19. Britta

Chapter nineteen

Britta

By the time Dex knocks on the door, Stella has almost recovered from the shock of first, seeing Rhys James in the hallway, and second, being invited to a party where he'll be.

"I'm not going over there without you, Britt. So eat fast." She fans her hands up and down by her face.

"I make no promises, but Liam will probably want to be back by the time the game starts." I open the door to his smiling face.

He's wearing a white, short-sleeve button-up, light jeans, and flip-flops, and I think this is the most dressed up I've ever seen him. And while I think his best look is shirtless, this one totally works for him, too.

Before I can get more than a hi again out, Stella is by my side, clinging to my arm.

"Dex. I just made a fool of myself when I saw Rhys in the hallway. I think I said ‘You're Rhys James' at least eighty-five times. Maybe more. I petted his sleeve to make sure I wasn't hallucinating." She presses her free hand to her forehead and shakes her head. "You need to explain to him I am not like that. I work for a famous person—not Rhys-level famous—but I can behave." Stella talks on autopilot, not stopping until I cover her mouth with my hand.

Dex laughs. "Why don't you go on over and tell him yourself?"

Stella swipes my hand away and nearly chokes on Dex's suggestion. "Absolutely not. I'm not going anywhere near Rhys James without both of you there to steer me away if I get stupid and fangirl all over him like some rabid…" she waves her hands, grasping for the right word. "Superfan."

"But you are a rabid superfan," I remind her.

"Exactly. Which is why I need you there." She grabs both my shoulders and gives me a gentle shake.

"All right, all right." I brush her hands away and face Dex. "Apparently, we have to eat fast, so what would you like? Burgers? Tacos?"

At this, Stella throws up her hands. "Absolutely not. You both look too gorgeous to eat fast food. Go somewhere good. But also fast. But really good, and not cheap. But not expensive. And close by."

Dex's mouth turns down in that way some people can frown and still look happy, and my pulse skips like a little girl on her way to the candy store with a pocket full of loose change she's swiped from her dad's collect-all box. (That little girl was me).

"Sushi?" Dex asks. "There's a good place right on the beach. It might be busy, but they'll usually give me a seat at the counter if the tables are full."

"Because you're Liam Dexter?" I'm teasing, but his slow shrug wipes the smile from my face. "Oh. For real?"

He nods, his cheeks growing a shade darker.

"I've never had sushi. Do you think I'll like it?" I don't want to flat-out say no, but, yeah, I've never eaten raw fish and hadn't ever planned on it. But I also never planned on dinner with the best surfer in the world. I'm keeping an open mind.

Dex blinks hard like he can't process what I've said, so I follow up with my own slow shrug. My shoulders are barely back down when he grabs my hand and pulls me through the door.

"You're about to find out how good it is."

I send Stella a panicked look, but she just smiles and joins the shrug party with one of her own.

Dex keeps a hold of my hand as we walk the half block to the boardwalk, twining his fingers through mine when we reach the cement path paralleling the ocean. The sun hovers over the horizon, ready to paint the sky orange, pink, and red. I slow to take it in, and Dex tugs me to stand in the still-warm sand, out of the way of people walking, skating, and biking the path.

"We've got time to watch," he says, then a few seconds later. "It's a beauty, isn't it?"

I nod. "Reminds me of home. Except we don't get those shades of purple." I point to the lavender-laced clouds weaving through the rays of deep orange.

"Paradise has beautiful sunsets." He brushes his thumb across mine, sending goosebumps up my arms that prompt him to ask, "Are you cold?"

I shake my head, trying to regain my power of speech. When I do, I ask, "What do sunsets look like in Burleigh Heads?"

Dex swivels his head to look at me. "How'd you know where I'm from?"

I give him a long stare. "You may not be aware, but you have an internet presence. Google knows you really well and you have your own Wikipedia page."

He laughs and as the sun continues its descent, we step back on the cement path and continue our stroll. "I'm just surprised you looked me up."

"I got a little curious when I realized there was really such a thing as famous surfers and you happened to be one of them." I bump him playfully with my hip, and then we stay glued together from our fingertips to our shoulders.

"You could have asked me your questions instead. Google doesn't know everything."

A voice in the far corner of my mind sends warnings I shouldn't be letting Dex get this close—holding my hand, stroking my thumb, brushing my arm with his—but the combination of his deep voice and soft Australian accent drowns out everything else, including my worries about what happens when I go back to Paradise.

"Good to know. Tell me what sunsets look like on the other side of the world."

"I've seen a lot more sunrises than sunsets—the best waves are in the morning—and Burleigh Heads has the most beautiful sunrises in the world." Dex isn't looking at the sunset in front of us anymore. He's back home. I hear the longing in his voice.

"Do you miss it there?" The last rays of this sunset back light the angles of his profile. His strong brow, the round tip of his nose and his square jaw. They're outlined in orange and a hazy black. Breathtaking.

"I do." He looks at me, and in the fading light, his amber eyes take on a dark copper tone. "I go back a few times a year, usually when I have an event in Aus. But I haven't lived there permanently in over four years, but there are more promotional opportunities here."

