Post by ContestEntry on Mar 14, 2008 12:36:37 GMT -5
Author's Note: Yay surfing. I will learn one day.
Disclaimer: Er...I don't own "Jeep" though I know someone who owns a Jeep?
Rating: K+
Summary: Living in a surfing town has its advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is the surfer boys.
"Gone Surfin'"
The sign on the door simply read “Gone Surfin’”. It was not at all unfamiliar to anyone in this area; it made its current reader smile in amusement. The sign was made of a piece of drift wood with the words burned into it. In one corner there was a shark and in the other was a long-board. Those were painted in a faded and chipping yellow.
With a sigh, Pan stepped out from under the awning to look at the sky. It was a perfect day to go surfing. The clouds were moving briskly across the clear blue sky, and the sun was positioned so there were few to no shadows at the moment. It was a little on the warm side, but nothing the ocean or a bathing suit couldn’t fix. Yes, a great day to surf.
With no large amount of thought, Pan started to walk toward the waterfront. It was only about a quarter-mile from the neighborhood. She was tempted to swing by her house to grab her board, but decided against it. With weather this nice, the majority of the surfers would be out there already. Surfing was something she preferred to do alone or with only her very good friends.
A few sandpipers ran around the sand-covered streets, pecking and then running before Pan came too close to them. A few other birds were doing the same thing. The wind picked up the sand so it blew around her feet and legs. Since the wind was coming from the waves, it was cool and salty as it hit her square in the face. Pan just breathed it in, enjoying it.
Yes, there were advantages to living in a beach/surfer town. She had a tan year-round, there were numerous attractive boys, and there was very little need for a car. Sure, everyone had one because it made moving to a different part of the beach that much easier, but the majority of the time people just walked or rode a bicycle. That also put nearly everyone in shape, though there were the people who were just lazy. It was a surf bum town.
Some of the disadvantages to it were the tourists. During the summer, the entire town was practically crawling with them. The private beaches were no longer private, despite the complaints residents made. Forget the public beaches: a surfer couldn’t walk through the sand without hitting someone with their board or stepping on someone.
At least the locals knew all of the hidden surfing coves. That was when someone’s Jeep was needed. Only a few of the tourists knew them, but they were the ones that residents “deemed worthy” of knowing, so it was no big deal. If someone could surf well enough, they weren’t considered a tourist anyway, just a distant local or something like that.
Pan carefully made her way up one of the dunes to look over the surf. There were a handful of boys out there, seemingly oblivious to anything but their board and the waves under them. She loved to watch them surf. It was like this communal thing between surfer and ocean, like they were an extension of each other. Even the clumsiest of boys out of the water were beautiful to see. Yes, it was quite a secret pleasure of hers to just sit on the beach and watch.
Most girls in the town would either lie on the beach to tan or watch the conceited surfers without their shirts. Pan liked to behold the almost ritualistic but completely spontaneous act of surfing; it was calming in an odd way.
It only took her a few minutes of searching to find him. She smiled when she saw him a little further out than the other surfers. Like her, he seemed to hold surfing as more of a private act. Because of that, and the way he seemed to tune almost everything else out of his head had earned him the image of being the cliché surfer boy: an airhead and oblivious. Those who knew him, though, knew surfing was his outlet, his way to fix the problems that arose in his life.
“Zen-like” was probably the best way to explain it.
Pan found a place not to far from the water to sit, watching. She’d only sat for a few minutes before the sun became a little too much, so she stripped off her over-shirt to reveal a bathing suit top. Anyone without a suit as their first layer of clothing was either new in the town or a straggling tourist. It just made the summers that much easier, that much cooler.
As Pan watched, she lost track of time. Boys fell off their boards and climbed back on them to laugh with their friends. They did all sorts of tricks, known and made-up, trying to show-up each other or show off to girlfriends sitting on the dunes. Occasionally, the wind carried their laughter up to the shore, but more often than not, the only sounds were the waves crashing and the gulls crying.
