Lonely and Tired

Surf's Up

"Yes!" That was not defensive. Well maybe a little.

He cocked an eyebrow at me.

"What?" Okay that was a lot defensive.

"Do you need a purse?" he smirked.

"Oh yeah. Let me just get it," I turned back into the house. "Fuck you," I mumbled as I walked away.

"Come on Ace! That's not nice!" he called after me laughing. I flipped him off.

We went through a drive through coffee place where I ordered an iced-chocolate-frappa-mochaccino thing because I was already fidgeting enough and more caffeine added to the mix would not have been helpful. Brian smirked at me as he ordered his black coffee.

"It goes perfectly with your cancerous sticks of death," I grumbled.

We drove in silence for a bit until he pulled into a parking space overlooking the beach. There were surfers in the water and we got out of the car and found a spot to watch them.

"So you really don't surf huh?" he asked as he nudged me with his elbow.

"Nope, as I've mentioned previously, I'm more of theoretical surfer. How about you?" I took a sip of my ridiculously sweet drink.

"Yeah, my surf skills are more than theoretical. I've been doing it all my life."

I laughed, "Oh man. Ryan's friends from high school would hate you so much right now. All they wanted to be able to do was chill, drink, surf and play in a band."

"That's me baby. Living the dream of every guy from..." he raised an eyebrow in question.

"The Gold Coast," I supplied.

"That's right King mentioned you guys grew up by near the beach," he fumbled in his pocket pulling out a packet of cigarettes.

"We were lucky, our house was right on the beach. Our backyard was sand dunes. What we referred to as Dad's back shed was actually at the front of the block beside the highway. That was where Ryan and his idiot friends had their band practice and anyone walking past the shed would get an earful of their woeful cacophony," I smiled at the memory.

"You didn't like your brother's music?" he lit his cigarette.

"I love my brother's music it was just that in high school they were terrible but it was fun."

"That kind of stuff was always fun. Matt's parents were fucking stars with the way they let us harass their neighbourhood with our noise," he took a thoughtful drag.

Teenage me was squealing 'Oh my god he's smoking. He's so bad." Adult me was mentally reciting cancer statistics. Adult me won.

"Dude, you know that shit's gonna kill you." I tried to play it cool like I hadn't grown up to be some kind of responsible fuddy duddy.

"So is stress and at the moment the cigarettes are reducing my stress so I'm going with them," he took a sip of his coffee before he continued, "You know I'd actually given up until my life turned to shit."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Oh god. He'd said he wanted to talk about it, what if he didn't?

"I don't know Ace. It's pretty fucking miserable. I know that I said I would but god, I don't want you to think I'm some kind of pathetic loser. Val's the only person who's really comfortable discussing all the shit that's happened and you know what? It's not fucking fair to her. Michelle is her twin sister for fucks sake. She shouldn't have to be the sounding board for both sides."

"Brian. I wouldn't have offered if I didn't mean it. Fuck it. I know more than anyone that sometimes, despite your best intentions to the contrary, life goes to shit."