Just Love

25. Hold On

‘So what languages can you speak?’ he inquired, dipping the bread in the saucer filled with olive oil. 

‘French, took that for my GCSEs before I moved over to America.’ 

‘Speak some French, I’ll assess your verbs.’

‘Je veux maintenant vas te faire encule,’ I said, a blunt tone to my voice.  I took a hearty sip out of my cappuccino, watching the milk and coffee swirl clockwise in the cup.

‘That’s nice.’

‘I’m just being frank here,’ I said defensively.  He nodded his head, impressed with my choices and swiped the last piece of bruschette off of the spotless plate. 

‘Hey!’ I exclaimed, taking the piece out of his mouth.  Just as I was about to pop it into my mouth, he batted my hand away and caught the piece in the air before it could fall on the floor.  

‘Okay, how about this - on the count of two, the one who gets the larger piece gets their wish come true,' he said, once he noticed that other diners were giving us disapproving looks.  

'Two? No one goes on the count of two.  And since when was there a wishbread?’

 ‘It’ll be our thing,’ he beamed, clearly satisfied with the genius creation that he had just made.  I closed my eyes, hoping that my wish would come true – even though the odds were slim to none. 

‘One… Two.’         

This was her home away from home. 

‘You coming in or what?’ Taylor called out, running for the waves crashing on the shore. 

‘Later!’ she shouted back, flapping her towel on the sand and pulling out her dog-eared copy of After by Kristen Harmel. 

‘Alright, but you’re missing out beach bunny!’ She saw him sprint through the tide before disappearing through a colossal wave that sent little toddlers running away for fear of being drowned.  

She was mesmerized by the immensity of the sea, the blueness surely reaching the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.  Maddi tied her hair into a ponytail and lay flat on her stomach, letting the sun warm her body up while she read her book that she recently purchased in the airport in Los Angeles. 

This was her type of relaxing, instead of moaning noises while sitting down around a bunch of candles or doing the downward dog.  It felt peaceful, just listening to the waves crashing down on the shore, the cries of birds foraging for food and feeling her toes sink into the sand.  She had a sudden urge to get up on a surfboard and “shoot the curl” all day, after seeing Soul Surfer and Blue Crush 2.  But Maddi made a promise to herself that she would at least read ten chapters in the book, she was dying to know what would happen to the characters at the end.  Would they live happily ever after?

Would she ever fall in love – now her mind had crossed the topic? She had always dreamed of finding the right guy and living happily ever after, like Belle and the Beast.  Call her crazy, but she was a hopeless romantic. 

No later than ten minutes, she had finished five chapters after where she had previously left off and was nearing towards the end of the book when a sudden noise made her jump.

‘You scared me,’ she gasped, clutching her heart for dear life.  She could feel it thumping inside her, trying to recover from the recent shock. 

‘How are the waves?’

‘”Big Surf” is definitely the phrase I would use to describe that,’ he said, grabbing a towel out of the tote bag and patting away the drops of water sliding down his chest.  Maddi tried not to ogle at his toned body, liking how his six-pack looked like they could bounce off quarters.