I know I shouldn’t take it, especially when I can swim back on my own. Even if the night-vision overlay on my Bond is almost useless, the waves aren’t strong enough to drag me under. But if I refuse, I’ll lose the chance to touch him. And as much as I want to fight my feelings, I’m aching to know what it’s like… just once.
“All right,” I say.
Edmund leans off his board, slips an arm around my waist, and lifts me onto the tail behind him. I hesitate, my hands hovering uncertainly above his back, before finally resting them against the slick fabric of his wetsuit.
“Shyness like that will land you in the water,” he says, a laugh in his voice.
“I wasn’t sure if—”
“You’re allowed. Both hands.”
I try around his waist first, but it’s too broad for a firm hold, so I reach higher, wrapping both arms around his neck. My pulse surges at the feeling of him, from the warm ridges of his throat to the prickle of his wet hair brushing my wrists.
Edmund leans forward and begins to paddle, cutting cleanly through the water with long, rapid strokes. I match his rhythm, my body swaying withhis as he guides us through the swell. His head stays turned, scanning the horizon, his eyes tracking something I can’t see until a larger set begins to rise behind us.
I feel it in his body first, a moment of stillness as he reads the waves. He lets the first one roll beneath us, then pivots and angles the board, lining us up with the second.
His arms dig in harder now, propelling the board forward until the wave lifts beneath us. The rise is sudden, almost like a push-up. He plants his back foot near the tail and springs upright, pulling me with him. My feet flail in the rush of wind until I manage to clamp my knees around the sides of his waist.
He stiffens at the contact but stays steady, riding the wave.
“Have you ever done this before?” I ask, my words nearly lost in the surf.
“No,” he says. “But I’ve got a good reason not to fall.”
The wave steepens, rising beneath us as it begins to curl. Edmund drops into a sharp bottom turn, knees bent as he carves along the face with fluid, rocking motions that keep the board locked in the pocket.
“Your turn,” he shouts.
Before I can ask what he means, he reaches back, peels my arms from his neck, and pulls me around his body to the front of the board. I stumble as I land, feet slipping on the wet surface, but I drop into a crouch and grip the rails to steady myself.
Then I feel his hands at my waist, guiding our balance as the board cuts down the line, the nose perfectly angled to hold us in the belly of the wave. I feel his breath against my neck, and somewhere near my ear, wild laughter grows louder as a spray of saltwater hits our faces.
I don’t want the wave to end. If I could stop time—freeze a single moment, steal it, live inside it forever—it would be this one. This wave, with this man.
Edmund’s heartbeat pounds against my back as we glide through the barrel, driven by adrenaline. Mine pounds too, but not for the same reason. My heart pounds because of him.
We ride the wave past the break, the board hurtling forward until the swell collapses beneath us in a rush of whitewater. By the time we reachthe shore, both of us are laughing, the foam swirling around our legs as the board drifts to a stop in the shallows.
The moment our feet touch the sand, Edmund lets me go and swings off the board. The cut is too abrupt, like the moment I wanted to hold onto has been torn away. My smile falters, though his doesn’t. He wipes saltwater from his face and crouches in the sand, grinning like we’ve won something.
“Well?” he asks.
“I’d trust you to rescue me if I were drowning,” I say.
He laughs. “Here, sure. If you keep hoverboarding on the Luminescent Lake and fall in, I might not be fast enough.”
“Yeah, you would.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, you lose at things… poker, shot duels. But not where it counts.”
Edmund’s brow furrows in surprise, as if I just handed him a flower—beautiful, but too rarely given for him to know how to hold. He clears his throat, gestures to the board, and says, “You want to go again?”
Yes.If I could, I’d surf with him all night. But I remind myself that no matter how I feel about him, no matter how easy it is to lose myself in moments like this, no version of us gets to stay on the board when the wave ends.
“If I stay out there any longer, the ocean’s gonna have a new iceberg,” I say, sliding off. “But thank you for the ride.”
