Lorelie Brown - Riding the Wave

Mako staggered back a half step, but then he threw himself at Tanner. He swung. Tanner blocked it. They staggered off the step, locked together. A punch to Mako’s gut had him doubling over with a groan.

The door swung open behind them. Two feminine voices rose in protest. Through the blood pounding in his ears, Tanner couldn’t tell who they were. Soft hands wound around his biceps—and yanked hard. The unexpected strength threw him off balance. He stumbled backward two steps, and quickly righted himself.

But the small interference was enough. Sage pushed herself between Tanner and Mako. She had her back to Tanner and her open hands raised in front of her. “Get out of here!”

“You don’t know who you’re fucking with,” Mako growled.

“No,” Sage snarled. She seemed about as far from her usual calm self as possible. “Your mistake is thinking I care .”

Tanner tried to suck in a long, calming breath. He figured out the long part of it, but calming was something far, far away. Even the fact that Avalon had her hands on him contributed to the mess in his head. He didn’t even know which way was up, much less what to do. A low, grinding noise bubbled up from his throat.

Avalon spread her hands across his arm, then pushed over his chest. “Stop it. Stop it right now, Tanner. You have to surf tomorrow. What are you going to do if you’re injured because you’re fighting?”

Pain shot from the bridge of his nose toward his temples. His fists balled. He hated that she was right. Absolutely hated it, all the way through him, but he couldn’t deny the truth of it. And more echoed in his head, about the conversation he’d just had with his mom. What she deserved. How he shouldn’t try to interfere in her life anymore.

“Get Mom,” he managed to bite out.

Avalon looked at him with wide gray-green eyes. Her lips were parted enough that he could see the delicate pink skin of her inner lip. “Tanner . . .”

“I can behave myself.” He shot a look at Mako, whose features were set in a steely edge. The skin over his cheekbones was tightly drawn. “I can’t speak for others.”

Avalon slipped away, darting into the house at a flat-out run. She was back with Eileen faster than Tanner expected. Red splashed over Eileen’s cheeks and across the back of her neck. “What is going on out here?”

“Mako, say what you need to.” Tanner managed to grit out the words. His knuckles were starting to throb, but he’d had worse before from a run-in down in Mexico. “Say it fast, before I lose my temper.”

Mako’s eyes narrowed. “Fuck you.”

“You better be talking to me and not my mom, or I’ll make you regret that.”

“You ought to be thanking me. I didn’t tell SURFING everything that I could have about Hank.” Mako stood straight, running both hands through his hair. It stood up in disarray. “You don’t know what kind of trouble you’re sowing here. I’ve got enough for a whole series of articles. Maybe a documentary.”

Eileen came off the front step, but she didn’t step between Tanner and Mako. She balanced herself evenly between them, and pointed a sad smile at Mako. “I don’t really care, Mako.”

“He was your husband. You were the one he picked as his real family.” Mako sneered, his eyes narrowing.

“Real family?” Eileen stepped closer to the younger man, her hand lifting toward his shoulder. But he flinched before she managed to touch him. “Is that what this is about? You’re so angry with us, with the whole world. You can’t live like that. It’ll eat you up inside.”

Tanner felt himself holding his breath. This was what his mom was so good at, what he’d gotten the benefit of all his life and particularly through the antagonistic teenage years. Mako didn’t realize how damn lucky he was to get a taste of it.

“What am I supposed to do?” Mako snapped. “He practically abandoned me. My mom lived and breathed for his rare visits. I’m supposed to just forgive him?”

“Eventually I hope you can. Your father was a flawed man. I’m going to have to work hard to be able to see past that. But I’m going to try.”

“Why?” He swallowed hard. There was something in his chest that he couldn’t seem to breathe past. “What’s the point of trying so hard?”

Her mouth curved into something that was near a smile, and yet miles away. She stepped forward again, curving a hand over his cheek and patting. “Because I don’t want my anger and my fury to color everything else. Whatever else I have to work through, your father gave me at least two children whom I adore. I have that much, at least. Do you think we could spend some time together? I’d like to get to know you too.”

There were tears shining in Mako’s eyes, but Tanner did him the favor of pretending he didn’t see anything. “I’m not sure if I can stand to look at you yet, but my mom’s a much better person than me. Take her up on it, bro. You won’t regret it.”

After everything was said and done, Tanner surfed for the love of the ride. That perfect moment when man and board actually came close to conquering the monster ocean. Grabbing hold of something so distinctly elemental it became a level above ordinary. A truth.

The entire event came down to him and Jack in the last heat. Jack actually went in two points ahead, having nailed a sweet spot on his second heat. But Tanner . . . Tanner took the finals.

And he had to admit that having Avalon watching him had something to do with it.

She was in the water, her hair skinned back into a severe ponytail, clutching her camera in its waterproof housing. Everything they’d said to each other over the last three days spanning the Sebastian Pro competition had been nothing but business. So polite, there could have been a shell made of dried salt over them each. But her dusky green eyes watched him.

Not that he tried very hard to get away. He needed her, in a way.

But every time his palms burned with the need to grab her, he also remembered how damn bad her betrayal had hurt. It was that much worse that she believed that she had been doing something good for him. Made him wonder what else she failed to understand about him. How much else she didn’t see.

For the last heat, it was him and Jack on the water and the photographers barely out of the way, on the far end of the swell.

He had to push everything away. Not a scrap left in his head but him and the water.

The only thing he had to beat was the wave. He waited on his board, the water soothing and swelling. On shore, the beach was packed. In the water, he owned both the power and the calm of the ocean.

He’d already had one excellent wave, barreling out in a maneuver that was both clean and technically perfect. For his second score of the heat, he wanted something bigger. Fancier. He spotted the swell he needed. Felt it surge under him. Paddled as hard as he had in his life, trusting the magic would happen. And it did. The wave took him. He popped up, standing. Belonging.

He took the wave in return, poured in every bit of his frustration and upset. Slammed down the front, dug in a rail. Flipped a sharp turn at the bottom and rode his momentum up. Up and out until he was floating over the moment. He hovered in the air, his heart rising to the back of his mouth. He was a god.

But a god without a destiny.

His arms spread for balance, he slammed back to earth, cut across the top of the seafoam as the wave broke. Slowed. Dropped back to his board.

He knew he’d done it. Won. He felt the immediate rush of perfect wave plus perfect ride.

His eyes cut to Avalon first. Behind the housing of her camera, he couldn’t see her, not the way he’d wanted to. Not the way he needed to. The way her eyes lit up for him on practice runs, he knew this one would be epic. She’d fucking explode.