“—why, when everything about you is a less is more when it comes to objects covering women, would you pick a not-quite-but-pretty-darn-close-to-prudish one piece for me?” There was something in her voice, something she was disguising, that I couldn’t decipher.

I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to answer this question, but Emma Scarlett liked to ask those ones I didn’t want to explain.

“Man, Emma,” I said, setting my jaw, “this is one of those darned if I do and darned if I don’t situations. Did I first grab the skimpiest of skimpy two pieces off the rack? Hells yes I did. But then this voice in my head went off, reminding me I’d promised to be on my best behavior, and buying you a bikini a stripper would be too shy to wear didn’t align with that promise. So I exchanged it with the prudish, as you put it, one piece adorning your body right now.”

I knew I was going on and on, covering all the details, but one thing I’d learned from generations of interacting with women is that they want to know all the details. It made things simpler to divulge it all from the start.

“However, I also knew that by purchasing a one piece, you’d be upset I bought one for you because no girl between the ages of twelve to sixty wears one.” Shrugging, I said, “Like I said, I was darned if I did and darned if I didn’t.”

So much talk of the swimsuit made me want to look at the swimsuit, but that wasn’t an option if I wanted to keep my eyes firmly socketed.

She ringed her fingers over the lip of the can. “So you didn’t pick it out because you didn’t think I should wear a bikini?”

Ah, that was it. What she’d been disguising before but wasn’t anymore. Insecurity. I should have known that’s what it was; it’d been my experience that the women who needed to be the least insecure were often the most.

“That,” I emphasized, “is, a hundred million times, not the reason.”

“Then why can’t you look at me?” she asked softly.

She was almost as talented as misreading signs as slap him in the face before he got it William.

Holding my hand over hers still wearing down the rim of the can, I said, “I can’t look at you because if I do, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop.”

Her smile made the whole explanation, the awkwardness of it, my vulnerability, my gut deep desire to let my eyes have their way with her, all of it, worth it.

“You think I’m hot,” she teased.

“Smokin’,” I answered, popping up with my board in hand. “So smokin’ I need to cool off. Feel free to join. That is, if you don’t mind getting your hair wet.”

“I think I need a couple more hours of lounging before I even think of moving,” she said, rolling over and flopping a hat over her head.

Knowing she wouldn’t know it if all of Stanford’s male populace was checking her out right now, I allowed myself a peek. One tiny, half second long peek.

Bad idea.

Just like I figured, I couldn’t look away. It was going to take an act of God to get me to peel my eyes away. Ever notice that, just when you need one, an act of divination tends to present itself?

A wet and white glob fell from the air, plopping on my shoulder. The lone seagull laughed all the way into the horizon.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The waves and I took turns beating each other up. I was generally more eager to give it than to take it, but having a twenty foot swell school me felt pretty good in my present state of mind, because if I was getting my butt handed to me on a plate by something as vast as the ocean, I couldn’t be thinking of a certain woman stretched over the sand in varying contortions that made me think I was watching a live demonstration of the Kama Sutra.

That had less to do with her and more to do with me, accompanied by my very male and very demented mind.

I’d taken a particularly gnarly wipeout and was working on shaking the gallon of salt water floating around my brain out my ears when a laugh sounded a few feet away. “I think you better stick to your day job.”

Slapping my ear once more, I turned around to find a very pink, just a shade away from red, still sans cover-up Emma wading into the water.

“This is my day job,” I said, tugging my board back. “And you did put on sunscreen, right?”

“Yeah, but there is no amount of SPF that can keep the sun from penetrating this particular shade of pasty,” she said, examining her arms. “It’s just a little pink. By this time tomorrow I’ll be sporting a shade of eggshell all the girls will be envying.”

Good thing I’d thrown a bottle of aloe vera in my shopping cart last night on a whim. We were going to need it for lobster girl.

“You wanna try?” I asked, pushing the board toward her.

“I wouldn’t want to show you up,” she said, grimacing as she trudged up to her stomach in the water, because of the chill or the water creeping up the burn I couldn’t be sure.

“Sure you would,” I said, smiling. Even red and sun parched she could take the proverbial breath from my lungs.

“You’re right. I’d love any and every opportunity to show you up at something,” she said, dunking the rest of the way into the water. Before I had a chance to fist pump the heavens that Emma Scarlett didn’t give a darn about getting her hair wet, something grabbed my ankle, pulling me under.

I experienced a moment of shock until I processed it was ten, pleasantly warm fingers tugging on my calf, and then I welcomed the submersion. The water was as clear as the Pacific was capable of and the salt water had never burned my eyes in this life or my past. I watched Emma as she gave my leg one more tug before swimming into view. The salt water didn’t seem to phase her either, and before she surfaced, she made a face and stuck her tongue out like she’d just pulled the school yard prank of the year on me.

