He turned to Alex. “You’re not scheduled tomorrow night, are you?”
“Nope.”
“Want an extra shift?”
The UCSD student scrunched up his face. “Friday night…but I need the money…okay, sure.”
“Great.”
Problem solved. He liked solving problems.
Then he cast another baleful glance toward the table where Hayden was on a date with Will.
They were gone.
His head jerked back. He hadn’t seen them leave. They’d better be going straight the fuck back to her place, where Will would drop her off and she would tell him she never wanted to see him again.
Christ. Adrenaline surged through his veins, the urge to follow them and make sure that happened making him edgy. What the hell was wrong with him?
Calm the fuck down. He was seeing her tomorrow night. She’d basically admitted she wasn’t attracted to Willy boy, so he had nothing to worry about.
What he should be worried about was why he was so worried.
—
He arrived at Hayden’s condo the next evening to pick her up. She answered the door, her face tight, her eyes wary. “Hi.”
“Hi, gorgeous.” He bent and kissed her cheek. Friendly but not too much. “All set?”
“I’m not sure. I’m a little worried about what we’re going to be doing.”
“Heh. Really?”
She gave his chest a little swat. “Really. I don’t like not knowing what’s happening.”
He’d called her earlier and told her to wear a swimsuit, with maybe a T-shirt over it that she wasn’t afraid to get wet, but he didn’t tell her what they were doing.
“I’m not athletic,” she informed him. Yeah, he’d seen her trying to shoot basketball hoops. “If you’ve got something crazy planned for us, I might as well tell you right now I probably can’t do it.”
“It’s not crazy.” He’d given lots of thought to this. She needed to have fun, but he already knew her idea of fun and his might not be the same. She liked looking through a microscope. He liked jumping out of planes. Those were slightly different.
But surely there was some way he could gradually get her to try some new things. Maybe she’d never want to jump out of planes—although he’d be happy to do a tandem jump with her, as he did on a regular basis to raise money for the foundation. It’d be crazy fun to introduce her to skydiving. But short of that, there were many things he could introduce her to. And he wasn’t even thinking sexually.
Okay, he was, but that was for later.
“We’re going night paddleboarding,” he informed her.
She tilted her head. “Really?”
“Yeah. Down at Mission Bay. I haven’t done it, but apparently it’s pretty cool. Have you ever tried stand-up paddling?”
“Actually, I have.” She made a face. “Carrie and I took a lesson and tried it a few times. I’m not going to claim to be good at it, but even a couple of klutzes like us managed to do it.”
“Klutz. You’re so cute.”
“You haven’t seen me trying to play volleyball,” she muttered. “So we’re going to do it in the dark?”
“I certainly hope so. Although with the lights on is good too.”
Her eyes widened and then she burst out laughing. “I meant paddleboarding!”
He grinned. “Oh right. Yeah, we’re going to do it in the dark. Actually, the sun will go down while we’re on the water. Let’s get going.”
They drove down to Mission Bay and he found a lot to park in. They walked to the sports center where you could rent kayaks, SUPs, and sailboats.
“Hi, Beck,” one of the owners of the center greeted him. “How are you?”
“Great, thanks. Keaton, this is Hayden.”
“Nice to meet you, Hayden. So you two are joining the night SUP tour?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice night for it. No wind.” Keaton nodded. “Let’s get you set up.”
Beck had done stand-up paddleboarding numerous times and it was fun, although not exactly the extreme kind of sport he loved. But doing it at night made it kind of different.
“So these boards have lights on them?” Hayden asked as they carried them down to the water.
“Yeah. Cool, huh? High intensity, waterproof LED lights.”
“It is cool.”
They joined the group gathering for the tour and were soon all floating along the surface of the water. He watched Hayden carefully move from her knees to her feet, wobbling a little as she got her balance. She tentatively dipped her paddle into the water and stroked, and wobbled a bit more.
“Keep your paddle straight up and down,” he told her, noticing that she’d angled it out.