Authors: Emily Snow
A flicker of disappointment passed
over his face but it disappeared almost
immediately. He sighed and scratched his
head before sweeping his hand out at the
ocean. “You’re going to get hurt,” he said.
“A lot. Hell, you’ll probably be black and
blue by the time the rest of the cast gets
here.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I
replied dryly as he squatted down and
repositioned our boards a few feet apart
in the sand.
He winked up at me, and I told myself
it was because the breeze chose that exact
moment to send strands of golden hair into
his eyes and not because he was being a
sarcastic asshole.
“I’m not being a dick, Wills.” He
patted the purple and white board and
motioned his head from me down to it. I
ran my tongue along the inside of my
cheek, jabbing the tender flesh hard, to
keep from telling him to fuck off. When he
cocked an eyebrow, I sighed deeply and
kneeled beside of him, in front of my
board.
“Don’t tell me we’re going to
meditate.”
“Remember what I said about people
in the film industry?” he asked.
“You hate them?”
He looked down at his turquoise and
red board for a few moments, frowning
like he was trying to make up his mind
about something. “Don’t fuck with me or
I’ll drown you,” he finally muttered. He
was grinning when he said it.
I clenched my fingers into the sand,
grabbing up two big handfuls.
“We’re starting with some basics,” he
replied, his blue eyes gazing at me fixedly.
“No going out for you today.”
“What type of basics?” I released the
sand from my fingers and dusted my palms
together.
“For some reason I feel like you
wanted to throw that in my eyes,” he
teased. I wrinkled my nose at him. “Lie
down on your board, on your stomach.”
Reluctantly, I stretched out on the
smooth surface, so that my face was an
inch from the retro looking Channel
Islands logo. Tossing my long hair over
my shoulder, I looked up at him in time to
catch his eyes raking over my body. Jesus,
this guy wasn’t the least bit concerned
about being obvious, was he?
“Maybe I should have brought my
bodyguard,” I snapped.
He shuffled over to me, repositioning
me so that my body was completely
centered on the board. As he worked, he
said, “If we went to bed together it
wouldn’t be on the beach. Though I plan
on seeing you in that exact position, fully
unclothed.”
I scoffed, twisting my neck to follow
his movements as he crawled around me
to examine my form. “Confident, are
you?”
He paused. “It was a hypothetical
statement, but as a matter of fact, I am.”
“Are you this hypothetical about all
the girls you train?” I asked.
He lifted one of my feet, spending
entirely too long touching his fingertips to
its arch, before he placed it down against
the end of the board. “Put your other foot
just like that,” he ordered. I complied, and
he added, “And no, I’m not like this with
all the girls I train because I don’t get
involved with my clients. At least, I
haven’t yet.”
Why did that sound so hot coming
from him in
that
accent?
“And what makes me different?”
He came around to face me, to study
me a little more. I felt totally exposed
lying there facedown, and I placed my
head between the diamond-shape made by
my outstretched arms. “Who said you
were?” he asked finally.
I didn’t immediately lift my head back
up because I didn’t want him to see the
flush that spread across my face.
For the next two hours, we worked on
Cooper’s basics: popping up on the
surfboard and form. After the eightieth
time of doing it—the point where I felt
like my legs and arms were going to fall
off from pushing myself up and standing in
a lunge-like position in the middle of the
surfboard—he looked pleased.
“Did you just fist pump?” I groaned
irritably as I turned over onto my back in
the sand. I gave the purple board a glare. I
didn’t want to see the damn thing for at
least a day or two—that’s how badly my
muscles already ached.
Smiling, he said, “Proud of you, Wills.
You’re getting there.”
I rolled my eyes as he began dusting
the sand off both our surfboards. “I didn’t
do anything,” I pointed out, hoisting
myself up on my elbows so our eyes could
meet.
“Sure you did. You didn’t flounce, did
you?”
At least his standards for giving me
praise were low.
He held my board out to me. I
grumbled, got up, grabbing my shorts and
tank top, and took the surfboard with both
hands. “Here, carry it on top of your head,
like this.” He flipped his own upside
down, and centered it on his head.
“Why?”
He released a loud breath. “Because,
you want to look like you know what
you’re doing when the time comes. And
it’s not like we’ve been given a lot of time
to train.”
He was right, and I felt my stomach
twist at the thought. In less than two weeks
I’d be filming a movie. A fucking surfing
movie that already had a devout fan
following.
I shuddered and then balanced my
board on my head.
“God, this thing is heavy,” I said, as
we slogged through the sand in the
direction of his house or business or
whatever the hell he wanted to call it.
“And by the way, you carried them out
here in your hands before.”
He shot me a cocky grin. “Yeah, you
can do it either way.” When we stepped
onto the deck, he sat his board on a
wooden bench and lifted mine easily from
atop my head.
“So why not do it the other way?”
“Because you’re flustered.”
Less inhuman and much more
beautiful.
Remembering the words he spoke to
me in LAX caused the pit of my stomach
to tighten but I ignored the feeling. “If only
I could fire your ass,” I said.
He moved so close to me his tanned
chest touched mine. “You can’t.” Then he
lifted a strand of my hair, sliding it back
and forth between his fingertips. “And you
don’t want to.”
The sound of the deck door swinging
open sent him pulling me to him
protectively, and I instinctively lifted my
hands to cover my face from the flash I
was sure would follow.
