“Yeah,” I say. “I guess I do.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
When we climb out of the water my legs feel like Jell-O. And I’m thirsty. And starving. Stone carries his board up and then comes back for mine. I let him carry it up our stairs and deposit it on the deck.
We’ve been out for hours—at least two. The sun is high overhead now, the temperature already creeping up into the eighties.
I turn on the outdoor shower.
“OK if I stash this here for the time being?” Stone points to his board, right next to mine.
“No problem.”
“You mind if I dip?” he asks, gesturing to the shower.
“Go for it.”
He pulls his rash guard off, revealing the toned and tanned chest I saw the other day. And then he dips his head into the stream and shakes out his hair.
I watch him under the water. He leans his face in, sucks in some water, and then spits it out. He moves his body in a semicircle under the stream, picks up both feet, and then cocks his head at me.
“Damn,” he says. “That’ll do it. Go for it.”
He steps aside, and I get under the faucet. It’s freezing, but it feels great. My body is used to the cold now.
I pull my suit down—I always wear a bikini top underneath—and get some water on my skin. Stone hands me a towel as I turn off the spigot.
We towel off in silence for a few minutes until my stomach rumbles. Loud enough for us both to hear.
“Want to get breakfast?” Stone asks.
“Take me to food,” I say.
Half an hour later we’re seated at Paradise Cove Beach Cafe. The place gets touristy later in the day, but in the mornings it’s all locals. A white, wide-windowed building that’s half indoors and half outdoors, Paradise Cove is parked right on the ocean. There’s also a beach club where visitors can rent chairs for the day, though we’ve never done that.
We choose a table in the sand under a white umbrella. I’m wearing shorts and a sweatshirt, the back half of which is damp from my still-wet hair. Stone has on a blue T-shirt and some khaki linen pants. He ran home to change, then came and picked me up five minutes later.
The Paradise Cove Beach Cafe has been here for as long as I can remember. It’s run by a family that used to own the entire cove of the beach, back in the fifties and sixties, when Malibu was nothing more than a casual, kickback community. I love this place. I’ve been coming here since childhood, and it hasn’t changed much, which is more than can be said for most of the coast. Like most beach enclaves, there’s some tension between the haves and thehave-nots—or the ones who’ve held out and the ones who have taken the place of those who didn’t. People see Malibu as a billionaire’s playground, and it is, to a certain extent—so many old-timers have closed up shop and moved on, rents too high, buyouts too juicy. But it’s also still, and always will be, home to a long and casual history of spots just like this one. That’s the Malibu I know and love. The “no shirt, no shoes, no problem” Malibu.
I slurp up a second water and a coffee. He sips from an iced vanilla latte. The remains of our breakfast are splayed out before us—toast and eggs Benedict and pancakes and every side on the menu. That’s what it’s like after surfing—no talking, just eating. I snap off the last remaining piece of bacon and then wipe down my fingers on a paper napkin, satisfied.
I get no reception down here, and I’m aware of my phone in my bag. I haven’t spoken to Leo yet today. I called him while I changed, but he didn’t answer. Leo is a black-iced-coffee guy, even in winter, and it gives me some small pleasure to see Stone’s glass of complicated sugar.
“I forgot how many pancakes you can take down,” Stone says.
“Me, too,” I say.
Stone loops an arm over the back of the chair next to him and teeters it onto two legs. He looks right across the table at me.
“Can’t believe you stayed away for so long.”
I hold his gaze for a beat. “How’s Bonnie today?”
Stone releases the chair. “I don’t know. She was sleeping when I left, but I feel like we’re getting closer.” He closes his eyes briefly.
I reach across the table and pat his forearm. “I’m so sorry.”
It feels nice to be there for him. Easy. I think about all the times I’ve done it before.
