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He reaches up and scratches the back of his shaved head and says after a long hesitation, “I dunno. It just seems like you don’t enjoy it anymore, like maybe you’re doing it out of obligation—sorry man, I’m not tryin’ to—”
I put up my hand.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say with forgiveness. “Like I said, I appreciate your concern, but I really am fine. And yeah, I can see why you’d think I don’t enjoy jumping as much, but I’ve just had a lot on my mind, that’s all.”
Seth nods, leaving it alone.
“Maybe you can talk Sienna into staying.” He changes the subject with a small, suggestive smile.
“Maybe so,” I say, wincing as I pick small clumps of dried mud from my leg hairs, “but somehow I don’t think she can.”
“She may surprise you,” Seth says. “You’ll never know unless you say something. Shit, man, try it out—imagine how liberating it’ll feel!”
I don’t share his positive outlook, or his enthusiasm, and I find it odd that he’s actually advocating a relationship outside of sex with Sienna, seeing as how he’s so anti-relationship himself and just moments ago he was telling me to be careful.
“All right.” Seth gives up. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
“Thanks.”
A moment later I ask, “So what’s goin’ on with you and Kendra?”
His dark eyebrows harden. “Nothin’. Why do you ask?”
I shake my head with disbelief and look away, not putting too much effort in hiding my knowing smile. Seth should be used to it by now—I’ve been on him for a couple weeks about his secret feelings for Kendra, and he’s been denying them ever since.
“Gotta get off my back about her,” he says, but he can’t look me in the eyes. “She’s too wild. I like my women sweet and tame.”
I scoff. “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.”
“Whatever, man,” he says, and then glances down the hallway as if to make sure Sienna isn’t in earshot. He turns back to me with a suggestive grin. “So have you banged her yet?”
“Get the fuck outta here, Seth.” I can’t help but laugh a little—he can always get one out of me if he tries hard enough.
Seth crumples his nose up tightly, his top row of white teeth pressing over the top of his bottom lip, and he pumps his fist in front of him. “Fuckin’ score!” He laughs himself all the way out the front door.
It wouldn’t have mattered if I told him nothing had happened between me and Sienna beyond kissing, as he wouldn’t have believed it anyway.
Sienna
An angry rumble of thunder and the heavy pounding of rain battering the roof wakes me early the following morning. Shuffling the sheet from my head, I open my eyes slowly to the dim gray light of dawn blanketed by clouds. More thunder rolls amid the sky; I can hear the distinctive sound of waves crashing against the shore through the open screened window above the bed.
I get out of bed and slip my bra on underneath my T-shirt before leaving Luke’s room.
But Luke is nowhere to be found. The television is off; the kitchen doesn’t look or smell as though anything has been cooked in it yet; the running shoes, as well as the flip-flops Luke normally wears, are still sitting sloppily on the floor beside the television; his wallet and car keys are still on the kitchen counter, so I know he can’t be far.
I push open the squeaky screen door, making my way out onto the lanai, but he’s not sitting out here, either, which was where I expected him to be.
“Luke?” I call out softly from the lanai, my voice smothered by the thunder and heavy rain; a streak of lightning darts across the sky in my peripheral vision, followed by a vociferous crack and roar of thunder—I jump at the unexpected sharp sound; I can feel it move through my feet as the lanai seems to shake. Rain splatters on me in tiny spray-like drops as the brisk wind pushes it sideways amid the storm.
I don’t know how it hit me so fast, but suddenly I react on the urge to look inside the house from the screen door, my eyes passing over the wall in the kitchen where two surfboards—Luke’s and Seth’s—are usually propped, and when I notice Luke’s is missing, my heart sinks into my feet.
Before my mind even realizes, my bare feet are carrying me down the lanai steps and into the hammering storm.
I run through the rain and wind and thick wet sand all the way out to the beach, where I stop as if a brick wall suddenly shot up in front of me when I see Luke, a speck of dark, out-of-place movement, riding the violent waves on his surfboard.
Gasping, my stomach tightening, I fling my hand over my mouth. Rain rushes over my head and down my face in heavy streams, but nothing can force my eyes closed, as I’m fixed on the perilous scene, watching Luke surf in the storm.
For a second I’m more mad and disappointed than I am afraid—why is he doing this alone? I ask myself.