This was Pan’s most favorite place in the world.
She had been watching for what could have been only a few minutes or a few hours when he finally came toward the shore. Almost the second he was a decent way from the water, some girls ran toward him. Pan pretended they were the bubbly, empty-headed girls that always went for the surfer boys because that’s how it seemed to work out in all the stories. She knew better, though; those were just stories. So Pan just leaned back on her hands and let the sun warm her face. Hopefully he would go back out to surf in a little while.
Alex. He and Pan had been friends for years, had practically grown up together. Around kindergarten, his family had moved from another surf town to this one because it, as his parents said, “had become such a tourist trap that even the locals were trapped, too”. Since that time, they had been friends. Only in their first year of high school had Pan realized how much she liked him. Of course, high school was just plain awkward for anyone, and they had dated other people, so needless to say she hadn’t said anything to him.
Now, it was the end of summer. They were done with high school. Neither would leave the town, though. As far as Pan knew, Alex was staying to teach surfing at the gym. Pan was staying because she didn’t want to go anywhere else. She’d lived in the town all her life and she was happy that way. There was a community college in the next town over that was high up on her “Consideration List”, so she wasn’t completely without things to do in her life.
Yes, she was happy, at least for the most part. Her family was letting her live with them and they would help her pay for college if she did decide to go that route. She had friends she could room with if she decided not to live with her parents anymore. Even though she tried not to think about it, there was just one thing in her life she would change if she could…
“Hey, Pandy.”
Alex’s voice brought her out of her thoughts. He was the only person who called her almost her full name: Pandora. Pan opened one eye to see him lying beside her; small streams of ocean ran off his wetsuit onto the sand. He wore his usual energetic smile. It hit Pan straight in the gut, forcing the girlish thoughts, ‘He’s so wonderful’ to the front of her mind. She pushed those away quickly and smiled in return. “Hey Alex.”
He continued to grin but looked out over the water now. “It’s a great day, isn’t it?” he asked, leaning up on his elbows.
Pan nodded. “Yeah, it is.” She had perfected the art of being casual around Alex in their years of high school. Of course, she’d never really had the awkward stage of feeling embarrassed for liking him. They had always been friends. Considering the fact that when she had figured out she had more than platonic feelings for Alex, he had been dating some girl at that time. Needless to say, Pan had quickly squelched her feelings and gone on with life. It hadn’t taken her long, but she had decided Alex was probably a better friend than boyfriend. He never stayed with one girl for more than six weeks.
“You should grab your board; those boys need a girl to teach them a lesson about surfing.” Alex gave her a gentle, playful nudge on her shoulder.
With a laugh, Pan shook her head. “I like to watch,” she told him, still smiling.
“You look great when you surf, though.” He carefully lifted one hand to push his dripping dirty-blond hair out of his eyes.
“Thanks.” Pan continued to smile. As much as she liked Alex, she really was content to have him as a friend. It was better than nothing at all. She was just happy being around him; as long as she had that, then there was little else she could ask for at the moment.
They were silent for a few minutes, just watching the waves, the people on boards, and listening to the waves. Alex spoke up first. “What were you thinking about?”
Pan looked at him for a moment. He had unzipped his wetsuit down to his waist and pulled his arms out of it. She took a moment to look him over appreciatively because, in her opinion, it was okay to do. “When?”
Alex looked up at her. The sun caught his eyes, flashing the hazel color at her magnificently. “Earlier, when you were watching,” he explained. “You looked like you were thinking of something that made you happy.”
With another laugh, Pan leaned on her hands again. “You could see that much from where you were out there?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. I just know what you look like when you’re thinking of something nice; I sort of had the impression that’s what you were doing, I guess.” He turned his gaze away a little sheepishly.
