“Can you come in for a while?” I begged, not willing to let her go yet.
She smiled, although her face was touched with sadness.
“Of course. Mami and Papi aren’t expecting me for a couple of hours.”
We walked upstairs hand in hand, and it seemed completely natural when we kicked off our flip-flops and lay on my bed, our bodies wrapped around each other.
“You did good today,” Yansi said, her voice soft. “I think Sean would have liked it. I can’t believe how many people showed up. I was watching his mom and dad. I think it really helped them. Did it help you?” she asked, stroking my shoulder.
“I don’t know if anything helps, but yeah, it felt right to say goodbye.”
Her arm moved around to my back, and even that feather light touch was enough to start my body getting worked up.
I knew she could feel me getting hard, and I started to move her hand away; it seemed kind of disrespectful when we’d just come from Sean’s memorial. And then I heard his voice in my head.
Don’t be a douche, man! She’s hot for it. You want to nail that while you can!
The thought made me smile.
“What?” asked Yansi, her hand resting under my t-shirt just below my shoulder blade.
“I was thinking what Sean would say if he could see us right now.”
Yansi scrunched up her nose. “Oh God, what a thought!” and she giggled. “But he’d probably be telling us to go for it, too.”
I laughed a little. “Yeah, I think he would have approved.”
She paused for a moment, then her face pressed against my chest. “What are you waiting for?” she asked, her voice lower now and totally fucking sexy.
That was all the permission I needed.
Yansi slid my t-shirt across my body, and I sat up, tugging it over my head. Her fingers trailed promises along my chest and stomach as I lay back down, a shiver making my whole body tremble, my eyelids fluttering closed, resting my hands above my head, surrendering to her, to love, to life, to tomorrow and the day after, and the next day and the next and the next.
Give me a lifetime of feeling this. Give me now and then and soon and when, and give me a future, give me life, give me hope.
My thoughts trail away and all I’m left with is sensation and touch and taste and her. All around me her, and no one ever told me it would feel this good.
My breath stutters in my chest as her warm lips kiss their way down my body, pausing to bite and tease my nipples, until my breath is ragged and sharp.
Her waist feels small and soft as my work-roughened hands drag across her skin, her breasts cool at the surface from the damp bikini, hot underneath as her blood rushes and trembles, turning her sweet caramel nipples to dark chocolate. Her t-shirt goes up and off, and her bikini top goes down and away, and I lean up on my elbows to touch and taste and make love to my girl.
I’m making love. Because we can and we want it and we need it; it heals us and fills us and saves us; a little crazy and a lot in love, because we can, because it’s us and the world still spins and the tide still falls, and the universe around us is too large and too dark, the stars pinned against the blackness, tiny points of light and hope. And that’s us, holding back the dark from this room, holding it away with arms of love because it’s so fucking fine, and blood throbs in my veins, and beats through my heart, and it’s her and hope and being here and living for now.
And we fight a little and struggle a little and laugh a lot as our clothes fall away, and it’s just us and skin and sheets and the misty future which is a lot like hope.
And the heated center of me is my heart and my dick, and she takes both, or I give them, or we meet half way, because she gave her heart to me, too. And her center shimmers and ripples above me, and she slides down my shaft, her soft moans shooting through my brain and across my skin and my cock pulsing inside her.
A slow trickle of sweat runs down her neck, pooling in the hollow of her collar bone and I trace it with my finger as her eyes full of fire and love and questions and answers gaze down at me as our bodies rock together.
“I love you too much, cariño,” she whispers, the words a soft moan.
And our bodies move together, heated in the night, blood boiling and rising, promises made and given, and love and sex and here and now, and her cries mingle with my tears, and she brushes them away with her fingers, my lips turning upward in a smile.
“I love you more than that,” I reply, because it’s true and it’s cheesy and it’s us and it makes her smile and makes me laugh, and we laugh for joy because we’re here and we’re alive and we have now and this moment, and we’ll take tomorrow, and the day after, and the next day and the next and the next.
So, on the day I said goodbye to my friend, I got to make love to my beautiful girlfriend, too. Like I said, I think Sean would have approved.
School started up the next day.
It was strange—I kept expecting to see him or hear him or find him leaning against my locker. It hurt so bad when I remembered that would never happen again. Sometimes I felt like giving up, but I didn’t. I studied hard enough to get mostly Bs—and an A in Spanish—and I thought about going to college.
Every Saturday, I worked with Mr. Alfaro, and I kept my job bussing tables and washing dishes at the Sandbar one or two evenings a week, saving my money, planning ahead. Every now and then I heard someone mention Marcus—last heard of in Bali, or maybe it was Fiji. Nobody talked about Sean, not his name anyway, just ‘that kid who drowned’. I never corrected them. I never said anything at all. After a while, no one remembered that he’d been my best friend. Except me.
I surfed alone and I didn’t hang out at the pier anymore. I missed it, and I didn’t.
Yansi and I were good, mostly. A year later, we graduated together, wearing the dumb graduation gowns and our Cocoa Beach High School medals.
No one thought we’d still be together after all this time, high school sweethearts and shit. We did break up once, but after a couple of weeks neither of us could stand being apart any longer.
Now we’re going away to college together. Like Marcus, as it turned out. Guy had a degree in Marine Biology. He never said.
