Now I’m worried our beautiful, perfect date is ruined.
I have to summon all my willpower to push back the wave of chaotic emotion that threatens to take me under, because the truth is this: I’ve never been on a date before. Not a real one. Not one that someone planned. I’ve been on a couple of double dates, I guess you’d call them, and some spur-of-the-moment things, like, Hey, do you want to go study at Starbucks after class? But no real dates. This is all new territory. I need this to be okay. I need this to be normal.
Do not panic, Bailey Rydell.
I keep my voice light and tug on the leather key strap that dangles at his hip until he turns to face me again. “Hey, remember how freaked I got at the bonfire? Please. You aren’t half as screwed up as me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Sorry, I do. This time you’re going to have to trust me.”
“Bailey . . .”
The shark swims by again, a little higher. I jiggle his keys in my palm. “I will admit, though, despite what I’ve been through, Greg Grumbacher looks like a dandelion compared to that beast. Now tell me how big your shark was compared to the Galapagos.”
His shoulders drop, his Adam’s apple rises and falls, and the way he’s looking at me now, suddenly clear-eyed and sharp, satisfied—as if he’s just made an important decision—makes me feel all funny inside. But I’m not worried anymore—not about him, and not that our date is ruined. The danger has passed.
We both face the window, and he begins to tell me in a low, steady voice about the Galapagos and another impressive shark that swims by, a hammerhead, telling me sizes and shapes and diets and endangered status. And as he talks, he moves behind me and wraps his arms around my waist—questioningly at first, but when I pull him in tighter, he relaxes and rests his chin on my shoulder, nestling into the crook of my neck.
He knows all about these sharks. This place is therapy for him. And sure, he got stuck there for a second, but look at these things. Who wouldn’t? Not for the first time, I’m amazed at what he went through. I’m amazed by him.
“In Hawaiian mythology,” he says into my hair, his voice vibrating through me, “people believe spirits of their ancestors continue to live inside animals and rocks and plants. They call an ancestral spirit an aumakua—like a guardian spirit, you know? My mom says the shark that attacked us is our aumakua. That if it had wanted to kill us, it would have. But it was just warning us to take a good, hard look at our lives and reassess things. So we’re supposed to honor that.”
“How do you honor it?” I ask.
“Pops says he’s honoring it by admitting that he’s too old to be on a board and that he’s better off serving his family by staying on dry land. Lana says she’s honoring it by being the best surfer she can be and not fearing the water.”
I trace the scars on his arm with my index finger. “And what about you?”
“When I figure that out, I’ll let you know.”
As the silver of the hammerhead shark glides past, Porter slowly turns me around in his arms. I’m vaguely aware of the silhouettes of the people who stand farther along the viewing window, but I don’t care. In our little corner of peaceful darkness, it feels like we’re alone. With my arms circling him, I dare to dip my fingers under the loose hem of his untucked shirt, reaching upward until I touch the solid, bare skin of his back. Right over the same place on me where one of my own scars is, though I’m not sure if I subconsciously mean to do that or if it’s an accident.
He shivers violently, and it’s the sweetest victory.
A pleasant warmth spreads through my chest. The water’s reflection shimmers on the sharp lines of his cheekbones as he holds my face in both hands and bends his head to kiss me, softly, delicately, like I’m something special that deserves to be honored.
But the thing he doesn’t know, the thing that shocks even me, is that I’m not the gentle guardian spirit; I’m the hungry shark. And I fear his arm won’t be enough. I want all of him.
“You’re sweet, and sexy, and completely hot for me.”
—Heath Ledger, 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
19
* * *
If I was worried about dying from not kissing before, now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. We definitely overdid it. I got home well before curfew, at eleven, but by then, Porter and I had time to eat dinner in Monterey at a cool restaurant that served a raw ahi tuna salad from Hawaii called poke—so good—and lots more time to park at Lovers Point Park and watch the sunset behind the cypress trees as the waves crashed over the beach.
Or, in our case, not watch the sunset. Which is what we ended up doing. A lot.
And now my dress is covered in grass stains, and because of Porter’s stupid sexy scruff, my face looks red and swollen, as if I got attacked by a swarm of angry bees. And did he really give me three hickeys on my neck? THREE? He swore it was an accident, and that I’m “too white” and bruise too easily. At first I got a little offended by this, but maybe it could be true, because I don’t remember any Hoover-like suction happening during the proceedings. And he did apologize a million times. . . .
Then again, I was pretty distracted, because we were lying in the grass on an elevated area above the beach, and he was pressed against me and it was delightful. I mean, nothing serious happened, really. Mostly just a lot of touching that didn’t stray to any untoward areas, unless my hips and side boobs count. (They don’t, in my opinion, but it was nice. Very nice.) But there was a lot of heavy breathing, and we both agreed once again that we are compatible arguers and kissers. And when he dropped me off at the surf shop, he tapped his temple and told me, “Today is moving up in the brain bank as best day in recent memory.”
In my own brain bank, my Artful Dodger eyes turned into cartoon hearts that pinwheeled.
But things got a little tricky after that.
“What in the name of planet Earth happened to you?” my dad said when I walked in the door, looking at my unholy, bedraggled state.
“Grace and I were goofing around outside in the grass,” I said. “Just wrestling and stuff with some other people from work. No big deal.”
He made a face. “Wrestling?”
Yeah. That sounded like me, all right. I mentally cringed.
“What happened to your mouth?” he asked. He looked appalled and concerned, like I was contagious, and held the sides of my head while he inspected me, lest he catch it too. “Did you get into poison oak or something?”
“Uh, maybe?”
“Should I get some oatmeal? I don’t have any calamine lotion. Should I go to the twenty-four-hour drugstore?”
I was pretty much horrified at this point. “I’m sure I’ll be fine. Just a mild burn or something.”
My dad narrowed his eyes at me. His gaze wandered lower. Don’t look at my neck, don’t look at my neck, don’t—