Pan grinned to herself once more. So he paid that much attention to her? That was interesting. “Oh. Yeah. I just like to watch you guys. You already know I’m a flake when it comes to some things—”
“Well, yeah.” He laughed at her a little too readily, like he was especially glad for an opportunity to let off some tension.
After giving him a slight shove, Pan continued. “When you guys are out there, you all seem so content, like you’re part of the water. It’s so nice to watch that because usually, you guys are entirely too rambunctious for your own good.” She smirked at him.
Alex shrugged, unable to deny the rambunctious part. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he agreed as he watched the people still out there. Pan sneaked a few glances at him to see him looking totally at ease, staring out over the water. “What do you think when you watch me?”
Any other time, any other person, Pan would have shrugged it off for conceit. But this was Alex. He was sociable and outgoing enough, but he reserved questions and comments about himself for only a few people. Even fewer people knew that he was a little more self-conscious than he let on in most situations. With that fact, he concerned himself more about other people than himself to push those slightly insecure feelings away. Pan was glad she knew this about him, since not many people did. It made her happy to have those opportunities to build him up that much more. He usually smiled a little more genuinely after them.
She paid no attention to the fact that he noticed her watching him.
“When I watch you,” she began, shutting her eyes as she looked at the sky, “I see someone completely at ease with the world, comfortable with it in every way. It might be just because you’re more at home on your board than in your own room, or it could be because you’re an extension of the ocean and the waves complete you. I can tell that you give all of your burdens to the water and let the waves crash them until they mean nothing, until you can face your troubles with all the strength you need. When you’re upset about something, you let the ocean totally envelope you because you know it doesn’t judge you. And that’s what you need: something or someone who won’t judge you.”
When Pan finished, she started a little. She hadn’t meant to say all of that, but once she had begun to speak, the words had come pouring out of her mouth. Slowly, she looked at Alex. He seemed to be digesting that thoroughly, though when he caught her looking at him, he laughed.
“You really are a flake,” he told her, still laughing.
Pan joined him, nodding. “I told you.” She smiled at him. Just when they stopped laughing, they started again because of their smiles.
After a few moments, they managed to calm themselves. Alex looked at her seriously now. “You really see all that?” he asked her.
The question caught her slightly unaware, but she didn’t know why. “Well, no,” she replied. “Most of that is because I know you like I do, because we’re friends. And I don’t see it as much as I can feel it.” She looked at her feet then dug her toes into the sand.
“Friends,” she heard Alex repeat softly. She looked at him and was about to open her mouth to say something when he cut her off. “So you feel all that, huh? What else do you ‘feel’?”
She shrugged, taking his tone to be more interested than patronizing. “It depends. Generally, it’s the same thing everyone else can do: we can tell when someone’s in a bad mood or not, and it’s more from observation than anything. But sometimes, I can feel other things. It’s difficult.” She also didn’t like to talk about it that much because it was awkward.
Alex nodded a little, looking out at the waves. “Sounds like it.” He was silent for a few moments. Pan watched him lay down all the way again. “Can you tell when someone likes you? More than a friend, I mean.”
Pan had just looked away from him, but when she heard his question, she whipped her gaze back to him so fast; her head felt like it was spinning. She stammered a little before just gaping at him. She was glad Alex’s eyes were shut. “Well…I…that’s more of an observation in most cases,” she finally managed to say. “But most boys here aren’t shy, so it’s not hard to tell.”
Again, she saw him nod just slightly. “Yeah, I guess,” he mumbled. He placed on hand on his chest and left the other on the sand, close to her.
For some reason, she didn’t know why, Pan felt compelled to ask, “Why?”
Alex’s eyes opened so quickly; it almost startled her. “Just wondering,” he told her, turning his gaze anywhere but on her.
Pan looked at him suspiciously for a few moments, biting her lip. Why would he want to know that, unless…? But they were just friends, weren’t they? He’d never said or done anything to imply he felt more for her than friendship. But then again, she was the same way.
