He stops and releases one last quick breath from his lungs. And then he just looks up at me.
“What kind of chips were they?” I ask.
“Tortilla,” he says without hesitation.
I nod. “Well, at least she was going to feed you.”
Luke smiles, a shadow cast by me standing over him covering his face. I purposely step to the side and a burst of sunlight beams into his eyes, causing him to flinch. He laughs and springs to his feet.
Suddenly his expression shifts, the playful look disappears, replaced by apology and sincerity. I can’t stop looking at his eyes. They’re so kind and devoted and passionate.
“I almost didn’t come,” he finally says with honesty.
“Why not?” I’m not sure I really want to know the answer to that.
Luke pushes his hands deep into his pockets, his arms tightening to reveal the hard, defined muscles running along them.
“I guess I just thought if I spent an hour with you before you had to leave, I’d probably like you enough that I’d be more disappointed you couldn’t stay longer.”
Wow—already on the same wavelength and we barely know each other. This is kinda freaking me out. In a good way.
I look down, trying to tame the heat in my face.
But all too soon reality rears its ugly head and the moment is lost.
I switch shoulders with the beach bag and look back at the hotel where Paige waits for me inside. I sigh quietly. Less than five minutes with Luke and already I like him enough that I wish I could stay longer. I can’t be completely sure, but it kind of scares me a little to think what a full hour with him might do.
“Well, I really do have to go.” I step away from him. “My plane leaves at one and I still have to get all my stuff together.”
Luke fishes his cell phone from his pocket and glances at the screen.
“Fifteen minutes,” he says. “At least give me that much time to make up for being late.”
Yes! That sounds awesome.
“No,” I say, shaking my head disappointedly. “I really can’t. There’s just not enough time. It’s nearly an hour drive to the airport. If anything, I should leave in fifteen minutes.”
“Then miss your plane,” he says simply.
I blink with surprise.
He steps up to close the space I created when I started to walk away from him. I can’t find my voice—not sure what to say to something like that.
“Come on,” he continues, a smile slowly etching into his features. “Unless you have somewhere you absolutely have to be the moment you step off that plane in San Diego, it’s not going to hurt you to miss this flight and catch the next one.” His smile broadens and he gestures a hand casually amid the space in front of him. “People miss their flights all the time: woke up late; got stuck in traffic; got clipped in the street by a crazy, bike-riding chick who feeds her victims tortilla chips before she tortures them—pick any excuse and go with it.”
I chuckle lightly, a tiny burst of air pushing through my lips. But I still can’t bring myself to respond, because I’m not sure how. I know what I want to do, but like so much in my life, it doesn’t at all feel like I should.
He gives me puppy-dog eyes.
Seriously?! Puppy-dog eyes? You think that’s actually going to work?
“OK,” I say, caving to some mysterious forces at work here that I need to have a serious talk with later. “Let me call the airline and see if I can get a later flight. My assistant is going to think I’ve lost my mind.”
Beaming, Luke nods and takes a step back as if to give me some privacy. I dig my phone from my bag and unlock the screen. I quickly look up my flight info online and call the airline to find out if there’s a later flight out today. There is, and I book it without even thinking about the extra charges for making a last-minute change.
“I bought myself three hours,” I tell Luke, taking into account the hour it takes to get to the airport. “How are we going to spend it?” I drop my phone inside my bag and suck in a deep, nervous, crazy breath—what am I doing? This is nuts! And why does it feel like my face is about to split in half?
Luke grins back at me.
He steps up to me. I hear the sand crunching underneath his flip-flops. His closeness makes me intimately aware of my own heartbeat. I don’t know why. I don’t care that I don’t. I just know that I don’t want it to stop.
“I’m going to show you,” he says.
“You’re going to show me what? How to surf?”
His smile broadens, enhancing the light in his hazel eyes. He starts to speak, but then it seems that just before the answer leaves his lips, he stops. He thinks on it some more, maybe choosing his words carefully? I can never know, but that’s what it feels like. I just watch and wait patiently, the light in my own eyes never dimming, the smile on my lips never waning.
But his wanes. Just a little.
“What three hours in a place like Hawaii is supposed to be like,” he finally answers.
I think it was far from the answer he had wanted to give.
“I trust you’re a good guide,” I say, grinning. “You should be, being a local and all.”
“Oh, I’m not a local,” he says.
“Really? I assumed you were.”
“Nope.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “I’ve only lived in Hawaii for a year and a half.”
“Where did you move from?”
“Sacramento,” he answers and then holds out his hand, giving his head a quick jerk backward. “Come on, we can talk on the way. Three hours isn’t much time.”
I look down at his hand, wanting to take it, but at the same time feeling that it’s too soon. But maybe it isn’t, because everything inside of me wants to take it and to throw the too-soon rules right out the damn window.
I reach into my bag instead.
“Wait a second,” I say as I retrieve my cell phone again. “Let’s take a picture first.”
Luke looks vaguely surprised.
“All right,” he agrees. “Selfies are doable, but none of that duck-lips stuff.”
