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"Thank you, sweetheart," he smiles up at Mila with all the charm of Malibu Elvis. The man has not lost his touch with women at all and Mila appears smitten with him as all women do.
Mila and I return to the truck to grab the boards. When we get back to Henry, we sit on the sand next to him to watch the waves. The low tide exposes the barnacle-covered rocks that are usually underwater.
"You guys go. Don't sit here with me." Henry waves us out to the water.
"We can stay." Mila is sweet to offer, but Henry likes to sit alone on the beach and revisit his memories of the days before the beach was overtaken by Gidget and tourists.
Watching Mila take off her clothes and struggle to put on a wetsuit has to be the best part of the day. I suit up too and enjoy her eyes on me. We walk out past the break. The cold water wakes us up and energizes us. A swell rolls in and I catch it with the back of my board, try to pop up, and crash into the water. It's the popping up part I need to practice.
Mila's never been surfing before so she's flailing around trying to figure out where to put her board to catch a wave. I paddle up next to her and our boards clunk together. She laughs and says, "We are not good at this."
She's wrong. If she's smiling, we're good. "We'll get there. Plenty of time to practice." I lean over in an attempt to kiss her, but end up falling into the water again.
After I climb back up and sit on my board, I pull hers next to mine before the next wave rolls in. "Love you, Mila."
She smiles and her eyes twinkle. "Love you too, Foster."
It feels good to say it out loud again. We've both known it for a long time.
"Proud of you for getting in the water."
"Got the right motivation."
After a good forty minutes of fumbling around in the waves, our fingers are blue and pruned and we carry our boards back out to Henry.
I wrap her in a towel and sit down next to her.
"You guys suck," Henry says.
"Truth," I reply.
"You need to time the waves. Get to know the rhythm. Be one with the ocean."
"That's why you are the Malibu Elvis and I'm merely unstoppable."
"You can learn it. Look out there. See the swell? Watch it roll in and break. Now watch a thousand more and you'll get it. And paddle a lot faster or you won't catch shit."
"Next time."
The wind blows us dry and I fish some sandwiches out of my backpack. Peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat. Not the fancy finger sandwiches Mila is probably used to, but she smiles and takes a big bite. "Oh my gosh. I haven't had PB&J in forever."
Good. I'm glad she likes my offering.
I hand her a water bottle and she opens it and takes a sip. "So," she says in a leading tone. "Did you hear?"
Uh oh. "No. What?"
"Rocco Maretti's walking around with a black eye." She twists her lips into an ironic grin.
"Huh. Is he now?" I act like I don't give a shit, which I don't.
"You have any idea how that happened?" she asks me.
"Nope." I keep my eyes on the waves and take a bite of my sandwich. I'm not owning up to nothing, but I would love to share the satisfying feeling of the crunch of my knuckles on his privileged rich-boy face.
"Donnie said you kicked his ass."
Henry grunts and chuckles. I spent a good half an hour debating with him if I should beat the crap out of Rocco. He attempted to appeal to my rational side.Don't make enemies. He'll come back for revenge. Could make me look bad in her father's eyes. He even convinced me to drop it. But Rocco showed up at another fight, and I invited him into theoctagon with me. He accepted. His stupid decision. He knew I was undefeated, but his inflated ego wouldn't let him back down. I crushed him easily. I did hold back and tried not to break any of his bones, but only because of Henry's warnings. Needless to say, he won't be touching Mila ever again.
