Tee hee!
I was a hell of a lot more motivated to push myself past my limits when I knew that if I impressed Riddick, he would suck and fuck me until I saw stars.
It was thefucking best.
The only thing that I hated about our relationship was that he still wouldn’t let me talk to anyone about him.
I’d asked Riddick why people had seemed so freaked out when he came to the beach to find me that night, but his mood had immediately soured.
‘This town and I have a history. If you survive Leviathans, I’ll tell you the whole story. But until then, can you keep the fact that I’m here just betweenus?’
It bothered me, but the look on his face had been so full of pain that I agreed and hadn’t brought it up again. The weird looks and whispers stopped after a couple days anyway, and most people seemed to forget about that night as time went on.
The only person who remained a thorn in my side was Kyle Tully. He’d tried to press charges, but Quinn backed my story when I told the cops I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. When they asked about my hand, I told them I cut it on some reef while surfing.
It also helped that Tully wasn’t generally well-liked. A few other witnesses took my side as well, so the charges were eventually dropped.
This only seemed to piss Kyle off more. Since then, every time I surfed Stars Cove with Turtle, Tully had a bad habit of turning up and trying to one-up me on every fucking wave.
It was more than annoying; it was starting to get dangerous.
Whenever I had a particularly sick run, he would aggressively attempt to surf a better one—at the expense of literallyeveryoneelse surfing.
He’d butt to the front of the line-up and even drop in on someone else’s wave in an attempt to show me up.
He was responsible for several wipeouts at this point. One kid sliced their head open on the reef and needed to get stitches. It wasseriouslygetting out of hand.
What was making it worse was with Riddick’s coaching and my new diet, I was getting like…reallyfucking good.
Better than I really ever thought I would be.
I was quickly becoming a bit of a town celebrity, and one girl even asked me for my autograph once, which cracked Turtle the hell up.
By the end of the summer, every time I hit up Stars Cove to surf, I seemed to attract a little gaggle of both girls and guys who were self-proclaimedFinnatics.
They would gather on the beach and watch me ride for hours.
It was actually bananas.
We were surfing with Blake one balmy September afternoon when I absolutelycookeda pipe. My little fan club lost their minds so bad I could hear them all the wayout at the line-up.
I accepted high fives and congratulations from some fellow Sharkies surfers as I paddled to the back of the line, feeling pretty good about myself.
“Bro, what the fuck are youeatingman?” Turtle was grinning at me, his smile nearly tickling his ears. “That was fuckingawesome,dude, like, you should try out for competitions. Plus, you’re lookingjackedlately. Share your secrets with the Turtle Man, brother. I wanna be you when I grow up!”
I beamed at him, blushing as I shook the water out of my hair.
“Nah, man. That was nothing. Practice makes perfect.”
Blake was looking at me like she’d just seen a ghost, and my smile faltered a bit.
“What?” I asked, and she chewed her bottom lip, frowning.
“Nothing, just… your style reminds me of Riddick’s a lot. That’s all.” She looked sad, and I wanted more thananythingto ask her if she knew him well, but then that would be talking about Riddick, which was against the rules.
“Uhh…”
Not knowing how to respond to that at all, I sat there on my board awkwardly for a moment and was eternally grateful that Turtle just bulldozed over Blake’s comment, yammering on about how I should be looking into getting sponsored or some dumb shit like that.