I laugh lightly as he steps up beside me and drapes an arm around me from behind.
I snap the shot of us together, step to the side, and type Paige a text message that reads: Change of plans. I booked a later flight out. His name is Luke Everett. He works at the surf school. If anything happens to me, he’s the one to look for.
I hit send. She’ll probably be bummed we won’t be on the same flight home, but she’s always telling me I need to live a little, so I’m sure she’ll be happy for me too.
Standing behind me, Luke’s light laughter fills the air.
“Worried I’m going to kidnap you and tie you to a chair in a room with beads and incense?”
“Not really,” I say, smiling over at him, “but just in case—are you offended?”
He laughs. “Not at all. Kind of impressed, actually.”
Paige responds saying she’s worried that I’ve lost my mind, but she hopes I’ll have fun, and that she’ll make sure to tell the cops if she has to. Then I drop the phone back inside my bag.
Moments later I hear Paige’s voice calling out over the sound of waves pushing against the beach.
“Sienna!” She’s running toward us, quite ungracefully through the sand, her flip-flops getting stuck and nearly causing her to trip. Luke looks at me. “Your assistant?”
I nod. “Yeah, and my best friend. Prepare yourself—she bites.” He laughs under his breath.
Then he stands taller, interlocking his hands on his backside, puffing out his chest a little and raising his chin. He looks like he’s preparing to meet my dad, and it’s adorable. Completely fake, but adorable—the smile gives him away.
Paige stops in front of us and, while catching her breath, she eyes me as if to say, Daaaaamn, Sienna.
She looks right at him, all joking aside, her pretty blue eyes narrowed with severity, her thin arms crossed loosely over her chest.
“What’s your full name?” she asks him.
“Luke Michael Everett.”
“Where were you born?”
“Sacramento.”
I’m trying not to laugh—they look so serious!
She twists her bottom lip between her teeth in contemplation.
“You work at the surf school in the hotel?”
He nods. “I sure do. Part-time. And the other part-time I work at Big Wave Surf Shop.”
“And someone in the surf school can verify this?”
He nods again. “Yep. Ask for Allan. I work there three days out of the week and I give surfing lessons here whenever he has them to give and I have the free time to take them.”
Paige’s eyes narrow even more, her head turning a slight angle. Luke’s lips continue to gradually turn up with that smile of his.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-four,” he answers right away.
Paige looks at me, then back at him. He beams at her with white, straight teeth. She’s about to crack up now, I can tell, but she manages to hold it in a little longer.
I stand here with my lips pressed together, unable to contain the humor in my expression.
She looks down at his feet.
“What size shoe do you wear?”
My eyes bug out of my head and I look at her with a big, hard gaze that says, You didn’t just ask him that!
Oh, yes, I absolutely did, her grinning gaze says in return.
“Paige,” I cut in, “meet Luke. Luke, this is my best friend and former assistant, Paige.”
She smiles with teeth this time.
“Former assistant?” Luke asks, looking between both of us.
She nods. “Yeah, I quit today.” She hits me lightly on the arm. “This girl is a tyrant to work with; I just couldn’t do it anymore.” She shakes her blond head, but her grin never fades.
I laugh lightly. “It’s a long, boring story, but I’m not a tyrant.”
Luke’s lips smash together, suppressing laughter.
“OK, look,” Paige says to Luke. “I love this girl”—she shakes her finger at him—“and if anything happens to her, just know that I will hunt you down; you got me?”
Luke’s eyes fall on me from the side without moving his head.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says with a nod and an almost frightened kind of smile. “I’ll take good care of her.”
After a moment, once Paige is satisfied, she drops the serious act and grabs me by the elbow, pulling me off to the side.
“We’ll be right back,” she says, holding up a finger to Luke.
“Take your time,” he says and waves us on.
“I want to stay so bad,” she says in a harsh whisper, her fingers digging into my arm. “He is gorgeous! Does he have any friends?”
My eyes catch Luke’s, and he’s grinning—he definitely heard what she said.
“Well, then, why don’t you stay?” I tell her.
She sighs and the smile slips right off her face. “I wish I could. I missed the last family reunion. I can’t miss it this time, or worse than my mom killing me, my dad might cut me off.”
I laugh lightly. “Then you’d have to work with me longer.”
Her little nose wrinkles around the edges and her hand falls away from my elbow.
“Seriously, though,” she says, “just be careful and call me every now and then to let me know what’s going on.”
“I’m only staying three hours,” I say with laughter in my voice.
“I know, but still.”
“All right,” I give in. “I’ll text you at least. Have a safe flight back.” I lean in and hug her tight.
“Well, I better go,” she says, her fingers slipping away from mine. “See you when you get home.”
As she’s walking away, she raises her index and middle fingers on one hand, pointing them at her hard, narrowed eyes and then at Luke, back and forth a few times as if to say I’m watching you. Luke laughs under his breath and raises his hands up at his sides in surrender. Paige gives him—and then me—a big smile just before she turns her back to us and starts to walk away. Covertly she looks at me from the side, spaces her hands many inches apart, glances downward as if at his feet, and mouths something like his feet are huuuuge, and I choke trying to hold my laughter inside.