Even here, the cameras could find me.
“God, you’d think I had a gun!” a deep
female voice laughed.
“Paige,” Cooper warned through
clenched teeth. He stepped aside to reveal
a pint-sized woman with tattooed arms,
short, black hair and hazel eyes that
seemed to pop thanks to jet black eyeliner.
She lifted her eyebrows at Cooper and
tapped her foot impatiently. He let out a
groan and added, “Wills, this is Paige.
She’s an instructor here.”
Paige. The friend whose parents
owned my rental house.
“I’m Eric’s girlfriend,” she said,
grinning.
The Coppertone guy who’d admitted
to masturbating to me a few hours ago.
Awkward.
“I’m Willow.”
“She knows,” Cooper said at the exact
same time Paige said “Nice to meet you.”
Shooting him a glare, she told me, “I
made breakfast.”
“I’ve got to get back to my rental to
study my script.” It was partially the truth.
There was only so much a line prompter
could do for me. And of course I wanted
to get away from Cooper because I was
sure being around him much longer would
pull apart my sanity until there was
nothing but a handful of frayed thread
remaining.
“Oh come on, you can spare an hour,
right?” Paige asked. When I shook my
head, she walked across the wooden deck
and grabbed my hand. I flinched, but she
didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve been dying to
meet you, Avery, and I made pancakes.”
Don’t get me wrong, Paige seemed
nice enough—she was smiling at me
hopefully and from somewhere inside the
house, Eric yelled teasingly “Tell her I’ll
come naked.” But when I looked over at
Cooper and saw how annoyed he looked, I
pulled my hand out of her grasp.
“I think I’ll just pass today.”
She frowned but nodded her head
understandingly. “Next time, then?”
“Definitely,” I said.
The ride back to my rental house was
filled with an uncomfortable silence that
made me wish the Jeep’s floorboard
would open up and swallow me or at least
spit me out onto the asphalt. When Cooper
pulled onto my street, I was thankful to see
the moving truck with my personal
belongings parked in the driveway. Miller
was directing the guys handling my stuff,
and when Cooper drove his Jeep into the
driveway, he gave us a little nod of his
head and a sideways smile.
I was already trying to jump out the
Jeep before Cooper put it into park.
“Wait,” he ordered, and I froze with
my fingers wrapped around the door
handle.
“What?” My tone was clipped.
He took a deep breath and I waited for
a Hollywood-esque apology. For him to
ask me to breakfast or make another wise-
ass, blatant attempt to get into my shorts.
When he spoke a moment later, I didn’t get
either of those. “I’m giving a lesson first
thing tomorrow, so have your bodyguard
drop you off at my place at nine.”
I turned my head to smirk at him.
“Why don’t you just come to me and we
practice popping up and down on a
surfboard on my front lawn?”
He gave me a slow, lazy grin that
managed to dig its way under my skin and
rub me raw. “I like you much better in my
element, Wills.”
Of course he did. I stumbled out the
Jeep, slammed the door behind me, and
stalked into the house without as much as
a backward glance. The whole time, I felt
his laughing blue eyes following me.
***
my mother kept her word about getting in
touch with me. Miller and I were in the
middle of going through boxes that had
been delivered (and a lot of them were
full of clothes that were too small or too
big from my fluctuating weight) when my
cell phone rang a few hours later.
“It’s my mom and dad,” I said, looking
down at the screen as the word
PARENTS
scrolled across it in neon green lettering. I
sank down on the edge of the couch.
Miller pushed himself up to his feet
and started toward the front door. “Want
to text me when you need me again?” he
asked, glancing back.
I hesitated. Helping me sort through
my belongings wasn’t a part of Miller’s
job description. I knew that he was only
doing it to be nice because he felt sorry
for me for being alone, but dammit if I
didn’t want to keep him with me for the
conversation. The phone vibrated on the
coffee table, and I felt my ears start to
burn from the sound and from the potential
humiliation.
This was day four of being out of
rehab and my first call from my family.
God only knew when or if any of my
friends would ever call.
“Willow?” Miller asked.
“I should be okay,” I said. “I’ve got to
study my lines and watch the original
version of the film.” It was a gift from
Dickson, my producer, which had come in
the mail this afternoon along with a note
saying how happy he was to be working
with me again.
“I’m going to go work out. You call
me if you change your mind?”
“Will do,” I said quickly. The moment
the screen door shut and Miller
disappeared from sight I answered the
phone, tucking it in the spot between my
ear and shoulder. “Mom?” I asked.
“You sound so good, honey!” she
immediately gushed.
“It’s good to hear you too.”
“Have you been doing . . . well?” she
asked tentatively.
Translation: Are you popping a
rainbow variety of pills yet? I grabbed a
box of shoes from the other end of the
sofa, crushing the cardboard between my
hands as I carried it to my bedroom at the
back of the house.
“No,” I said, and then shook my head
furiously. “I mean yes. I’m doing great.
Rehab worked wonders and I feel great.”
Except for every now and then, when
I catch myself wanting to reduce every
sense in my body to nothing
, I silently
added.
“How’s Hawaii? Do you love it? Are
you taking lots of pictures?”
I thought of Cooper and the frustrating
insta-lust I felt toward him and threw the