Original Edition: Chapter Twenty

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The Atlantic Ocean was like a wide grey carpet rolled out in front of me, stretching as far as the eye could see. I walked forward until the sand underneath me stuck to the bottom of my feet and made sloshing sounds with each step I took. From the temperature of the wet sand alone, I knew the ocean was going to be freezing cold. I stopped walking at the edge of the water and lined my toes up with the line of residual foam.

I heard the shrill sound of Jesse's scream, followed by a splash and then Lena's boisterous and slightly maniacal laughter. Maybe if I turned, dropped the surfboard I had tucked under my arm, and sprinted for the parking lot, they wouldn't see me.

A large, warm hand settled on the small of my back.

I glanced up to see Blake standing beside me. He had a smile plastered on his face, but the look in his eyes said don't even think about it. Not to mention, the hand he had on my back kept me from making a break for it.

"Go on," he said, pushing me forward.

I stumbled one step into the water and shrieked as a little wave of ice-cold foam came rushing over my bare feet.

"Nope!" I cried, spinning on my heels and taking a leaping step back towards dry land, "Nope, nope, nope!"

But Blake was faster than I was.

His arm shot out and looped around my stomach, and next thing I knew, he was pulling me along with him. And I was heading—backwards—into the Atlantic Ocean, both my heels and the little rudder at the end of my surfboard dragging in the sand.

"Quit being such a baby," he said, sounding amused.

I opened my mouth to make an admittedly lame comeback about his face being a baby, but a wave of saltwater smacked against the back of my thigh; I could feel the cold through the heavy fabric of my wetsuit, although it was a bit muted.

"Mother of all that is holy!" I wailed.

"I thought you were supposed to like the cold," Blake pointed out, releasing his hold on my middle so he could grab my shoulder and spin me around. We were knee-deep in the ocean.

"It's not the cold I'm bad with," I snapped, "it's the water."

"Which is why," Blake sighed impatiently, "I'm going to be right next to you the entire time. Now put your board down and let's go; Lena's gonna wring our necks if we don't hurry up."

I knew he had a point.

Blake took a few more steps out into the water, until it came up to the middle of his thighs, and set his board down; it floated on the water, bobbing up and down with each wave that rolled by. I watched him sling a leg over the board, so he was straddling it, and then lean forward until he was on his stomach. He looked over his shoulder and frowned at me.

"Are you coming or what?"

I huffed and dropped my surfboard into the water, following his lead. Paddling turned out to be a lot more strenuous when there was actually some form of resistance. Blake, with his massive swimmer's shoulder muscles, had to stop several times and wait for me to catch up as I panted, dragging my arms through the water and wincing every time my fingers brushed up against slimy seaweed.

"You need to work out more," Blake told me.

"I know," I conceded.

"Seriously, no wonder you can't tread water."

"Okay, I get it."

Blake kept his mouth shut for the next minute and a half while we paddled further out into the ocean. I was relieved when he decided to stop paddling and sit up again; my arm muscles were throbbing in protest. I rested my chin on my board and let my sore limbs dangle in the water, trying not to think about how many hundreds of feet below me the ocean floor had to be.

"Lena's heading over," Blake said suddenly.

I lifted my head and turned to look over my shoulder. Sure enough, the Fletcher twin in question was paddling our way, her face framed by a few dripping-wet curls that'd slipped out of her ponytail. I sat up—with a great deal of struggling and so much teetering that Blake reached out a hand to steady me so I wouldn't capsize my surfboard—and turned back to grin at Lena.

"Hi!" I called as she got closer.

"So," she beamed back at me, "how do you like the water?"

I really hope I didn't grimace.

"It's great!" I croaked.

"See! Told you it'd be fun!" Lena chirped.

Her arm shot out and, before I could brace myself, she clapped me on the back in what I think was supposed to be a friendly gesture. But Lena could probably bench-press a live grizzly bear, and so I was sent pitching forward from the sheer force of her patting me on the back.

My surfboard tilted.

I let out a noise of distress from somewhere at the back of my throat and my hand shot out, as if I could somehow turn into Jesus and catch myself from hitting the water.

And I did.

Well, at least I thought I did, for a second. Then I noticed I hadn't spontaneously become the Son of God; Blake Hamilton had reached out and grabbed my board with one hand and the wrist of my outstretched arm with the other.

