Lorelie Brown - Riding the Wave

She wanted to say something else, to put a point on the moment. A statement that would end things with a good flounce.

But in the end she only walked away.

Tanner’s gaze burned into her from behind as she slipped out of the kitchen. Her heels clattered on the tile, making the only noise in the house.

The bright, sunny day she found outside sure didn’t feel right when compared to the mess swirling around inside her. Birds even had the audacity to chirp and sing as they swooped down the street.

She didn’t slam the front door. No point. Everything was said and done.

Tanner bounced the external drive in the palm of his hand. Avalon was gone.

He’d have to decide for how long.

He found his mom out on her patio. She spent uncountable hours out there. When he was younger, Tanner had never understood why anyone would hang out somewhere that was practically walled in when there was an entire beach a block away.

She was lying in the hammock, but to Tanner’s eyes she didn’t look particularly relaxed. There was still white strain at her knuckles, curled around the edge of the net, and the tendons along her throat were as sharp as he’d ever seen them. Even the time he’d been caught sneaking out of the house at three thirty to catch the front wall of a storm surge.

“Hey.”

When her eyes opened, she smiled. “It’s nice to have you here.”

“You’ve said that before.” He tugged a chair up beside the hammock and dropped into it. Sun-warmed metal still didn’t come anywhere close to warming up his flesh after that moment in the kitchen.

He knew what that had been. Avalon saying good-bye. Yeah, maybe they’d see each other here and there, including at the WavePro meeting in less than an hour, but that wasn’t the same. She wasn’t going to be his anymore.

He didn’t know if he could take that.

“It’s still true.” Eileen laced her slender fingers behind her head. “It’s nice that you feel able to come and go. That’s always been one of my biggest goals. To have a life where my children were comfortable with me. Happy and well adjusted is a bonus.”

“Am I well adjusted?”

Eileen looked at him out the corner of her eyes. “Nope. Not really.”

He cut his gaze up to the pale blue sky. A tiny cloud peeked out over the roofline. “Thanks, Mom.”

His mom shrugged, but then she pushed up to a seated position, her legs dangling over the edge of the hammock. For a moment, in her tiny white Keds and pale pink shorts, she looked surprisingly like a teenager. “Son, you’re the one who won a worldwide championship two days ago. But you look like your favorite toy got broken in half by the schoolyard bully.”

It was more like he missed Avalon already. He could still taste her on his mouth.

Half that choice had been his, though. He’d known what she wanted. Some declaration. For him to own up to his part in their fight.

“I care what you do with your life. And whether you’re happy.”

“Of course I’m happy.” He was the freaking world champion, and he’d won in an epic way. What was there to be unhappy about?

Except he was missing part of himself. The part that had walked out the door in Avalon’s wake.

“Certainly.” Eileen patted Tanner’s shoulder. “I’m sure you are,” she said in a tone that said she was convinced of anything but.

Pushing out of the seat, he pulled the tiny jump drive out of his pocket. He knew without looking what it was, a fat file of pictures. But he had a feeling that baseline knowledge wasn’t the same thing as the effect.

Avalon had done him one last favor, because that was the type of woman she was. It was obvious that he’d hurt her, but she’d given him a file full of pictures so that nothing would take him by surprise at the meeting.

He had to track down a computer first.

He ended up perched at his sister’s desk. Her room was a disaster zone, which he didn’t remember at all from when they were growing up together. Her place used to always be neat. But he had to sit on the very front edge of the desk chair because the back was entirely stacked with clothes.

He took another look around. All the mess seemed to be clothes, as a matter of fact. “Swear to God, if I put my hand down on a bra, I’ll burn it.”

Sage stood in front of her open closet door, where a full-length mirror hung. As if the tiny halter-top dress she wore wasn’t enough of an anomaly for her, she bent at the waist and fluffed her hair, then tossed it back. She looked distinctly beach-bunnylike. “You better mean you’ll burn your hand, because my bras are seventy-five bucks each.”

“Dude, are you serious?”

“Completely.” She bent over him to grab up a tiny thing with a clasp on top that he supposed was a purse. It wouldn’t have held anything more than a lipstick and some cash. “You better behave if I leave you in here alone. Don’t go digging in my files. You might not like what you find.”

“What, the cute cat vids will scratch my eyes out?”

“More like I don’t want you in my porn.”

He shuddered. “Oh Jesus, Sage. Don’t even joke about that.”

She swatted his shoulder with her minipurse. Clutch, maybe? “Your sister has sex. And sometimes I don’t, and then I need the porn.”

“Go away and stop talking about that stuff.”

“What, porn?”

He plugged his fingers in his ears and hummed. Sage would always be his baby sister. The two should never, ever come together.

“Where are you headed, anyway?” She looked a little more tarted up than he was comfortable with. The sheer red gloss was a little much, but she’d have a shit fit if he tried to wipe it off.

“On a date.” The grin that spread across her face said way too much about troublemaking and was probably a result of Avalon’s influence. “Hopefully to get laid so I don’t have to come home to porn. ” She put extra emphasis on the last word, as if insisting he notice.

He clapped his hands over his ears again. He was playing it up, yeah, but this was sort of fun. Letting Sage tease him . . . It spoke to a level of intimacy that they hadn’t always had. “Can’t hear you—did you say you’re a virgin?”

“Sure. Yeah. Virgin.” She snickered, then gave a tiny wave of her fingers as she sashayed out of the room. “See you, brother.”

“Don’t do anything I would,” he called.

But he still waited until the door was fully shut before popping the external drive into a USB slot. This was a moment he needed to keep exclusively to himself.

Because Christ if this wasn’t going to hurt.

She had organized the files. There were two little blue folders to start with. One was labeled WavePro, The other said “Private.”

He stared at the computer screen, his fingers running lightly over the flat top of the mouse. This was . . . surprisingly difficult. A little, burning kernel of emotion flipped around and around in his stomach.

He didn’t want to think about the tingling tremble that made directing the cursor difficult. He clicked on the WavePro folder first. This was a piece of pie compared to winning a World Championship—and yet it still felt as if his whole life was tilting.

The file held lots of shots of water and breaking waves. Plenty of him shredding pretty damn hard for an old man, if he did say so himself. Her shots from shore were minimal. She’d preferred to be out there in the water with him, ducking flying boards for the perfect shot. As a result, most of them were wet and Tanner didn’t look too bad. He deserved the win he’d nailed down. The pictures showed that in their technically clean exposition.

They were spare and sparse. It worked, in a way, because it pared the visual impression down to the bare necessities. But it left the overall impression of something slightly cold. They were pretty much on par with the photos he’d seen in her portfolio almost a month ago.