Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 108049 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108049 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Our first stop is a surf and skate shop. Seems only fair that I get to play dress-up with him too, so with a dozen boardshorts I shove him into a dressing room.
“What’s your plan for summer?” he asks through the door.
“Back to my mom’s house in Cambridge. She only has one seminar for summer semester, so we were thinking about taking a trip somewhere, maybe Europe. You going home to California?”
“For a little while, at least.” There’s a heavy sigh in the dressing room. “This is the farthest I’ve ever lived from the water. I used to go to the beach and surf just about every day. I’ve tried to get out to the coast a few times since I transferred to Briar, but it isn’t the same.”
Conor steps out in the first selection of boardshorts.
It takes every ounce of willpower not to throw myself at him. He stands there shirtless, leaning against the door of his dressing room and looking absolutely edible. The deep ravine of muscle that disappears into his waistband is doing things to me. It isn’t fair.
“Not bad,” I say flippantly.
“Orange isn’t my color.”
“Agree. Next.”
He goes back inside, tossing the discarded trunks to me as he changes. “You should come.”
“Where? To California?”
“Yeah. Come out for a long weekend or something. We can do tourist shit and hang out at the beach. Just chill.”
“Teach me how to surf?” I tease.
He emerges in another pair of shorts. I’ve stopped caring about the colors and patterns of the fabric and given in to blatantly gawking at his leanly muscular physique and the way his abs clench when he talks.
Would it be inappropriate to lick him?
“You’d love it,” he tells me. “Man, I wish I could go back and get stoked on my first wave all over again. It’s the best feeling in the world, lining up for a wave, feeling it rise beneath your board. When you get to your feet and you’re both connected—you and the power of the ocean—it’s symbiosis. It’s freedom, baby. Perfect alignment of energy.”
“You’re in love.”
He laughs at himself with a boyish grin. “My first love.” Again he steps back into the dressing room stall. “Last summer I spent a month with some volunteers canvasing the coast from San Diego to San Francisco.”
I wrinkle my forehead. “Doing what?”
“Cleaning up the beaches and sweeping the near-shore waters for trash. It was one of the best months of my life. We hauled hundreds of pounds of garbage out of the ocean and off the sand every day, then we’d surf all night and hang out around a bonfire. Felt like we were accomplishing something.”
“You’re passionate about this,” I say, admiring this side of him. It’s the first time he’s talked about his interests outside of hockey and surfing. “Is that something you want to do after college?”
“What do you mean?” He comes out in another suit.
“Well, you could make a career out of this. There are probably dozens of environmental non-profits working on the west coast on ocean cleanup efforts.” I cock an eyebrow. “It might not be too late to change majors from finance to non-profit administration and still graduate on time.”
“I’m sure my stepdad would love that.”
“Why does it matter?”
A tired expression washes over Conor. Not just his face, but all of him. He slouches, hunching his shoulders, like the weight of the topic is wearing on him.
“Max pays for everything,” he admits. “My education, hockey, rent—all of it. Without him, my mom and I would barely have two cents to rub together. So when he suggested I major in finance like he did, Mom considered the matter settled and that was it.”
“Okay, I get that he holds the purse strings, but it’s your life. At some point you have to advocate for what you want. No one else will.”
“It felt, I don’t know, ungrateful to argue with him? Like I’d be an asshole to take his money and tell him to fuck off.”
“Yeah, using the words ‘fuck off’ might be a bit harsh, but a frank conversation about how you want to spend the rest of your life isn’t out of line.”
“But the thing is, we don’t talk. I know he loves my mom, and he’s good to her, but with me, I think he still sees a punk from LA who isn’t worth his time.”
“And why would he think that?” I ask quietly.
“I got into some bad stuff as a kid. I was dumb and did whatever my friends were doing, which was usually getting high, shoplifting, breaking into abandoned buildings, whatever.” Conor looks at me with guilt. Shame, even. “I was a little shit back then.”
It’s clear in his expression he’s afraid I’ll view him differently, but none of this changes who he is now. “Well, seems to me you’re not a little shit anymore. So I hope your stepdad doesn’t think you’re still like that, and I’m really sorry if he does.”