"Careful there," he chuckled, steadying the surfboard.

I let out a breathless laugh of relief.

"Whoops," Lena said, grabbing the back end of my board and holding it steady so I could sit back up, "Sorry about that. I'm used to surfing with Jesse. He's steadier than he looks."

Lena's eyes narrowed suddenly.

I followed her gaze.

Blake's grip on my wrist had slipped somewhere in the midst of me trying to get back on the middle of my board and find my balance, leaving our hands braced together. I felt the warm tingle of a blush spread from my neck to my hairline and immediately pulled my hand out of Blake's grip. But it was too late. Lena had seen us practically holding hands, and the smug smile playing on her lips told me I'd never hear the end of it.

"Really?" I cleared my throat, flustered and suddenly hot all over. "I always thought Jesse seemed sort of, I don't know... uncoordinated."

Lena's smirk grew wider, but she decided to humor me.

"He used to be a gymnast, actually. I think my mom might still have some photos of him from sixth grade. He had to wear these stupid spandex tights—"

"Lena! Shut up!" Jesse screeched from across the water.

"Okay, okay!" she bellowed back, then turned towards me and added in a hushed tone, "I'll show you them later. You should come over for dinner or something. My mom wants to meet you, and my dad's always happy for an excuse to break out the barbeque. He makes a mean steak."

Well, how could I argue with that?

"I'm so in," I told her.

"You're invited too, Hamilton," Lena added. "We could make a whole event out of it, have a big family dinner in the backyard."

I took this as an excuse to look over at Blake.

The bruise on the right side of his jaw, the one he'd gotten at Ethan's house party, was already beginning to turn a putrid shade of yellow. I wondered if the spot underneath my eye, where I'd been elbowed, looked just as nasty. But Blake's smile distracted from any ugliness the spot on his jaw might've caused.

"Sounds fun," he said, "I'd love to."

A big gust of wind carried over the water, ruffling through Blake's hair and slapping me directly in the face. I winced and turned, blinking briny mist out of my eyes.

Several yards off, Jesse and Alissa were sitting atop their surfboards, just talking. Jesse had a hand on Alissa's board to anchor her to him; it was just about the cutest and most romantic thing I'd ever seen, even if Jesse was a raging idiot and Alissa was one of the biggest drama queens I'd ever met.

I glanced down.

Blake still had a hand on the edge of my board so I wouldn't drift apart from him.

"So," I said, realizing I was starting to get a funny feeling at the pit of my stomach, "I'm hungry. Any chance we can leave soon and get some burgers or something?"

"Not so fast," Blake chided, tilting his chin up in a teasingly authoritative manner, "you haven't surfed yet."

Why would he bring that up?

The asshole.

"But I—"

"C'mon, Waverly!" Lena jumped in, punching me on the arm as lightly as she could—which would probably still leave a bruise. "It's easy once you get the hang of it. You have to at least try."

"I don't really—"

"You'll do fine," Blake said, moving his hand from my surfboard to my knee. I could feel the heat of his skin through the thick fabric of my wetsuit. "Just one wave, and then I'll take you to the best diner in Marlin Bay. Deal?"

I was hungry.

"Deal," I grunted half-heartedly.

Lena giggled gleefully and started paddling further out in the ocean, towards the bigger waves, where Jesse and Alissa sat. At first I was glad she'd left so I could fail in private, but when I looked over again, she was grinning and pointing in my direction, obviously trying to get Alissa and Jesse to watch.

I had an audience now.

"Oh, God," I groaned under my breath.

"What's wrong?" Blake asked.

"They're watching," I whispered, nodding my head in their direction. Blake looked over my shoulder and huffed.

"You'll do fine," he said.

"I'll fall off this damned surfboard, and then I'll sink to my watery grave. I'll wind up in Dennis Jones' locker."

"Davy Jones?"

"Yeah, him."

The corner of Blake's mouth quirked upwards.

"What?" I snapped.

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head, "let's find you a wave."

Blake turned and started paddling, but looked back over his shoulder to make sure I was following him and not making a break for the shore. As if I was actually considering sprinting up the beach, breaking into Jesse's Jeep, hotwiring it and hightailing it out of there just to avoid surfing...

