Waves - Book #2 [completed]

5 ~ Abience

It's nice, I guess. Other than Rathi I don't have many female friends and am mostly around guys. It's easier with them. They're competitive and hardheaded until the day's over and you shove a beer in everyone's hand. Then they'll have fun and drink and laugh as if nothing's ever happened. Girls are... vindictive. April still holds it against me that I kissed her crush, Jimmy, when we played spin-the-bottle at age fourteen. She can laugh about it now, but she brings it up occasionally.

Once we get to my cabin, April stumbles inside and flops onto my couch. She groans. "I'm horny."

I should've taken the hour and driven her home. Now I need to listen to her complain about not getting enough D. When she starts drooling over Mason I stop contemplating if I should offer her to sleep in my bed.

I need a drink – a strong one to process everything. Pouring myself a whiskey, I pull my phone out and throw my purse onto my bed from the living room. It skids over the duvet and drops to the floor on the other side.

Deciding that I'll pick it up later, I drop my ass to the couch next to an already snoring April. I unlock my phone, take a sip of my drink and almost suffocate as it goes down the wrong pipe. My coughing makes April grunt and turn around, almost toppling off my sofa. I can't believe what I'm staring at. It's a text from Harry in our group chat.

Harry: Welcome to the inner circle, mate.

On top of that there's a box indicating that Harry added an unknown American number to the chat. That can only be one person.

My grip on my phone tightens and I down the rest of my Whiskey before putting my phone on the coffee table, deciding to not give it another thought. At least not tonight.

~~~

Baby licking my hand that hangs off my bed wakes me up. She's good at waking me up like that when she needs to go outside. It's still early and I could've used another two hours of sleep, but since my dog's used to me getting up at five or six, she's also used to our early morning walks.

My mouth feels like I gulped down liters of seawater yesterday. Yawning, I rasp out "alright, alright" and roll over before sitting up. I grab the dress from last night, throw it on and tiptoe through my cabin to not wake April who's still snoozing on my couch. At one point during the night she wrapped a blanket around herself and now looks very cozy and happy there. On the sofa. Maybe I don't need to have a bad conscience after all.

The air outside is muggy, the sky's grey and there's a strong breeze coming from the ocean. It'll pour down rain soon. I don't mind rain when I'm surfing on my own, but it makes the experience unpleasant for my students and it's harder to keep an eye on them when it's coming down. Plus, most of them don't appreciate the more violent waves, especially when they're still shaky on their boards. So it's safe to say that my job is weather dependent and I have a lot of free time whenever it's not playing according to my plans.

April's awake when Baby and I get back, just in time for the first fat drops to fall. She's not too keen on leaving anytime soon but when I casually mention that my brother wanted to stop by, she changes her mind. It's a little white lie that helps me stay sane for the rest of the day. April had a little crush on him until she found out he's gay which she never really processed.

Once I'm finally alone, I fall onto my back on my bed again and stare at the ceiling. The rain is getting stronger and the sound of it pelting down on the roof relaxes me. I love listening to it. A thunderstorm would be even better.

I don't know how long I'm lying there, staring into the air, but I feel all tension and darkness inside of me simmer away. I'm always happy here, even if it's hard sometimes. But it's rare these days that I feel genuinely light.