Waves of Love (Surf’s Up Book 1) by Lori Ann Mitchell Read Free Book Online

shower, her limbs warm and already sore from using muscles she’d never even known she had while learning how to surf.
                  Derek’s back porch was surprisingly spacious and a generous overhang protected them from the late afternoon sun. She had suggested one of the two beach bars right there by where they had been surfing, but he’d begged off, suggesting that they stow the surfboard rack first and then “hang out” on his porch.
                  She’d smirked and helped him load the rack, both of them tugging at the rubber handle bar as they carried it, lumbering across the street. There was a shed next to his cottage just big enough to back the board rack in and lock it tight. A good thing, since they’d been lugging around about three grand worth of rented surfboards.
                  Now they sat, sandy and sticky, lazing in the wooden chairs on his spacious deck. In the living room, his iPod oozed some kind of chill, remixed reggae music on a wireless speaker, set just right at “background music” mode and, drowsily, it added to the relaxed vibe as they sipped their beers.
                  “Either way,” he said, legs long and bare as he sat in his baggies and a clingy tank top, “I’m really proud of you.”
                  “I’m proud of myself, actually.”
                  “Yeah?”
                  She nodded. “Most everybody I knew growing up surfed,” she explained, “and they learned early, when you’re supposed to, I guess. I always had something to do at home, or around the store, or homework, or was reading and just… missed that boat. After high school, well, it seemed too late. And when I came back from State… well, there was drama, so I never learned then, either. I guess it just seemed too late to start after that…”
                  Her voice trailed off and she avoided his eyes. Sage hadn’t meant to say quite so much, nor had she expected it to affect her quite so powerfully.
                  “It’s never too late to live, Sage,” Derek said, softly, earnestly. If they had been closer, she thought, he might have reached out to touch her hand.
                  She looked back at him, eyes moist. “I know that,” she croaked. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t trying to get all emotional, it’s just… I was trying to thank you for helping me reach a lifelong goal.”
                  He nodded, eyes soft and hazel as they gazed at each other. “You know, I never knew my mother,” he said. “She left us when I was just a kid, too young to remember much about her. My dad, well, he wasn’t the kind to be alone, and he hooked up with a few different women in short succession.
    “They were climbers, you know? Social climbers, I mean. Dad’s big into real estate in the San Diego area, so these women were just after his dough. And they always, always, always had kids, and the kids were always jerks, and they always moved in right away. To our big house and, basically, took over…”
                  Derek’s eyes drifted and, yet again, she wished the deck chairs were slightly closer so that she could reach out and comfort him with a gentle caress on the top of his wrist. “So my house never felt like my own. Even when he’d kick one out, and we’d have the place to ourselves again, I knew it was only a matter of time before another broad moved in. And, sure enough, a few weeks, maybe a few months, later, here would come some other brassy broad and her six loser kids and, well…”
                  His voice trailed off, but she smiled and finished his sentence for him. “You found the beach, right?”
                  He looked back, smiling gratefully. “Exactly. I… I saved up my allowance for a few weeks and got a secondhand board at some pawn shop downtown. Taught myself to surf early in the