With a decision to be brave, Pan placed her hand over his. “Alex?”
He looked at her, his hazel eyes looking slightly startled. “Yeah…?”
Carefully, she shifted their hands so her fingers curled around his. “What do you think when you watch me surf?” she asked, smiling a little.
Alex cleared his throat, obviously not expecting that question. “Err, well…” he broke off in a sigh. He said nothing for a few moments, only shut his eyes and took on a look of concentration. “I see this beautiful girl I’ve always wanted to be with but have never been able to have,” he said quickly, opening his eyes to look at the sky.
Pan blinked a few times. She worked her mouth a little but no sound came. Carefully, she pulled her hand from around Alex’s and pushed her hair out of her face. She saw a sudden crestfallen look pass over Alex’s face and she realized what was going on in his brain.
“I asked what you thought, not what you saw,” she told him, smiling a little.
It was interesting to watch Alex’s face. At first, he looked confused. Then he looked slightly troubled but more confusion replaced that. Finally, after a few moments of that, he smiled. He slowly sat up and looked at her, leaned in close. “Well then. I always thought it would be interesting to see you wipe out just once,” he told her.
That took a second or two to process. When it did, Pan’s jaw dropped and she glared at him slightly. She gave him a playful but none-too-gentle shove. Alex caught her wrist and continued to smile at her. Then his gaze lowered to her mouth. Pan didn’t miss that. She swallowed a little and bit her bottom lip, smiling just slightly now. Before she could think past that, she felt Alex’s lips capture hers in probably the sweetest kiss she’d ever experienced. It didn’t last very long, but to her it was the most wonderful few seconds of her life.
When Alex leaned away from her, Pan was grinning to herself. She flicked her tongue over her bottom lip quickly; she could still taste his kiss there.
“So that’s what you really think?” she asked after a moment or two.
Alex laughed at her. “Yeah, it is.” He placed his hand over hers, still smiling. “Come on, let’s surf.” He stood up and pulled her with him.
Pan laughed a little. She’d have to make her own “Gone Surfin’” sign soon.
Disclaimer: Er...I don't own "Jeep" though I know someone who owns a Jeep?
Rating: K+
Summary: Living in a surfing town has its advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is the surfer boys.
"Gone Surfin'"
The sign on the door simply read “Gone Surfin’”. It was not at all unfamiliar to anyone in this area; it made its current reader smile in amusement. The sign was made of a piece of drift wood with the words burned into it. In one corner there was a shark and in the other was a long-board. Those were painted in a faded and chipping yellow.
With a sigh, Pan stepped out from under the awning to look at the sky. It was a perfect day to go surfing. The clouds were moving briskly across the clear blue sky, and the sun was positioned so there were few to no shadows at the moment. It was a little on the warm side, but nothing the ocean or a bathing suit couldn’t fix. Yes, a great day to surf.
With no large amount of thought, Pan started to walk toward the waterfront. It was only about a quarter-mile from the neighborhood. She was tempted to swing by her house to grab her board, but decided against it. With weather this nice, the majority of the surfers would be out there already. Surfing was something she preferred to do alone or with only her very good friends.
A few sandpipers ran around the sand-covered streets, pecking and then running before Pan came too close to them. A few other birds were doing the same thing. The wind picked up the sand so it blew around her feet and legs. Since the wind was coming from the waves, it was cool and salty as it hit her square in the face. Pan just breathed it in, enjoying it.
Yes, there were advantages to living in a beach/surfer town. She had a tan year-round, there were numerous attractive boys, and there was very little need for a car. Sure, everyone had one because it made moving to a different part of the beach that much easier, but the majority of the time people just walked or rode a bicycle. That also put nearly everyone in shape, though there were the people who were just lazy. It was a surf bum town.
Some of the disadvantages to it were the tourists. During the summer, the entire town was practically crawling with them. The private beaches were no longer private, despite the complaints residents made. Forget the public beaches: a surfer couldn’t walk through the sand without hitting someone with their board or stepping on someone.
