Relentless(20)

“I’ll never let go, Jack,” I whisper dramatically, and he shakes his head.

“You jump, I jump,” he replies, and I laugh.

“You love Titanic,” I tease him. “You know, that first day I saw you in the café, I kept calling you Jack Dawson in my head.”

“Do I look that old to you?”

“No, and you’re much better looking than him, anyway.”

“You’d better watch out, Claire,” he says as we climb the steel steps up to the bleachers. “If you keep saying stuff like that I’m going to be forced to take you into the water for a swimming lesson.”

“I know what that means and I would never. There are a million people out here.”

We sit at the end of a bench a few rows down from the top and the steel bench is hot against the backs of my legs.

He finally lets go of my hand and leans over to whisper in my ear. “I thought you liked taking risks.”

His lips linger against my ear and his breath sends a tingling sensation racing through me. I swallow hard as I shift in my seat and he finally pulls away.

“The first group hits the water in a few minutes,” he says, as if I care. “So we have some time to finish our little game of questions. But this time we have to actually answer. No answering a question with a question.” He grabs my hand again before he begins. “What’s your favorite time of day?”

I pause for a minute to think, though I already know the answer. “That time of day when the sun hasn’t come up yet, but you can already feel it coming. It’s an elusive warmth, like a subtle promise whispered in your ear and you can go on with your day knowing you’ve been given another chance to get it right. Sometimes I get up early just so I can sit outside with a cup of tea and feel it.”

I turn to Adam and his face is serious. “I know it’s a total cliché, but my favorite time of day is sunset.” He takes a deep breath then turns his gaze to the water. “We used to live near Carolina Beach and my dad would take me out every day after school to surf until the sun went down. It’s bittersweet because the sunset always made me a little sad knowing that it was the signal for us to leave—and I never wanted to leave the water. But it also brings back some really good feelings about that time in my life, you know, before things got complicated.”

There’s so much I want to ask him now, but I have to pick just one question.

“Okay, why do you still work for your dad if you hate it? And don’t give me the obvious answer of family obligation because you don’t strike me as the kind of guy who would let that stop him from doing anything.”

He leans forward, resting his elbows on the tops of his legs and I’m forced to lean forward with him since he’s still gripping my hand like a life raft.

He encapsulates my hand in both of his and my hand disappears. “I guess we both have some questions we’re not ready to answer.”

I wait a moment before I nudge his shoulder for him to look up. “Hey, the first group just paddled out.”

During the entire first round, and half the second round, Adam explains the rules of the tournament and what each surfer needs to score to move on. Every time one of them executes a difficult trick without bailing he gets so excited and cheers with the crowd. His enthusiasm is infectious and before long, I find myself cheering so loudly my throat aches by the end of the second round. I haven’t had this much fun on a date since… well, I don’t know if I’ve ever had this much fun on a date.

As we’re sitting there waiting for the third round to begin, a group of guys in board shorts with beads of water and sand sparkling on their shirtless chests pass us on the way up to the next row of bleachers. A couple of them ogle me as they pass and Adam’s grip tightens on my hand. I look at him and the tiny muscle in his jaw is twitching.

“Come on. Let’s go down and watch some of the bands while we wait for the next round.”

I allow him to pull me along down the bleachers to the sand and toward the stage before I say anything. “What was that about?”

“What?”

“That?” I say, nodding toward the bleachers behind us. “You’re not upset about those guys checking me out, are you?”

He grits his teeth again as he lets out a breath through his nostrils. “I don’t like…. Wait, let me rephrase that. I sometimes have a problem controlling my temper. That’s part of the reason I moved here. I’ve learned that the only way for me to deal with it is to avoid situations that set me off.”

Great. I had to find the one sweet guy in Wrightsville Beach with anger issues. I realize quite abruptly that we’ve both let go of each other’s hands as we approach the crowd huddled around the stage where a DJ is now playing electronic dance music. Some people jump up and down to the beat while others writhe against each other. Some hold cans of soda in their hands, which, by the enthusiasm of their thrusts, are probably filled with more than carbonated water and high-fructose corn syrup.