We slow to a stop again and turn toward each other. His eyes drop to my lips and my heart picks up speed. Even though we've kissed before, this moment feels different. With those other kisses, there were people around. We were the center of attention. Lightning flashed between us, then disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

But right now there's only us. A few people pass by, but they either don't recognize Dex or they don't care, which allows an intimacy Dex and I haven't had before. A slow, pulsing energy flows between us, drawing us closer together with a force neither of us can resist. Maybe we don't want to. Or maybe it's stronger than either of us. Whichever reason doesn't matter, because we're pressed too close together to care.

Dex leans in, and I rise to the balls of my feet, eyes closing in anticipation of tasting his salt-stained lips again.

Instead, I'm met with the shrill sound of a bike bell and someone crying, "On your left!"

With impressive reflexes, Dex grabs me by the waist and pulls me out of the way of the beach cruiser speeding towards us.

"Idiot," he mutters, then moves his hands to my hips and looks down at me. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I nod, breathless in a way that has nothing to do with nearly being run over. My chest rises and falls before either of us says anything.

"This is the place." Dex points behind me to a packed restaurant with outdoor seating lit with strings of big-bulbed lights. People laugh over the sounds of clinking glasses and a mixture of languages I don't recognize.

And while I'd rather be standing on the beach kissing Dex than eating raw fish, I let him lead me around the tables, through the back door to the host station at the front of the restaurant. People sit shoulder to shoulder on leather sofas in the small lobby and more line up out the door.

"Looks pretty busy," I say to Dex, maybe a little hopeful I won't have to try sushi tonight.

"No worries," he says with the confidence of a man who knows he's getting a plate full of octopus and eel, and whatever else sushi is made from.

The man at the station has his back to us and a stack of menus tucked under his arm. He turns to lead a group of people to a table and breaks into a wide smile as soon as he sees Dex.

"Dex! We've been waiting for you to come celebrate! What took so long?" He points to two empty seats at an otherwise full counter. "We thought when Archie called, he'd be with you, not a beautiful woman."

He gives me a slight bow, and I smile.

"Got tired of looking at his ugly mug. Thanks, Kenzo." Dex leads me to the counter where, as soon as the chef patting rice and fish together sees him, he lets out a loud yelp.

"World Surf Champion!" he cheers in a thick Japanese accent, and everyone at the counter—maybe in the whole restaurant—follows the chef's lead and lifts their glasses.

Dex's mouth pulls into a shy smile and, even in the dim light, I can see pink the color of the sunset rising in his cheeks. The chef hands him a small glass of something clear and Dex lifts it to the crowd. I expect him to down the whole thing in one swallow, but he only takes a sip, then sets it down.

"So, I guess they know you here?" I say as he pulls out the chair for me.

"Yeah, but if Kanoa Igarashi were here, these seats would be his."

"Who's that?"

"Another surfer. He's Japanese but grew up around here. Won silver for Japan at the Tokyo Olympics." Dex takes the seat beside me and opens his menu.

"Have you surfed against him?"

Dex nods.

"Did you win?"

He faces me with a smile. "Sometimes. But let's talk about you. What made you decide to stay longer?" He takes the menu I'm about to open from me. "You talk, I'll order. Chef always makes me something special."

"How will I know what fish I'm eating?" I reluctantly let go of my menu.

"You won't. That's the point. Then you're not afraid to try it because you're not picturing what it looks like alive." He lays the menu out of my reach, then waves the chef over. "Give us my usual and whatever you think we'll like tonight. Britta's never tried sushi."

The chef gives a small smile and a bow, then pulls fish off the ice in the glass case in front of us. He skins and cuts it with a quick efficiency I can't take my eyes off.

"You haven't answered my question. Why'd you decide to stay?" Dex leans close, his chin in his hand, and suddenly, I'm less interested in how my dinner is being made.

That doesn't mean I tell Dex that he was one reason I stayed. He's surprisingly humble about being the world champion surfer, but I get the sense if he knew I'd stayed to spend time with him, it would go straight to his head. So, I tell him about volunteering at Annie's, then without having planned to, I tell him all the problems with Britta's and my realization—thanks to Stella—that my being there won't solve the issues .

"You really love that place, don't you?" he asks.

I consider my words before answering. "My Great-Grandma Britta started it over sixty years ago, and my mom took it over and babied it all my life. I want to carry on the legacy."

Dex nods thoughtfully. "That's really noble, but you didn't answer my question."

"Yeah, I did. Mom's legacy. That's what I love."

Chef sets a long plate in front of us with what looks more like art than food. Each round seaweed-wrapped rice and fish concoction is identical, topped with a colorful mix of bright yellow mango and green avocado.

"Do you eat horseradish?" Dex asks.

"Weird question, but yeah. It's good on prime rib."

Dex laughs and scoops a bit of green stuff from a little plate, then mixes it with soy sauce in a tiny bowl. "Wasabi is basically green horseradish. Dip the roll in this first." He passes me the bowl. "Then put the whole thing in your mouth."