Preposterous.

I didn't know how to hotwire a car.

"Keep up!" Blake called back to me.

I made a point of sighing loudly before I shoved my arms back into the ocean and began paddling as hard as I could. Blake stopped moving for a moment and waited until my board was beside his before he resumed paddling, matching my pace.

"Why are you making me do this?" I grumbled.

"Because," Blake said, "it'd look weird if you drove all the way out here just to sit on your board for five minutes and then ditch. No one's expecting you to be a good surfer, Waverly—"

"Well thanks."

"But they are expecting you to try."

Damn him for having valid points all the time.

I squinted out at the expanse of ocean before me. The waves looked significantly higher than I'd ever seen them in Florida; the incoming storm wasn't due for a couple days, but the wind had already swelled enough to trigger a stronger tide. I watched a wave reach its crescendo fifty yards out, then come crashing down in a heap of foam. A couple seconds later, the residual ripple made my surfboard bob and a piece of seaweed glued itself to my ankle.

"Oh, ew." I grimaced, kicking my leg wildly under the water.

"C'mon," Blake said, ignoring my struggle and releasing his grip on my board, "let's get this over with."

He began paddling out further into the water. I dropped forward onto my surfboard a little too quickly, sending a splash of saltwater directly into my face, and hurried after him.

The thing nobody ever tells you about surfing is that even someone who's had years of practice can end up face planting right into the ocean. One second, I was staring ahead, trying to convince myself that I was looking at the ocean, not Blake Hamilton's swim trunk clad rear end. The next, I heard Alissa and Lena cheering Jesse's name. By the time I turned to see what all the fuss was about, I only just caught a glimpse of Jesse standing upright on his board before he pitched to the side and went tumbling into the water.

I tried to scream, but the sound came out wrong.

Blake turned to look over his shoulder—probably convinced that I'd suddenly decided to check the acoustics out on the water by practicing my yodeling techniques.

"What is it?" he asked, eyebrows drawn together.

"Jesse—Jesse fell! He—oh my god, he fell!" I cried.

Blake's eyes drifted over my shoulder, then back to me.

"Surfers fall all the time, Waverly."

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

If Jesse could fall, I was definitely going to fall.

"So, did anybody call to warn the paramedics yet?" I asked, digging my arms back into the water as I tried to keep up with Blake. "Because they really should know someone's about to drown out here. Or did you just skip ahead to calling the cemetery and telling them what I want carved into my gravestone?"

"Waverly."

Blake's tone was dark, warning.

"I'm thinking we could skip the classic RIP and go for something hip. You know, like YOLO."

Blake stopped paddling and sat up on his board.

"I told you I wasn't going to let you drown," he snapped, turning over his shoulder to shoot me a glare. "Now stop being a smartass and hurry up. We just need one good wave, and then I'll tell Lena the two of us are bailing to get you some food."

The two of us?

As in, Blake was going to take me to lunch? Just me? No Jesse to interrupt with some dumbass question about whether or not we thought hot dogs would be advocates for democracy if they had functioning brains, no Lena to butt in with her boney elbows and shout at Jesse for being such an idiot, and no Alissa Hastings to sit there and shine like gold while I, in comparison, rusted away like an old penny?

Oh my god.

I was going to have a heart attack.

"Let's go!" Blake called.

I snapped out of my moment of possible cardiac arrest to find Blake Hamilton several yards ahead of me again. I cursed and dove my arms back into the water, furiously trying to catch up with him but only really succeeding in splashing ice-cold seawater all over myself.

We stopped a moment later.

I gulped when I saw how far out from the beach we were.

"What now?" I asked, cracking my knuckles just so I had something to do with my hands; I was worried they'd start shaking if I didn't move. My nerves were going haywire.

"We wait for a good wave," Blake said, narrowing his eyes as he scanned the ocean ahead of us. "I'll tell you when we get one. You're just going to keep on your stomach for a second, and when I tell you to pop up, you do it. Just try not to stand up all the way."

"Why not?" I frowned.

"You're too tall," Blake said.

Ouch. That was like a punch to the stomach. As if I hadn't already known I was practically monstrous next to someone petite and dainty like Alissa, Blake had to go and make that clear.

