Colt was just listening. I had his full attention.
“She used to let the boys on the beach think they were teaching her things,” I said with a smile. “You know the type. The guys who’d swagger up and offer to show the older lady a few pointers. She’d go along with it. She’d act uncertain, a little wobbly, ask questions. She had this whole routine.” I shook my head, laughing. “And then she’d get on the water and just absolutely destroy them.”
Colt grinned. “She didn’t.”
“Oh, she absolutely did. She’d wait until they were watching and then she’d catch the most impossible wave and ride it like she’d been born on it. And these guys would just stand there with their mouths open.” I laughed and shook my head. “She never rubbed it in. That was the thing. She’d come out of the water and just smile at them very pleasantly and say something like ‘oh, I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.’ They never knew what hit them.”
“A sleeper,” Colt said.
“Exactly. She looked like an average middle-aged woman and surfed like a professional. She could have competed. She chose not to because she said she wasn’t interested in anyone judging her. She did it for herself.”
“She sounds just like you,” he said.
I’d been compared to my mother before. It always made me feel good. I opened my mouth and then closed it again. I turned back toward the counter and started to wipe down the counters. I needed something to do with my hands.
“That’s a very generous thing to say,” I managed.
“I mean it.”
“Thank you.”
There was no greater compliment anyone could pay me. Not ever. I had spent years trying to be even a fraction of what she was. Trying to be half as brave, half as graceful, half as generous with the people around me. I fell short constantly and I was always aware of the fact I wasn’t living up to her high standards.
Hearing Colt, someone who knew me very well, say those words meant a lot. He wasn’t talking about my looks or my surfing skills. He was talking about things that truly mattered.
My breath caught. A little hiccup as my cheeks burned.
“Summer,” he said softly.
“I’m fine,” I said with zero conviction.
He moved behind me and turned me gently by the shoulders. I let him, which was my first mistake. He looked at my face with those eyes that saw too much and the patient expression of someone who was not going anywhere.
“You’re flushed,” he observed.
“It’s warm in here.”
He winked. “Yeah it is.”
I was mortified and embarrassed and so full of something I couldn’t name that I thought I might burst.September. I had to remind myself it was coming too fast.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re going to have your way with me right here in my kitchen.”
He grinned. “It’s like you read my mind.”
I stared at his shirt collar because looking at his face was going to have me breaking a lot of rules.
“You’re so fucking gorgeous when you’re turned on,” he whispered close to my ear. “You get flushed. Lips part. Sexy as hell.”
“Cole, you’re so cruel.”
He chuckled. “Thanks for inviting me tonight,” he said in that husky voice.
“I’m really glad you came to dinner,” I said.
