Cinderella in the Surf by Carly Syms Read Free Book Online

surfboard.
    Piper smirks and flips her short hair over her shoulder. "That's what I thought." She gives me a light pat on the upper arm. "See you around, Rachel."  
    And she turns and walks away.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    "Fancy meetin' you here."  
    I shake my head. "People still say that?"  
    Walker shrugs. "I don't know much about other people, but I sure do."  
    I'm sitting on the rounded side of a long log split in half in front of a small fire burning on the beach. It's something I used to do with Alex and some people we'd hang out with, and it feels right being here tonight.  
    "Mind if I sit down?" he asks, and then he drops onto the log before I can answer.
    Typical.
    I'm still tracing patterns into the sand with a stick I picked up somewhere along the beach. I'm not sure what to say to him, not after I ran out of Hilo's a couple days ago.
    "What are you doing out here?" I ask mostly out of curiosity instead of annoyance at being interrupted.  
    "My uncle keeps his boat docked at the marina at Western," he says, naming one of the neighboring beaches I hardly ever go to. "Just walking home on the sand and I saw you."  
    He reaches into his back pocket and slides a toothpick from a carved wooden holder probably designed for cigarettes.  
    "Reformed smoker," he says, tapping his index finger twice against the box when he catches me staring. "Helps to keep my mouth busy and out of trouble."  
    I smirk. "And how's that working out for you?"
    He grins back at me. "How do you think?"
    "Touche," I say. "Kind of late to be out boating."  
    "Not for me. I like it out there at night. It's quieter in the dark."  
    "Lonelier, too."  
    I can feel his gaze shift over to me and linger. "For someone who's by herself a lot, you don't really seem to like it all that much."
    I flinch but try to hide it. Because the thing is, I'm kind of learning how, well, lonely it really is to be alone.
    "That's just the way it is."
    "You have to have other friends that aren't Alex."
    "Yeah, we knew the same circle of people."  
    "But not friends."
    "Not like what we were."  
    "Maybe you should lean on them more."  
    I wave my hand dismissively in the air. "I did in the beginning. But it felt forced and not right and weird without Alex. I dunno. I'm better on my own."  
    He shakes his head. "I don't think you are."  
    I swallow hard, my stomach beginning to twist. "I don't know," I say quickly. "I'm all over the place tonight. I just need to clear my head after meeting Piper today."  
    Walker chuckles softly. "After meeting what? You say it like it's a poison."  
    "Might as well be," I reply. "And it's not a what, it's a who. That's her name, Piper Monaghan. Apparently, she's Australia's crown jewel of surfing."  
    Understanding dawns on his face and I watch as the corners of his mouth twitch up slightly. "So she's the foreign version of you, huh? I can't imagine why you don't like her."  
    "No, you're all wrong," I inform him. "I don't have a problem with other surfers. But Piper Monaghan is disgusting."  
    "What happened?" He still looks skeptical that this is anything other than typical silly jealousy.
    So I tell him, everything from Ahe pointing her out to me at the market, to sitting by the canoe, to her letting me know how grateful she is that a wave wiped out my best friend.  
    "And that is why she's disgusting," I say in conclusion, tucking a stray strand of long brown hair back behind my ear, then folding my hands in my lap.  
    "What's the Invitational?" Walker asks, and I feel a surge of irritation flush through me that this is the first thing he wants to talk about when I'm done with my story about the evils of Piper.
    I let out a sigh. "It's a big surfing competition that happens in a different place ever year. It was Hawaii last July and Ecuador the year before. My family's never had enough money to send me to it. Until now."  
    "Because it's here."  
    I nod. "Yeah. The entry fee is only a hundred bucks. The day's been