I pick up my chopsticks, one in each hand. His eyelids slowly drop closed, and he shakes his head.

"Did I mention I'm from a small town where my family owns most of the restaurants? I've eaten a lot of pretty authentic Danish food, but beyond that I've had limited options. I haven't used chopsticks very often." I try to explain, but before I finish, Dex is behind me.

He takes the chopstick from my left hand and moves it to the right. Then he gently positions my fingers around the sticks. Holding them is difficult, but Dex smells like cedar and pine in a rainstorm; it's very distracting but also very centering—like it's just the two of us right now.

When he sits back down, my skin still tingles from his touch. He watches me awkwardly dip my roll, then stuff the whole thing in my mouth. I can barely close my lips around it, but then there's an explosion of flavor.

I cover my mouth and point my chopsticks at the rolls. "Dat's reary good."

Dex laughs and expertly pops one in his mouth. I'm reaching for a second one when the chef puts another dish in front of us, equally artistic but totally different with a pink fish—salmon?—and cucumber in the middle.

Feeling brave, I take a roll from the second plate.

"When did you fall in love with surfing?" I'd rather keep the focus on him than on questions about why I'm staying in LA longer.

He cocks his head to the side and pinches his chopsticks together. "About four years ago."

"You've been surfing for a lot longer than four years." I try to imitate his pinching motion but drop one of my chopsticks.

"Yeah, but you asked when I fell in love with it." He helps me reposition my chopsticks in the right place. "That was about four years ago, after I decided I needed a new manager. My dad had always been the one making all the decisions, but I'm the one who hired Archie. That's what made my career mine, if that makes any sense." He glances at me for a reaction, and I nod. "That's when I fell head over heels in love with the sport I'd been doing for nearly twenty years by then."

I take in everything Dex has said, wondering how to ask my next question. "When you say your dad made all the decisions before, does that mean he was your manager?"

"What you won't find on google," he says, giving me a cheeky grin before focusing on the sushi again, possibly to hide the vulnerability I saw in that glance. "I started surfing because my dad loved it, and like any little boy, I wanted to be just like him. At some point, I also realized that it might be the only way to spend time with him. And, it turns out, I was pretty good at it, which Dad loved too. I started competing when I was around twelve years old. Dad became my manager, and we traveled to competitions all over the world. I can see now that my reason for doing it was because I wanted to please him and he wanted me to win."

Dex dips his roll, but his mind is somewhere else. "Don't get me wrong; Dad loves me. He's a great guy, but as the years went on, I felt a lot of pressure. If I didn't do well, he'd get upset. Not at me, necessarily, but it was hard to tell the difference. And in surfing, you can never win all the time. A bad wave, an injury, the wrong weather, or a better competitor can cancel out your skill in any competition. He pushed me hard, and it blurred the lines of why surfing had become my whole world."

"Oh wow. That's intense Dex." I didn't have the same relationship with my mom, but my parents were both so busy running businesses so they could pay bills and provide for us that spending time with them meant working by their sides. I'm not sure I've ever looked at it that way before and I feel some emotion building in my throat to see it this way. "What changed four years ago?"

"In 2015, I made it to the Finals as a rookie, which was a huge deal. But then I dropped in the ranks for the next four years. Dad was furious, and I started to see how twisted up surfing was in my head, yeah? I kept getting injured, and it seemed like he was less worried about that than he was about my sponsor dropping me."

He waves a hand. "That wasn't true, but like I said, things were twisted up with me. Archie helped me sort through things and offered to manage me since he wasn't surfing anymore. I put some distance between my dad and me, and things turned around."

I nod as though I get what he means. Then, I realize I do. I felt that when I left Paradise for college, and why I hadn't planned to go back after graduating. Not that I wanted to leave my family or the place I've always lived. More that, I needed some space to figure out who I was without them.

Then mom started behaving oddly and was struggling to manage the shop the way she had for over twenty years. She got her diagnosis, and I made the choice to go home.

Dex catches my eye and holds me with his gaze. "It took about a year of Archie's coaching, some therapy, and surfing for myself before I truly fell in love with it. So, I guess what I'm saying is, if you're going to devote your life to something—give everything to it—you've got to love it more than anything and you can only figure that out for yourself."

I consider what he's said, impressed with how smoothly he brought this back to me. "That's how you feel about surfing?"

"Yeah, I do. I love it more than anything now, but it took me twenty years to get there."

I have to think about that. His passion for surfing is something that fascinates me about him. I really admire it.

But I don't think I agree with him.

Sometimes you've got to devote your life to something because you love someone . I don't love Britta's , but I loved my mom—still do. I'm willing to devote my life to something because I loved her more than anything. I don't want her to be forgotten, and I'm willing to put aside my own dreams to make sure that doesn't happen.

I love what Dex has said, though, and I'll return to those thoughts, but I feel my truth solidifying too. I dip another piece of sushi and line up my words to make sure I get my point across.