At least the locals knew all of the hidden surfing coves. That was when someone’s Jeep was needed. Only a few of the tourists knew them, but they were the ones that residents “deemed worthy” of knowing, so it was no big deal. If someone could surf well enough, they weren’t considered a tourist anyway, just a distant local or something like that.
Pan carefully made her way up one of the dunes to look over the surf. There were a handful of boys out there, seemingly oblivious to anything but their board and the waves under them. She loved to watch them surf. It was like this communal thing between surfer and ocean, like they were an extension of each other. Even the clumsiest of boys out of the water were beautiful to see. Yes, it was quite a secret pleasure of hers to just sit on the beach and watch.
Most girls in the town would either lie on the beach to tan or watch the conceited surfers without their shirts. Pan liked to behold the almost ritualistic but completely spontaneous act of surfing; it was calming in an odd way.
It only took her a few minutes of searching to find him. She smiled when she saw him a little further out than the other surfers. Like her, he seemed to hold surfing as more of a private act. Because of that, and the way he seemed to tune almost everything else out of his head had earned him the image of being the cliché surfer boy: an airhead and oblivious. Those who knew him, though, knew surfing was his outlet, his way to fix the problems that arose in his life.
“Zen-like” was probably the best way to explain it.
Pan found a place not to far from the water to sit, watching. She’d only sat for a few minutes before the sun became a little too much, so she stripped off her over-shirt to reveal a bathing suit top. Anyone without a suit as their first layer of clothing was either new in the town or a straggling tourist. It just made the summers that much easier, that much cooler.
As Pan watched, she lost track of time. Boys fell off their boards and climbed back on them to laugh with their friends. They did all sorts of tricks, known and made-up, trying to show-up each other or show off to girlfriends sitting on the dunes. Occasionally, the wind carried their laughter up to the shore, but more often than not, the only sounds were the waves crashing and the gulls crying.
This was Pan’s most favorite place in the world.
She had been watching for what could have been only a few minutes or a few hours when he finally came toward the shore. Almost the second he was a decent way from the water, some girls ran toward him. Pan pretended they were the bubbly, empty-headed girls that always went for the surfer boys because that’s how it seemed to work out in all the stories. She knew better, though; those were just stories. So Pan just leaned back on her hands and let the sun warm her face. Hopefully he would go back out to surf in a little while.
Alex. He and Pan had been friends for years, had practically grown up together. Around kindergarten, his family had moved from another surf town to this one because it, as his parents said, “had become such a tourist trap that even the locals were trapped, too”. Since that time, they had been friends. Only in their first year of high school had Pan realized how much she liked him. Of course, high school was just plain awkward for anyone, and they had dated other people, so needless to say she hadn’t said anything to him.
Now, it was the end of summer. They were done with high school. Neither would leave the town, though. As far as Pan knew, Alex was staying to teach surfing at the gym. Pan was staying because she didn’t want to go anywhere else. She’d lived in the town all her life and she was happy that way. There was a community college in the next town over that was high up on her “Consideration List”, so she wasn’t completely without things to do in her life.
Yes, she was happy, at least for the most part. Her family was letting her live with them and they would help her pay for college if she did decide to go that route. She had friends she could room with if she decided not to live with her parents anymore. Even though she tried not to think about it, there was just one thing in her life she would change if she could…
“Hey, Pandy.”
Alex’s voice brought her out of her thoughts. He was the only person who called her almost her full name: Pandora. Pan opened one eye to see him lying beside her; small streams of ocean ran off his wetsuit onto the sand. He wore his usual energetic smile. It hit Pan straight in the gut, forcing the girlish thoughts, ‘He’s so wonderful’ to the front of her mind. She pushed those away quickly and smiled in return. “Hey Alex.”
He continued to grin but looked out over the water now. “It’s a great day, isn’t it?” he asked, leaning up on his elbows.