You take up too much space, I reminded myself.

"Yeah, I know," I replied, my voice dry.

Blake shot me a funny look.

"I mean you'll want your center of gravity lower to the board so you don't fall over so easily," he said. "I didn't mean—"

He coughed, seemingly unable to finish his sentence.

Well, this was sufficiently awkward. I turned towards the beach, hoping that if I angled myself away from the sun, Blake wouldn't be able to see me blushing like a freaking tomato.

"Hey, hold on," Blake said, grabbing the back of my surfboard and towing me backwards until I was staring right up into those blue, blue eyes of his. For a heartbeat, I imagined him opening up his mouth and saying something sappy. Something that you only ever hear in bad romance movies. Something like, you're just the right height. Instead, I got, "This wave looks good."

My stomach damn near flipped over.

"Wait, I don't think I'm—" I started to protest, but Blake was already on his stomach. He reached across and slapped a hand between my shoulder blades, forcing me to join him in the ready position on my own board.

"Keep low, okay?"

If you've ever ridden a roller coaster, you know what it feels like when you're going up the incline before a steep drop. As the wave beneath us swelled, lifting our surfboards forward and up, I knew what kind of drop was coming. It was the type of drop that made your heart plummet into your feet and ripped a scream out of your throat. I just hoped it didn't involve any splashes.

"Pop up!"

I barely heard Blake's command over the roaring in my ears.

Somehow, as if on their own accord, my hands slapped down on the board beneath me and pushed my shoulders up. I swung my legs forward until my feet were planted beneath me and then I rose, my arms poised outwards to steady the rest of me.

For a moment, I was flying.

And then came the drop.

I don't really know what happened, and I probably couldn't articulate it even if I tried. All I really know is that I must've looked really fucking hilarious to anyone watching me as I tumbled forward, four parts flailing limbs and zero parts grace, and smacked my forehead against my own surfboard.

My arms and legs, splayed in every different direction, curled up and locked around the board beneath me in a desperate attempt to keep me from slipping into the water.

A wave crashed onto my back.

For a moment, I was submerged. I was trapped in a dark, ice-cold, soundless void, and all I could do was cling to my surfboard like it was the last homemade chocolate chip cookie on the plate. What felt like minutes but was probably only seconds later, Lena's hearty laughter was ringing in my ears as I broke the surface again and went bobbing, slowly and steadily, up to the edge of the beach.

I pried my arms out of their death-grip on my board and rolled back, so I was sitting upright. My legs only managed to stretch out a few inches before I felt sand squish beneath my toes.

"Good try, Waverly!" Lena bellowed.

I turned over my shoulder.

She and Alissa were doubled over in laughter, but Jesse was whooping and hollering and clapping for me. I smiled and offered them a weak wave, still not sure how exactly I'd managed to survive. I heard water sloshing at my side and turned to see Blake walking up towards the beach, knee-deep in the water, dragging his surfboard behind him. The ghost of a laugh hovered on his lips, and his eyes were bright and teasing.

"I must admit," he said, "your surfing techniques are a little unconventional, but I'm glad to see you're alive."

I winced.

"On a scale of one to ten, how graceful was that?" I asked, suddenly very aware of the fact that Blake stood well over six feet tall and I was still sitting on my board, which hovered a good two inches off the ground. I had to squint to look up at him.

"A solid negative seven," Blake replied without hesitation.

"Nice. So when can I go pro?"

"I'll call the ASP immediately."

We stared at each other for a minute, me enjoying the moment more than I should've, before Blake cracked a smile and offered me his hand.

"See?" he asked as I hooked my fingers around his. "I told you that you wouldn't die."

Being as oversized as I am, I'm used to people not being able to lift me up. I didn't consider the fact that Blake, with his thick arms and swimmer's shoulders, could toss me over his shoulder in a way a lot of people couldn't.

So I overcompensated.

As Blake yanked on my hand, I planted my feet into the sand and pushed myself up. I was unsteady, partly due to the uneven ground and partly due to the fact that I still had that I'm-about-to-die adrenaline rushing through my veins, and so I went hurtling forward. My chest smacked against Blake's, our wetsuits squishing together with all the dignity of two soggy Pop Tarts.

"Sorry," I blurted.

I planted my hands on his shoulders

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