Chapter 21
“C’mon,” Scooter said, picking up his board again. This time, Andy paddled vigorously, in time with Scooter’s strokes, and they were on the wave in a few quick movements. Scooter crested, got to his feet, and then held out a hand to Andy, keeping his knees loose and toes curled down tight. “I gotcha!” he promised, raising his voice to be heard over the surf.
Scooter put one hand on Andy’s hip to steady him as he got clumsily to his feet. Standing up was tough, the first few times, and Andy was going slow, which actually made it worse. The end of the wave was coming up, and if Andy didn’t hurry, they were gonna get stuffed.
Sure enough, Scooter had to attempt to turn or they were going to run out of wave, but Andy wasn’t set yet and the second Scooter shifted his weight, Andy overbalanced and fell right off the board, his startled “Fuck!” swallowed by the water.
Scooter followed Andy offside as the board flipped under the weight shift. He got a huge gulp of water when the fin smacked him in the shoulder. He rolled with it and tangled the tether by accident. He shimmied, kicking with both legs together to get surfaced. He came up right under the next wave and rolled again before finally getting his bearings. He dragged the board to him by the tether, coughing and spluttering and waiting for a dark head to break the surface.
It took longer than he liked, but he finally spotted Andy, further inland than he’d expected—without the board’s drag, the wave had carried him along. Well, better toward shore than away. Andy was flailing and coughing, but had stopped by the time Scooter reached him. “You okay?”
“Mostly,” Andy croaked. “Sorry.”
“It takes practice,” Scooter said encouragingly. “And sometimes you still get stuffed.” He hummed the Wipeout theme as they staggered back onto the beach, which earned him a high five from Ryan and a very black glare from Thomas. Scooter raised an eyebrow and Thomas muttered something that sounded vaguely derogatory and stomped off. Ryan shrugged and followed his best friend, awkwardly apologetic.
Jason and Kat went again, this time on separate boards, weaving in and out among the waves like dancers. They’d been practicing that for a while and still, toward the second turn, Kat scraped over the tail of Jason’s board and had to take the dive. Jason’s mocking laugh could be heard all the way from shore as he skipped back the other way. Kat popped out of the water and yelled something in Ukrainian that probably sounded vaguely nuclear to the audience, but which Scooter recognized as ingredients for borscht, so it was all for show. When Kat was reallymad, she didn’t yell at all.
By the time they came in, the storm was looming close. Andy seemed disappointed when Scooter jerked his head and they started heading back up the road toward Dockside. “That’s it?”
“The kids’ll stay out a little longer,” Scooter said wistfully, “but we’ve got to do storm prep before the rain hits.”
“Oh. Yeah, I…kinda forgot about that.”
Kat skipped up on Andy’s other side and started critiquing his form and trying to explain the proper way to pop to his feet. Scooter snorted, but Andy didn’t seem bothered. The two of them talked all the way back to the restaurant. Scooter was glad that they seemed to be becoming friends; Kat was a good person to have in your corner when the chips were down, and maybe Andy would actually open up to her about whatever it was he was running from.
Also, if Scooter’d had to focus on that bright, happy smile and the way the morning light snuck around the gathering clouds apparently for the sole purpose of making Andy’s skin glow, then Scooter would have gone mad, so he was grateful to Kat for that, too.
Just as they were turning into the Dockside’s lot, Kat interrupted herself to say, “Oh, Andy, Scooter perhaps forgot to tell you. When we go surfing, he lets Jason and me use his shower, and he washes off in the apartment. It’s faster. That’s not a problem for you, right?”
Scooter was going to kill her. 9
No, it wasn’t a problem. No problem at all. Why would it be a problem? Andy stood in the middle of the messy little apartment with one hand over his face, listening to the water splash in the shower and rather desperately trying notto think about the elephant in the room that was Scooter—his boss—being naked, less than fifteen feet away, water running down his body—Not thinking it.
Nope, no problem at all.
Andy was fucked. He’d known Scooter was attractive from their first meeting, but that first week or so, he’d been too overloaded on terror and anger and betrayal and grief to even think about his libido. The last few days, however, had been torture
Maybe it was because Scooter was safe—he’d been very clear about his rules, the lack of intent toward Andy. Andy could fantasize, and it was harmless. Not risking anything.