“Look, I’m fine,” he points out, gesturing both hands at himself, but when he sees that I probably don’t look too convinced, he pushes back into a stand and reaches for my hand. “Come on, why don’t you get out of those wet clothes, and I’ll make you breakfast.”
I take his hand and follow him into the house. I change clothes and pin up my hair before heading into the kitchen to the delicious smell of bacon cooking on the stove.
“I’m sorry, Sienna,” Luke says as I sit down at the bar. “Last thing I wanna do is freak you out. I shouldn’t have gone out there with you here at the house. But I’m fine, see!” He turns from the stove, smiling brightly, and places an empty glass in front of me. “I may do some extreme stuff, but I’m really safe about it all. I never surf like that alone.” He reaches over the bar and brushes his fingertip over the bridge of my nose—it eases me in an instant, and a smile turns up on my lips. “I had Braedon out there with me,” he adds.
“Yeah, I saw you weren’t alone.” I admit that does make me feel a lot better, and I think he knows that judging by the smile of acceptance on my face.
“And I never am,” he insists, going toward the fridge. “Orange juice? Milk?”
“Orange juice is good.”
He comes back with a half gallon in his hand and pours some into my glass.
Maybe I’m just being overly cautious, as usual, letting my fear of heights bleed into everything else. I’ve never really been afraid of the risks associated with cliff-diving and storm-surfing and other things like that, but then I’ve never really been faced with them before I met Luke, either.
Just the same, I don’t want to come off bitchy or maternal, telling Luke I think he shouldn’t do this and shouldn’t do that. It’s his lifestyle, and from what I’ve seen so far he seems to know what he’s doing.
We enjoy a breakfast together at the bar and talk for a long time about his surfing and rock-climbing and cliff-diving, where I learn that if anyone is more prone to being injured, out of all of Luke’s friends, Seth apparently takes the trophy.
“Nothing can kill the guy though,” Luke said. “He’s broken several bones, ruptured his spleen in a motorcycle accident, and almost drowned surfing.”
“Geez, what the hell is wrong with him?” I asked.
“Seth is just Seth—he wouldn’t know how to live any other way. But he’s generally safe, too. He’s just accident prone by nature, not reckless by choice.”
But the extent of Luke’s injuries in the years he’s been into all this wild outdoors stuff is a broken toe and some scrapes and bruises.
And this too fills me with a sense of relief.
Not a full sense, but a sense nonetheless.
Luke
We finally get a break from the rain. I take Sienna out to the waves behind my house later, where we surf until the sun begins to set. She’s getting better at surfing, but I have to admit, I like it when she falls. It’s cute because she’s so dramatic about it sometimes, and she screams and laughs and I have another reason to either rush to her side and put my hands on her, or to hang back and make fun of her.
“What’s wrong with you, girl?” I shout from my board over the sound of the waves. “No giving up early! Pull that bikini out of your butt crack and get back out here!”
She cackles and then flips me off. She drops her board on the sand and plops down next to it. I paddle my way closer and walk out after her with my board secured underneath my arm. I sit beside her on the sand and we watch the sun begin to sink into the ocean.
I think heavily about our conversation this morning—I’ve been thinking about it all day, in fact—and I feel really good about her acceptance of my lifestyle.
What she knows of it anyway.
“Luke?” Sienna says and I look over. “I just want you to know that just because I’m staying here and all that, you don’t have to drop everything else.”
“What are you talking about?”