“Okay, so now that I achieved my goal of showing you up,” she said when my head popped above the surface. “Can we get back to you teaching me how to surf?”

“You know what they say about payback?” I asked, cutting through the water toward her.

She didn’t move when my partially submerged face was a breath away from hers. “I know what they say,” she said, “but I wonder what a gentlemen would say about it.” She smiled like a wicked angel at me, knowing she had me.

“You are the most innocent looking conniver I’ve ever met,” I admitted.

“It just comes so naturally when I’m around you,” she said, flicking a splash of water at me.

“Sure, blame me for your vices. I don’t mind,” I muttered, patting the board. “If you’re finished cheating me out of some sweet revenge, climb aboard.”

“That’s it?” she said, examining the incoming waves and our proximity to the beach. “Climb aboard? Nothing else?” Her voice was gaining some speed, a tad high with panic. “How about a few pointers, or maybe a couple warnings, or I don’t know, something more than climb aboard?” she shouted, patting the board like I had, although she was smacking it.

I grinned. “Surfing’s all about being at one with the ocean,” I said. “Just get on and do what feels natural, whatever comes to you. That’s the best piece of advice I can give you.”

She looked at me like I was speaking a dead language.

“Listen, I’m not going to break this down for you into steps for you, telling you where to put your feet and where not to put your feet, how to stand and how not to stand, because that’s not what surfing is. Surfing isn’t listening to someone else telling you how to do it—surfing is listening to what the ocean’s telling you to do. Sound easy enough?”

She stared at me with an open mouth. “Okay, those brownies the hippies down the way were handing out earlier weren’t meant to be eaten by the tray full. Just say no next time someone’s selling brownies by the kilo.”

I coughed, trying to keep the laughter contained. “Are you surfing, or aren’t you? This stalling act you’ve got going on by flirting with me underwater and batting your wet eye lashes at me while accusing me of tripping on some pot brownies has run its course.”

She grabbed that board from me so fast, peppering me with a few choice looks, I knew I’d gotten under her skin. Just where I wanted to be and needed to stay, although I’d prefer to be there in the good under-her-skin kind of way, not the narrowed-eyes-of-death way.

“Just tell me when to climb aboard,” she spat over her shoulder, “if that won’t insult the ocean and my oneness too much.”

I glanced out at the water, stepping into her. “There’s a perfect baby wave coming in three, two,” I counted, positioning my hands over her hips, “one! Go, go go!” I yelled, lifting her up on the board and letting her and the wave do the rest.

The baby wave was more of a surly tween and both it and Emma raged towards the beach like the fuming pair they were. The unexpected rise in the wave surprised me less than Emma riding it like a moderately seasoned pro. She managed to pop top, stay there, and ride that sucker all the way to the . . .

Emma realized too late she should have jumped off before she was still standing on a board moving with some momentum in ankle deep water. The board caught in the sand, coming to an abrupt halt, sending Emma flying in an abrupt spill.

I had the gifts of foresight, speed, and teleportation on my side. I caught her a beat before she nosedived into compacted sand.

“Emma?” I asked, adjusting her vertical again.

“I’m fine,” she said, guessing at my silent question. “How the heck did you get to me so fast?” she asked, flipping her head back to free the streaks of wet hair glued to her face.

“Murphy’s Law,” I answered.

Rolling her eyes at me, she said, “So? How did I do?”

“Awesome,” I answered, freeing my board from the half foot hole it’d dug into the sand. “I can’t believe that worked.”

“What?” she shrieked. “You used me as the guinea pig for all that oneness mumbo-jumbo crap?”

“Yeah,” I admitted, “but it worked, didn’t it? So you can’t be angry at me. You were surfing like you knew what you were doing.”

Running her hand over the board, she stopped in front of me. “That had everything to do with the inherent awesome inside of me and nothing to do with your tried and true words of wisdom.” Her brows peaked halfway up her forehead, challenging me to speak.

I bowed out of the challenge.

Shouldering past me, I turned to watch her cross the rest of the distance to our beach day pad. I watched her walk away a little longer before saying, “One wave? You’re calling it a day after one wave?”

Waving her hand dismissively back at me, she said, “Onto bigger and better things.”

“Like lounging,” I said, picking up my board and debating which direction to spend the remainder of the daylight in.

“Exactly like lounging,” she answered, reaching for the sunscreen as she lowered herself onto the blanket.

East or West, the age old question for man. A timeless question, but an easy one for me to answer. It’d always seemed East felt a little more downhill than West. A little less like fighting an uphill battle. I went to Emma, leaving the waves for another day.