Julia and Ben got engaged. They’re still not married. They’re waiting. What are they waiting for? Don’t wait for life, that’s what I want to tell them; that’s what I’ve learned. But I don’t. Because maybe you have to learn that for yourself. Maybe Julia’s way is right for Julia. I don’t understand her, but that’s okay, because I don’t need to understand her to love my sister. I had to learn that, too. But it’s okay. We’re okay.
Rob is taking a year to go traveling: Europe, surfing Indonesia, other places. I didn’t want to go. It was something I’d planned to do with Sean, so it just doesn’t feel right to go with anyone else. But I have another reason—I’m afraid that if I start traveling I’ll never stop. And I know that will have a cost—not just me, but Yansi and my sister, too. And I know it, because a part of me is like him, like Marcus. Camille was right about that, but she was wrong too, because I can choose. I can make that choice not to be like him. I choose to live in the world with the people that I love. And I still have a life to live—I just don’t know what that’s going to be. Not yet. But I’m hopeful.
I’ve gotten a little further with my dream of being a shaper and selling my own surfboard designs. Yansi talked me into studying Business at college so I’d have a better chance of making that dream come true. She’s good at that—making me see that I could really do things, do more than just dream.
I feel Yansi’s grip tighten and her thumb rubs over the back of my hand as I stare down at the grave. It’s covered with grass now, smooth, vivid green grass. I guess even cemeteries have sprinkler systems.
The flowers we left are long gone, but someone still comes here—his mother, his brothers, maybe his dad. Someone comes, but the people who loved him, we all remember.
So I stare down and the memories rush ba
ck. Good, good times. Bad times. Worse times. And I remember.
Sean Wallis
September 25th 1997 to July 22 2014
Son, brother, friend
Taken too soon
“Are you ready?” Yansi asks.
My car is parked at the front of the cemetery, packed, ready for us to go, new lives, college students, on the other side of the country. It’ll be some road trip to Southern California. But I had to be near the ocean. And I owe it to Sean not to be small-town either.
I look up and smile at her. I smile.
“Yeah, I’m ready.”
Because summer is over and it’s time to go.
And you’ve got to grow up some time. Right?
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
John Masefield (1878-1967)
To Kirsten Olsen, editor, Beta reader, de-Britisher, friend, partner-in-(imagined)-crime, whose patience in talking me down from the ledge knows no bounds.
To Nate Tria, my 16-year-old Beta reader. Does your mom know you read this?!
To Trina Marie for being the smile in our team, the gal who knows all the hot gossip, and hotter male models, the go-to gal for just about everything.
To Aime MetznerG for all things Panamanian and for helping me with the colloquial Spanish.
To Ena Burnette for her support and marketing expertise.
To Sheena Lumsden, for being a PA without pay, friend and staunch support through thick and thin.
To Hang Le for her stunning cover work and never-ending creativity. And she’s just so lovely.
Audrey Thunder, Dorota Wrobel, Dina Eidinger, Bella Bookaholic (Mary Rose Bergundo), Lelyana Taufik for research photos and never-failing support.
For photos of hot cowboys and for legal advice, Tonya Bass Allen.
For lovely messages that make me smile, Ana Kristina Rabacca, Marie Mason, Clare Norton, Abril Lerma and Dano, Jenny Angell, Celia Ottway, Lisa Ashmore, Lisa Matheson Sylva, Gitte Doherty and Jenny Aspinall.
To Steve and Rosie, lovely owners of the real Sandbar.
To beautiful Emma who works at the Sandbar, and really does have a rose tattoo.
A. Meredith Walters, Roger Hurn, Monica Robinson, Devon Hartford, Gillian Griffin, Sawyer Bennett, Kirsty Moseley, LH Cosworth, Kirsty-Ann Still, Bethan Cooper, Penny Reid, Karina Halle and the wonderful Ker Dukey, friends who share the writer’s lonely path!
The Stalking Angels: Sheena, Aud, Dina, Bella, Shirley Wilkinson, Cori Pitts, Dorota Wróbel, Barbara Murray, Emma Darch-Harris, Sophie Callahan, Kandace Milostan, Kelsey Burns, Lelyana Taufik, MJ Fryer, Hang (MJ), Gwen Jacobs, Kirsten Papi, Trina, Sarah Bookhooked, Sasha Cameron, Rosarita Reader, Jacqueline Showdog, Remy Grey, Ashley Snaith, Kandace Lovesbooks, Jo Webb, Ky-Bree Loves-Books, Jen Berg, Carol Sales, Meagan Burgad, Andrea Lopez, Paola Cortes, Kelly O’Connor, Gabri Canova, Whairigail Adam, Julie Redpath, Jade Donaldson, Sharon Mills.
For their support and encouragement, I’d also like to thank…
The Book Bloggers
Kelsey’s Korner Blog
Totally Booked
Natasha is a Book Junkie
Aestas Book Blog
Maryse Book Bloog
Angie, The Smut Club
Smitten’s Book Blog
Hopeless Romantics
No BS Book Review
Books, Boys, & Badass Bloggettes
The Southern Book Belles
Emily and the Girls, The Sub Club Books
Kelly’s Kindle Confessions
Perusing Princesses
Books and Beyond Fifty Shades
Lit Slave
The Red Red Red Devotees—who were there from the start.
Jane Harvey-Berrick, Summer of Seventeen
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