“I’m taking it as a sign that this next movie isn’t all that great,” I say with a shrug, watching the car lights disappear one by one.
“So it’s just us?” She asks, quietly.
I meet her eyes, and despite the dark of the night I can still tell that she’s blushing.
“Yeah.” I swallow. “Looks like it.”
“Oh,” she whispers.
I glance down at her lips, and even though the voice in my head is shouting at me to just lean in and kiss her, I look away and up at the night sky instead.
“I wonder if we’ll see any shooting stars tonight,” I murmur, searching for any movement in the stars.
“What would you wish for if you did?” she asks, resting her head on the pillow again and looking up at the sky. “What’s the one thing Colton Harrison wants the most in the world?”
You.
Of course I don’t say that out loud, but I want to. I think long and hard about the things I want most until I realize the one thing I want, aside from her, will never happen.
“I’d probably wish for my parents to support me, even if my dad doesn’t agree with my career choice.”
Kairi turns her head to look at me, and I meet her gaze, memorizing how perfect she looks.
“Tell me about him,” she says quietly.
A nauseating feeling settles in the pit of my stomach and I look away from her, trying to figure out where to even start.
“My dad…he’s…well, you already know we don’t talk anymore.”
“Because of surfing.”
I nod. “When I was a teen, they let me move here because of Gabriel's youth surfing scholarship,” I say with a sigh, twiddling my fingers to distract myself. “It was only supposed to be until I graduated high school, since The Shredders was originally just a youth team, but when Gabriel turned it into a pro surf team after graduation, I told them I wanted to stay.”
She hums. “He wasn’t too happy, huh?”
I shake my head. “He wanted me to come home, learn the ropes of the family ranch business, and help him and my brothers keep everything running.”
“What did he say when you told him you wanted to stay here?” she asks.
I pause for a moment, feeling the familiar ache that I always do when I think about that conversation with him.
“He told me I had to choose between my family or surfing.”
Kairi gasps, her back straightening as she looks at me. “And you chose surfing?”
I nod. “The ranch made me miserable, and I couldn’t accept the idea of living a life where I couldn’t do what I loved because pleasing my father was more important.”
“That must’ve been a really hard choice to make,” she says, voice sad. “Do you miss them?”
I nod. “It’s been years since I last saw or heard from them.”
“Did you ever see them around when you moved back to Bluewater Bluffs?”
“While I was surfing with The Rip Raiders, we’d all gone out to the Bluewater Bluffs Summer Stampede one night to watch the evening show performances, but while I was there I saw my father and my eldest brother wrangling in the horses from the rodeo show.”
Kairi gasps. “Did they see you?”
I shake my head. “Nah. I didn’t want to risk it though so I turned around and went back to the rental I was staying at.”
