Cooper ignored him. “He’s got a girlfriend. He doesn’t surf,” he said as he slung a black backpack over his shoulder. He lifted two long surf boards from behind the counter and tucked them under his arm. “And he’s a bum.”
Eric leaned against the counter, puffing his chest out. “Guess it goes along with being the son of Rick, the resident lazy, pill-dealing douchebag.” He turned his gaze on me. “Word of advice, don’t buy your shit from him. He’ll turn on you like that.”
As he snapped his fingers to emphasize the final word, my gaze dropped to the floor. I could take jokes about him getting off with tanning lotion without so much as blinking an eye but the moment he mentioned my escape of choice, my whole body burned. I knew it was another joke—that he probably hadn’t even thought about what he was saying—and yet I felt like he knew every thought that had crossed my mind in the past few days.
I felt like I was standing in a room full of people snapping photos of me, judging my every move, my every word. Judging whether or not I’d suddenly cave and wind right back up in rehab.
I wouldn’t.
I put on my most convincing smile—the look of someone totally fixed and un-screwed up. It was my best role to date, and a recurring one at that. Then, I lifted my head. “Noted,” I said, in a confident voice.
Eric’s face was red and Cooper was glaring at him. Eric didn’t even glance at me when he said, “You kids have fun and no touching in bad places.”
“Stay away from the tanning lotion,” I retorted, as Cooper motioned for me to follow him out the double doors behind the counter. Eric’s laughter made me glance back and he was beaming at me again.
“Don’t worry. That shit left shimmery streaks on my hands.”
“Is he always like that?” I asked Cooper as we walked down short, tiled hallway and outside to a beamed wooden deck. There were strings of lantern lights hanging above our heads, but I didn’t have time to look at them closely. He was already heading out toward the beach. I left my bag and phone under a chair.
“Eric’s like that every day,” Cooper answered once I caught up with him. We trekked through the sand toward the beach, our bodies so close the back of my hand skimmed the smooth edge of one of the boards he carried.
“You’re kind of an odd couple.”
He grinned and I felt my lips move into a smile too. “The oddest.” He stopped, fifteen feet from the shoreline, and situated our boards down on the sand. I stood a few steps behind him. When he rose to his feet, he stared out at the sea and said, “Eric was my roommate freshman year at UH and I guess you can say we hit it off. Rick—his dad—kicked him out a few months ago when we graduated and he’s been living with me ever since.”
“Even though he uses tanning lotion for lube and teases you about your girly coconut shampoo?” I joked.
“He’s honest,” Cooper said matter-of-factly. He dragged his shirt over his head, and my eyes greedily drank in his bare skin. Starting from the small of his back and working my way up, to a long, jagged scar that raced diagonally from his left shoulder blade to just under his right armpit.
When I winced, he turned to face me and gave me a bitter smile. “Ready to do this?” Without another word, he stuffed his shirt inside his black bag, swooped up our boards and jogged down to the edge of the sand.
Sighing, I pulled off my own top and shimmied out of my shorts, rolling them into a tight wad afterward. Cooper shielded his eyes from the sun with one hand and called out, “Didn’t take you for a one-piece type of girl.”
And as I walked toward him, I found myself hugging my balled up clothes to my stomach, creating friction against my own scar until my skin ached. “There’s a lot you don’t take me for, huh?” I said when I came close enough to touch him.
He winked at me. “Just makes getting to know you more interesting.”
Chapter Five
Cooper didn’t elaborate on what he said, not that I expected him to, but that didn’t stop me from wanting and needing more from him. Was this the way it was going to be? Little comments— offhand remarks—that would haunt me long after they slipped past his lips?
“The sea is f**king amazing this morning,” Cooper said at last, breaking the silence. “It’s unpredictable and moody—and you never know when it’ll try to screw you over—but I can’t stay away.” He turned to stare out at the unending blue, which gleamed under the clear morning sky. I took two wobbly steps forward, following his gaze with my own. To be completely honest, the sea didn’t seem any different from any other time I’d looked at it. It was still frightening to me.
But that hazy expression that took over his face, the way every hard line of his body seemed to gravitate toward the waves—I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I wanted to feel that passionate about something other than the one thing I couldn’t, no shouldn’t have.
Just as long as that something wouldn’t drown me, landing me in rehab again.
“It’s nice,” I said. A blast of cold foam hit my bare feet, causing me to suck in a deep breath, but he didn’t notice. He was still mesmerized. Too transfixed to realize when I stopped gazing at the ocean to take a few steps backward and to the side. So rooted to the spot that he must not have felt my gaze heating the side of his face, on the tattoo written across his rib—I couldn’t make out what it said—and again to the scar on his back.
Had he gotten it surfing?