“Trust me, you don’t.”
He had no idea. “Trustme.I do.”
His lower lip jutted as his chin tightened and he said, “Fine. You want it? I surf when I’m fighting the possibility of failure. The higher the possibility, the bigger the waves.”
She frowned. “But…you…can’t surf…”
She and Sage had talked about Scott’s continual pursuit of a sport he’d never mastered. Sometimes his twin worried about Scott’s refusal to give up. Sometimes she teased him about it. Everyone on Ocean Breeze knew of his quest to ride a wave. For all she knew, everyone in his office knew about it, too.
“I surf,” he told her. “I just don’t stay up on the board.”
Which was the whole point of surfing.
Sending her a sharp-eyed glance, he said, “As long as I keep trying, I haven’t failed.”
Ahh. Her stomach flip-flopped. Tightened. They weren’t talking about surfing anymore. The waters she’d pushed them into were murky. Suddenly seeming far more dangerous than a fancy board taking on the waves of South Beach.
The man was deep. More so than anyone she’d known in her adult life. Except maybe Sage. Not because the people in her life didn’t have depth. But because she wasn’t open to experiencing it with them.
So how had Scott managed to slide inside?
More importantly, what did she do about it? While part of her went into immediate defensive mode, sending out orders to build walls, to distract, another part of her asked, “So what possible looming failure were you fighting this morning?”
His didn’t even blink as he continued to eye her and said, “Sexual attraction.”
Right. Somewhere, in her convoluted psyche, she’d known. Had needed to hear him say it for some unforsaken reason she wasn’t ready to pursue.
There was a much more pressing issue. “You could have been killed.”
His shrug left room for the possibility to exist. Which made her angry all over again. “That’s ludicrous, Scott! Better that we do it every day, twice a day, that we lose our friendship, end up unable to be in the same space together, to breathe the same air, than for you to…”
No longer be on earth.
* * *
What did it say about Scott that he was feeling better, more energized, more like himself, arguing with Iris than he’d felt all day? Even before he’d gone surfing.
She was pissed at him. Sage was, too. He got that. Even understood why. And regretted that he’d worried them.
And was putting Iris out for the night.
A situation he’d put an end to in the morning after the physical therapist gave him the information he needed to figure out how to tend to himself.Byhimself.
At which time he’d do what it took to forget the warmth he was feeling right then, with Iris’s concern bleeding all over him.
If he’d needed proof that she valued their friendship as much as he did, he was getting it.
Which was all the more reason for him to make certain that his desire for her, returned or not, did not ruin what they had.
Because there was no other road for him to take.
Platonic friends. Or nothing.
In spite of the fact that herdo it every daycomment had his crotch tightening amid the pain he was in from the waist down.
If she saw it, she did. Nothing he could about it in his current state. Nor was he sure he wanted to try. Pretending it wasn’t there didn’t work. They had to acknowledge the situation. Fight it together.
Which was something that had occurred to him as he’d been beaten up by waves that morning. And was only just then coming back.
