He stands at the end of my hospital bed after a long, sleepless night. His eyes are puffy. His face is tired. He’s wearing board shorts, flip flops, and a faded Sublime t-shirt, and yet he still looks like a model that stepped straight out of an ad for the female orgasm. It’s not right. It’s unfair, and it’s every reason that I’ve been careful to keep clear of him all these years. But now there he stands – my savior. The man who just hours ago I clung to, pleading with him to stay by my side.

And the son of a bitch actually did it.

“Have you ever noticed, Lawson Daniel,” I ask him slowly, “that everyone calls you by your full name?”

His mouth quirks into a wry grin. “Not until this moment, no.”

“I have. I’ve noticed. Do you know why I think they do it?”

“No. Why?”

“Because you’re trouble.”

“That’s probably true.”

“My mom uses my full name when I’m in trouble. The same way people use your full name when they talk about you. Not like you’re in trouble, but like you are trouble.”

“What’s your full name?”

“What’s yours?”

“Lawson Daniel.”

“What’s your middle name?”

His grin grows into a smile. “What’s yours?”

I roll my hand in a round-and-round gesture. “This is just going to keep going like this, isn’t it?”

“Probably.”

“I quit,” I groan, letting my head sink deeper into the pillow, my face turning to the ceiling.

It reminds me of yesterday when I was laying on the beach. I was drinking in the sun, getting ready to start the rest of my life, and Lawson was nothing but a body by a bonfire. Just a name I knew. Now here he stands in the flesh and I owe him every breath I breathe through my body.

What a difference a day makes.

“I heard you’re gonna be okay,” he comments, coming around the side of the bed to stand by my right leg. He doesn’t look at it, though. He only looks at my face. In my eyes. “No permanent damage?”

“Yeah. It’ll scar, but they said I don’t have any muscle damage. It won’t hurt to walk. Not after it heals.”

“When do you get to go home?”

“Tomorrow. They want me to stay overnight to make sure I don’t have an infection. And I’ll have to come back to get the stitches taken out.”

“Couple weeks?”

“How’d you know that?”

He turns and shows me the back of his left leg. Through the thick brown hair I can see a white scar racing up his tan calf.

“Coral,” he explains. “Ripped right into me. I had ten stitches.”

“Where else?”

“Where else have I had stitches?”

“Yeah.”

He grins again, turning to face me. “To answer that I’d have to strip almost naked and shave my head.”

I roll my eyes. “Or you could just tell me instead of showing me.”

“Scars are meant to be seen, not heard.”

“Maybe another time, then.”

“You know where to find me.”

I do. Anyone who lives on this side of Los Angeles knows where to find him. On the beach. On his board. In the curl. He’s been riding since he was a kid. He learned to surf back when the rest of us learned to ride bikes, but while we never got good enough to compete in the Tour de France, Lawson went on to win every amateur surfing competition he stepped into. I heard a rumor in high school that he was being courted by a sponsor. No one knew who but they wanted him to go pro, and they wanted him to do it wearing their label. It would have meant competitions in Australia, Hawaii, Brazil, Fiji, Africa. Even here in California. It was every surfer’s dream come true.

A rumor is all it must have been though, because Lawson never left.

“I’ll let you get some rest,” he says.

He surprises me when he reaches out and lays a hand gently on my leg. My injured leg. It’s soft and it’s quick, like a pat on the shoulder, but something about the gesture touches me in a way I don’t understand. In a way that’s small like a pebble in a pond, just a ripple on the surface, but it will grow into something else. Something bigger, fuller. Into a giant, coiling, consuming mass of energy and life.

Unstoppable. Unforeseeable. Inescapable.

“Thank you,” I tell him quietly, ashamed it’s not the first thing I said to him. “For saving my life. Twice. Thank you.”

He nods his head, his eyes on the ground. He’s standing in profile, the light from the window pouring in behind him and draping his face in shadow. I can’t read it. I can barely see it, but I can understand his stance. I can read his body language, and when he speaks, his words confuse me but they don’t surprise me.

“Don’t ever thank me again, okay?” he asks me, his voice surprisingly deep and vibrant. “I know you needed to do it once and I’ll say you’re welcome so that the conversation is closed, but I’d appreciate it if you never said it to me again. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” I agree, though I have no idea why.

“Good. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I say sarcastically.

I’m relieved when he looks at me sideways, that iconic mischief in his eyes and a crooked grin on his lips. “I gotta go get some sleep. I’ll see you later.”

I nod silently, watching him go. He’s at the door before I can’t take it. Before the words are ripped from my throat because if I don’t ask now I’m scared I’ll never get the chance.

“Why did you stay?” I call after him.

He stops at the door, one of his large hands wrapped around the frame. “Because you asked me to,” he reminds me, “and I promised you I would.”

He slaps his hand on the frame once and disappears down the hallway.

This short conversation is the most I’ve ever heard Lawson speak. There wasn’t much said. There wasn’t much about it I understood, but I feel like I see him more clearly now than I ever have before. Like walking a familiar beach on a foggy morning and seeing the mist start to clear by degrees. Watching it unveil the landscape you thought you always knew so slowly that you start to notice things you never saw before.

You start to see things for what they really are, not what you always thought they were.

 

END PREVIEW

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