Pan nodded. “Yeah, it is.” She had perfected the art of being casual around Alex in their years of high school. Of course, she’d never really had the awkward stage of feeling embarrassed for liking him. They had always been friends. Considering the fact that when she had figured out she had more than platonic feelings for Alex, he had been dating some girl at that time. Needless to say, Pan had quickly squelched her feelings and gone on with life. It hadn’t taken her long, but she had decided Alex was probably a better friend than boyfriend. He never stayed with one girl for more than six weeks.
“You should grab your board; those boys need a girl to teach them a lesson about surfing.” Alex gave her a gentle, playful nudge on her shoulder.
With a laugh, Pan shook her head. “I like to watch,” she told him, still smiling.
“You look great when you surf, though.” He carefully lifted one hand to push his dripping dirty-blond hair out of his eyes.
“Thanks.” Pan continued to smile. As much as she liked Alex, she really was content to have him as a friend. It was better than nothing at all. She was just happy being around him; as long as she had that, then there was little else she could ask for at the moment.
They were silent for a few minutes, just watching the waves, the people on boards, and listening to the waves. Alex spoke up first. “What were you thinking about?”
Pan looked at him for a moment. He had unzipped his wetsuit down to his waist and pulled his arms out of it. She took a moment to look him over appreciatively because, in her opinion, it was okay to do. “When?”
Alex looked up at her. The sun caught his eyes, flashing the hazel color at her magnificently. “Earlier, when you were watching,” he explained. “You looked like you were thinking of something that made you happy.”
With another laugh, Pan leaned on her hands again. “You could see that much from where you were out there?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. I just know what you look like when you’re thinking of something nice; I sort of had the impression that’s what you were doing, I guess.” He turned his gaze away a little sheepishly.
Pan grinned to herself once more. So he paid that much attention to her? That was interesting. “Oh. Yeah. I just like to watch you guys. You already know I’m a flake when it comes to some things—”
“Well, yeah.” He laughed at her a little too readily, like he was especially glad for an opportunity to let off some tension.
After giving him a slight shove, Pan continued. “When you guys are out there, you all seem so content, like you’re part of the water. It’s so nice to watch that because usually, you guys are entirely too rambunctious for your own good.” She smirked at him.
Alex shrugged, unable to deny the rambunctious part. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he agreed as he watched the people still out there. Pan sneaked a few glances at him to see him looking totally at ease, staring out over the water. “What do you think when you watch me?”
Any other time, any other person, Pan would have shrugged it off for conceit. But this was Alex. He was sociable and outgoing enough, but he reserved questions and comments about himself for only a few people. Even fewer people knew that he was a little more self-conscious than he let on in most situations. With that fact, he concerned himself more about other people than himself to push those slightly insecure feelings away. Pan was glad she knew this about him, since not many people did. It made her happy to have those opportunities to build him up that much more. He usually smiled a little more genuinely after them.
She paid no attention to the fact that he noticed her watching him.
“When I watch you,” she began, shutting her eyes as she looked at the sky, “I see someone completely at ease with the world, comfortable with it in every way. It might be just because you’re more at home on your board than in your own room, or it could be because you’re an extension of the ocean and the waves complete you. I can tell that you give all of your burdens to the water and let the waves crash them until they mean nothing, until you can face your troubles with all the strength you need. When you’re upset about something, you let the ocean totally envelope you because you know it doesn’t judge you. And that’s what you need: something or someone who won’t judge you.”
When Pan finished, she started a little. She hadn’t meant to say all of that, but once she had begun to speak, the words had come pouring out of her mouth. Slowly, she looked at Alex. He seemed to be digesting that thoroughly, though when he caught her looking at him, he laughed.
“You really are a flake,” he told her, still laughing.
Pan joined him, nodding. “I told you.” She smiled at him. Just when they stopped laughing, they started again because of their smiles.
