Page 87 of The Surfer

He’s completely changed himself since then.

“Hey,” I call out after him. He stops as I lean over the bed. I find what I’m looking for. His pants. I throw them at him, and Cove catches them in his hands. “Maybe put these on before you walk out there this time.”

Cove smiles again at me. “Maybe I should.”

He slips his pants over his legs and disappears out the bedroom door into the living room of Sandy’s house.

I lean back into Cove’s soft bed, snuggling up against the warm patch where his body has heated up.

This is too nice. I’ve got to remember this perfect moment now before I forget it over the next few years when I’m back in cold old New York.

The last few months have been nothing but pure magic. Cove has started to surf again, slowly at first, under my watchful eye. We’ve hired his old surfing coach from when he was a teenager to teach him again, and Cove has picked it up like a pro. He really is a natural in the water. In just a few short months he’s nearly regained his old abilities. One more year of this and he’ll be back to where he was before the accident, if not even better. He might even be able to compete again. That would be something.

And he’s told me he’s doing all this for me.

Yeah, we really are in love.

The bedroom door slowly opens and in walks Cove. He’s holding two glasses in his hands.

Glasses full of chocolate milkshake.

“Cove!”

“I thought I’d make your favorite,” he says slyly. He brings the milkshakes to the side of the bed and hands one of the glasses over to me. I take it happily and gulp it down. I know I’ll develop a milk mustache over my lips, but I don’t care.

“This is so good,” I say, pointing at the milkshake.

Cove reaches over and wipes my milk mustache off with his finger seductively. I giggle and he laughs.

“I thought you’d like it.”

“Of course, I would,” I reply. I grab his face with my hands and pull him in for a long and deep kiss. “Thank you.”

“So,” Cove says. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh, thinking? Don’t do it too hard otherwise you’ll hurt your head.”

“Very funny, you’re such a joker,” Cove replies. “Well, I’ve been thinking.”

“Thinking about what?”

Cove smiles. “Thinking about a lot of things,” he says. “And now I have an idea.”