“Some best friend you’ve got there,” Luke says as she walks away, clamping his lips together. “I like her.”
With my lips pressed in a hard line and my face fiery red, I say, “Yeah, we look after each other.”
“I take it she’s the mean one?”
My laughter fades into a grin.
“Actually, we’re just alike in that aspect.”
“Oh really?” He seems a little nervous. Smiling, but nervous.
I nod. “Yep. If she was the one leaving with some strange guy, I’d be the one threatening him with bodily harm.”
Luke grimaces.
I smile sweetly and pat his shoulder. “No worries,” I say, letting my fingers linger there for a moment until I realize what I’m doing and pull away. “Maybe she is a little meaner than I am.” I squint one eye and hold my index and thumb a half inch apart. “But just a little.”
He smiles.
“So I’m some strange guy you’re leaving with, huh?”
“I like strange.”
Our eyes meet briefly, soft smiles permanent on our faces, it seems.
He jerks his head back. “Come on,” he says, “not much time left.”
“Where are we going?” I ask, walking away with him through the sand.
“I said I’d give you some surfing lessons, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you did. But you don’t have a board.”
He shrugs and glances at the hotel.
“I can borrow one.”
We walk together toward the building and I can’t stop smiling the whole way there. I admit, I’m kinda nervous about my first surfing lesson, but I think I’m even more nervous—in a good way—that Luke is the one giving me that lesson.
I hope I don’t embarrass myself …
SEVEN
Luke
I’ve always been a risk-taker—actually that’s a huge understatement—but for all of the things I’ve done, all of the risks I’ve taken in my twenty-four years, something tells me that this one is by far more dangerous than any of them.
And maybe more worth it.
I had been on my way to catch up with Seth and Kendra on the hike, and I was alone. Knowing they had only about a thirty-minute head start, I could’ve called Seth and told them to wait for me. But I didn’t. Instead I began to slow down. Just as I stepped onto the mouth of the trail and the lush greenery engulfed me on all sides, I began to think of my brother and a conversation we had a few weeks before he left for China eight months ago:
“I wanna say I don’t know what the hell your problem is,” Landon argued, standing behind me as I sat at my office desk staring at my laptop, “but I do know, and I can’t believe what I’m seeing, Luke.”
Clicking the mouse, I moved on to the next page, refusing to turn around and look at him. I wasn’t in the mood for this. I had work to do.
“I’m not doing this with you today,” I told him.
Click, click, scroll. I typed in my password and hit enter.
“Goddammit!” He moved from behind me and stood to my left. I heard him breathe in deeply, trying to calm himself. “Look, I know the business is important, but we have people to take care of these things.” He motioned his hands. “We don’t pay Derrick to sit on his ass while you do his job.”
Finally I looked up at him, his hazel eyes, which looked just like mine, were hard around the edges, his mouth slightly pinched amid a rigid jaw.
“Just because we hire people doesn’t mean we can sit back on our asses,” I pointed out. “I’m just making sure that things stay running smoothly.”
“At what cost?”
My expression hardened. “What do you mean? I think it??
?s more costly not to stay on top of things. What the hell would we do if it all came crashing down, Landon?” My voice began to rise with every word. “Do you want Dad to go back to cleaning fucking toilets, or you tearing tickets at the movie theatre? Shit, why don’t we just give it all up and go back to renting since rent in California and Hawaii is so cheap? We can pawn all of our stuff to pay the bills, eat potted meat sandwiches every day, and hope we have enough gas in the tank to get us to work every morning.”
Landon threw his hands up at his sides.
“This is bullshit and you know it,” he said.
I turned back to the screen. Click, click, scroll.
“I promised I’d go to China with you,” I said in a calmer voice. “I don’t know why you’re so worried I’m going to back out of our plans.”
“Because you’re leaving everything else behind,” he said with dejection and it prompted me to look up at him again. “You’re not you anymore. And it’s scaring the hell out of me.”
He succeeded in making me feel bad, as I knew he would.
Lowering my eyes momentarily, I swiveled around fully on the chair to face him and only him, dropping my hands between my knees.
“I’m still me. Nothing is more important to me than you and our plans. It’s always been you and me, Landon, and it always will be.” I paused to catch his gaze, and when he looked into mine I added, “Nothing will ever come between us or our plans, not this business—nothing and no one, and you have to believe that.”
Landon gave up, but I knew only for the sake of not wanting to prolong the argument. I felt like he wanted to believe me, but it was getting harder and harder for him to do.
“Are you afraid?” he asked suddenly, and it caught me completely off guard.
I felt my eyebrows knotting in my forehead.
“Afraid? What are you talking about?” He couldn’t be serious.
Landon grabbed ahold of another desk chair and rolled it closer to me, where he sat in it backward, propping his arms atop the backrest.
He looked at me thoughtfully.