After a few moments, they managed to calm themselves. Alex looked at her seriously now. “You really see all that?” he asked her.
The question caught her slightly unaware, but she didn’t know why. “Well, no,” she replied. “Most of that is because I know you like I do, because we’re friends. And I don’t see it as much as I can feel it.” She looked at her feet then dug her toes into the sand.
“Friends,” she heard Alex repeat softly. She looked at him and was about to open her mouth to say something when he cut her off. “So you feel all that, huh? What else do you ‘feel’?”
She shrugged, taking his tone to be more interested than patronizing. “It depends. Generally, it’s the same thing everyone else can do: we can tell when someone’s in a bad mood or not, and it’s more from observation than anything. But sometimes, I can feel other things. It’s difficult.” She also didn’t like to talk about it that much because it was awkward.
Alex nodded a little, looking out at the waves. “Sounds like it.” He was silent for a few moments. Pan watched him lay down all the way again. “Can you tell when someone likes you? More than a friend, I mean.”
Pan had just looked away from him, but when she heard his question, she whipped her gaze back to him so fast; her head felt like it was spinning. She stammered a little before just gaping at him. She was glad Alex’s eyes were shut. “Well…I…that’s more of an observation in most cases,” she finally managed to say. “But most boys here aren’t shy, so it’s not hard to tell.”
Again, she saw him nod just slightly. “Yeah, I guess,” he mumbled. He placed on hand on his chest and left the other on the sand, close to her.
For some reason, she didn’t know why, Pan felt compelled to ask, “Why?”
Alex’s eyes opened so quickly; it almost startled her. “Just wondering,” he told her, turning his gaze anywhere but on her.
Pan looked at him suspiciously for a few moments, biting her lip. Why would he want to know that, unless…? But they were just friends, weren’t they? He’d never said or done anything to imply he felt more for her than friendship. But then again, she was the same way.
With a decision to be brave, Pan placed her hand over his. “Alex?”
He looked at her, his hazel eyes looking slightly startled. “Yeah…?”
Carefully, she shifted their hands so her fingers curled around his. “What do you think when you watch me surf?” she asked, smiling a little.
Alex cleared his throat, obviously not expecting that question. “Err, well…” he broke off in a sigh. He said nothing for a few moments, only shut his eyes and took on a look of concentration. “I see this beautiful girl I’ve always wanted to be with but have never been able to have,” he said quickly, opening his eyes to look at the sky.
Pan blinked a few times. She worked her mouth a little but no sound came. Carefully, she pulled her hand from around Alex’s and pushed her hair out of her face. She saw a sudden crestfallen look pass over Alex’s face and she realized what was going on in his brain.
“I asked what you thought, not what you saw,” she told him, smiling a little.
It was interesting to watch Alex’s face. At first, he looked confused. Then he looked slightly troubled but more confusion replaced that. Finally, after a few moments of that, he smiled. He slowly sat up and looked at her, leaned in close. “Well then. I always thought it would be interesting to see you wipe out just once,” he told her.
That took a second or two to process. When it did, Pan’s jaw dropped and she glared at him slightly. She gave him a playful but none-too-gentle shove. Alex caught her wrist and continued to smile at her. Then his gaze lowered to her mouth. Pan didn’t miss that. She swallowed a little and bit her bottom lip, smiling just slightly now. Before she could think past that, she felt Alex’s lips capture hers in probably the sweetest kiss she’d ever experienced. It didn’t last very long, but to her it was the most wonderful few seconds of her life.
When Alex leaned away from her, Pan was grinning to herself. She flicked her tongue over her bottom lip quickly; she could still taste his kiss there.
“So that’s what you really think?” she asked after a moment or two.
Alex laughed at her. “Yeah, it is.” He placed his hand over hers, still smiling. “Come on, let’s surf.” He stood up and pulled her with him.
Pan laughed a little. She’d have to make her own “Gone Surfin’” sign soon.
