occasional cyclist in bright spandex, but it feels like a world away from where we were earlier.
“This isn’t just the beach. This is Malibu. Nice, clean water, not super crowded, lotta surfers. I come here when I need to get out of my head.” I point at the water, which is closer to the highway along this stretch. “When I stand on the beach there and look at the water, I can let everything else go.”
She puts the window down and inhales deeply. “I can imagine. That ocean air is cleansing.”
I put my hand on her knee. “Have you ever been stand-up paddleboarding?”
“What’s that?”
“You’ve probably seen people doing it. Standing up on what looks like a big surfboard and paddling along on top of the water?”
She nods. “Oh, yeah. People do that at Shoreline Lake, near my house in the Bay Area.”
“Good stuff. It gets you onto the water, super chill. I had a couple of boards at my house, but the fire took ’em.”
Her face falls like it does every time I mention the loss of my house. “Sorry to hear that. Would’ve been fun to try it.”
I cough out a laugh. “You’re such a bad liar. In no universe do you think it would be fun to get up on a board on the ocean, but we’re going to do it, Gracie. You need to trust me.”
She presses her lips together, brows furrowed. I feel like something set off a land mine in her brain, and I’m not sure it’s the idea of standing on a foam board.
Grazing her chin with the tip of my thumb, I tip her face up to see the confidence in my eyes. I’m not sure if it’s confidence in her ability to handle a paddleboard or confidence in her ability to handle me, but I need her to see and understand it. “You can trust me, Tink.”
Her almost imperceptible flinch tells me I’ve hit the nail on the head. She’s having a hard time trusting me. Fair enough. I need to earn it.
“I promise. I won’t let you get hurt. And I don’t just mean the paddleboard.”
Her eyes flicker, and she sucks in a breath. I wait for her to exhale, grateful to see some of the resistance leave her expression. “I…I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”
I slip a finger under the hem of her white denim shorts and caress her skin. “These’ll work fine. We’ll go in a little cove where the water’s gentle. You probably won’t get anything wet besides your feet.”
“I know a big fat liar when I see one,” she says. “But you’re also a sweet talker. So…I trust you.”
It feels like a victory. It’s all I can do not to dance.
When we’ve parkedat the cove, I walk Gracie over to my buddy Ricardo, who’s loaning us two of his boards and oars. Leaning against his pickup truck, he runs his thumb and finger over his beard.
“Nice to meet you,” she says politely, extending her hand.
Ricardo holds both of his hands up like she’s pulled a gun. “Oh no. We’ll have none of that.” He pulls her into a bear hug and lifts her off her feet.
Gracie shrieks and giggles until he puts her down.
Ricardo takes off his straw hat and pops it onto Gracie’s head. “You’ll need this in the sun. This character should know better than to bring you out here without sun protection.”
“I told her to bring a hat and she has one. Don’t you think for one second that I’m not taking care of my girl.”
My girl.
The words come out before I can stop them. Ricardo doesn’t seem to notice, but Gracie does. I look at her apologetically, ready to backpedal, but her cheeks warm and she puts her hand in mine. If she likes being called my girl, I have no intention of quitting.
“I’m new at this,” Gracie admits. Ricardo doesn’t waste a second, putting his arm around her like an old friend and guiding her over to the two boards he has laid out on the sand. He gets down on his knees on one and points at the other one for Gracie to do the same. Then he picks up an oar and places it on the board next to him.
“This is all you need to do.”
Sitting on her heels, she gives Ricardo a side-eye. “Isn’t it calledstanduppaddleboarding? Seems like I’m missing the point if I stay down here.”
