Page 27 of Catch a Wave
Why are old lovers able to become friends?
Two reasons: They never truly loved each other, or they love each other still.
~ Whitney Otto
“Where’s Kai?” I ask Bodhi.
I stretch my arms overhead and catch him watching my movements. We’re stuck in muscle memory, or whatever the equivalent of that is. Everything about Bodhi and our proximity pings off automatic responses I thought had died a slow death and been buried long ago.
It’s late enough in the morning that Bodhi’s up and dressed in a faded T-shirt and cargo shorts, but it’s still far earlier than I’ve been waking since I arrived. I’m still in my pajamas, a sure sign of my lack of direction or purpose these days.
Bodhi reaches into the cabinet and pulls down a cereal bowl.
“Kai left for work already?” I look around as if my brother will just pop out of a cabinet.
Of course he’s not here. If he were, he’d be playing monkey in the middle like he’s been doing all week whenever Bodhi and I are in the same room. It’s nearly comical how hard Kai’s been working to insert himself between Bodhi and me, as if we need a barrier bigger than the reminder of how our relationship went up in smoke, leaving only ashes in its wake.
“Yep. Kai had an early lesson and he has a meeting in the main building.” Bodhi pauses and flashes me one of his killer smiles. “Perils of being the manager. I skirt all that crisp shirt tucked into my trousers, indoor meeting business. Give me a wetsuit or some board shorts any day.”
I smile. I’ve seen Bodhi in a suit. He’s delectable. But the idea of him suiting up to sit around a table for something official makes me grin even wider. His natural posture in a chair is leaned back, sometimes arms propped casually behind his head, his legs stretched out long in front of him. He managed to make a living on the water for years. Most people can’t. Now he’s still making a living on water. I admire him for bouncing back, even if it baffles me how he managed to make himself venture out into the ocean again.
I’ve been on Marbella a full seven days, but Bodhi and I haven’t been alone in the house since that first day I arrived. He’s been kind, but formal, mostly going about his life and nearly avoiding me. You’d think him giving me a wide berth would make things easier. After all, I’m getting the space I said I needed from him.
I still can’t shut down my preoccupation with him. If he’s here in the house, I feel him, even if he’s out in the garage shaping his next board. My mind and body are auto-tuned to his presence. If he’s gone to work, I sense his absence. I try to distract myself, but I end up wondering what he’s doing—if he’s riding waves, helping customers, or interacting with other resort employees.
Maybe he’s with Sheena and Emily. Though, neither of them have been around all week. He could be seeing Sheena somewhere else to keep things from getting awkward. It’s possible he’s not seeing her at all. Those thoughts keep me spun out if I indulge them. The idea of Bodhi cupping someone else’s cheek, staring her in the eyes with the look that used to belong to me … I can’t go there.
“You don’t have to work?” I grab down my own cereal bowl.
“Not until this afternoon. I’ve got a snorkeling lesson and outing with a couple. Then I’ve got a little break at dusk, and tonight I’m taking a group out on the glass-bottom boat with Stevens. He’s our marine biologist.”
“Oh.”
Bodhi smirks a little at my one-word answer, but then he straightens his features and moves around me to grab the cereal.
Like a familiar onshore breeze blowing toward me off the ocean, Bodhi turns his body so he’s angled in front of me. His face softens and his voice matches his expression. “How are you holding up, Ma … Kalaine?”
I hear the whisper of my nickname float away before Bodhi says my proper name. The sound of it feels too right—too easy and intimate falling from his lips. Even the hint at it catches on something in my heart. That’s why I banned him using that name. I can’t take the way the word “Mavs” sends my heart floating into realms of possibility and hope, longing and recollection. My heart needs to stay here, in my chest, keeping me alive and keeping me far from the edge of the perilous cliff that is Bodhi Merrick.
I step back and grab the box of cereal he just set on the counter.
“I’m good.” I lie.
I’m not good. I’m all messed up, and I’m about to come out of my skin with boredom and claustrophobia. Not to mention theresidual body aches from my fall, and this wretched boot, along with the occasional bouts of dizziness if I stand up too quickly. But I can’t tell Bodhi any of that, even when he’s looking at me like he still cares deeply for me. I’m probably mistaking his concern for interest. Not that it would matter.
Bodhi tilts his head, obviously trying to get a read on me. Then his eyes catch mine and I know he sees everything. I can’t hide my heart from Bodhi. He knows me too well.
We stand facing one another, frozen in place, a thousand unspoken words and emotions swirling between us like a tsunami of regret and longing. Memories and dashed hopes. Love and loss. It’s all there.
Then Bodhi mercifully steps over to the fridge and takes out the milk.
“Ladies first.”
He hands the carton to me. I fill my bowl and grab a seat.
“Big plans today?” He finishes making his cereal and pulls out the chair across from me.
Even that movement draws my attention to everything about him, the way his wavy hair falls toward his face, the stretch and bulge of his arm muscles, the fluidity of his movement. And more than all that, he’s Bodhi: casual, confident, full of some sort of magnetism that God only doled out to a fraction of the population. Looking at him now, I can easily see why. He’s potent, and he doesn’t even know how deeply he affects me still.
