“So, I go surfing every morning, but could meet up with you after that.”
“Ocean Beach?”
“Yep.”
“I actually have to go over in that direction tomorrow morning,” I say, thinking that Shakespeare Gardens isn’t far from the beach. “I could meet up with you tomorrow. What time?”
“How’s eleven?”
“Perfect.”
We pick a location and say goodbye. I make a note on my to-do list to buy some fresh tuna for Chaucer as a thanks for peeing on my camera. Then I remember I need to make sure Chris isn’t an axe murderer who lures women with the whole “I can fix the camera your friend’s cat peed on” line, so I Google him.
No wonder he knew so much about Halo.
He’s not just some hard-core gamer. He’s an expert, and he’s a star in his field.
I find articles about him, links to him, stories in gamer magazines. I click on his Web site and see the video for his show, Let the Wookie Win. It runs online, and also on a cable network for gamers. Damn, the guy with the beautiful eyes, and the hair I wanted to run my fingers through, and who kissed me in my imagination that day, has his own TV show.
Impressed, I hit the play button and watch the most recent episode. Chris shares some inside tips on new games, from car games, to sports games, to shooter games. I watch as he demos a baseball game where you have to use your whole body and he simulates swinging a baseball bat. He looks like a star athlete, like a pro in the batter’s box. He’s ultra casual in a green Volcom tee-shirt, cargo shorts and flip-flops, demonstrating how to hit a hanging curveball. As he stands there in the batter box in his studio with feet apart and arms raised slightly, poised to hit, I can’t help but notice again that, even with his shirt on, his midsection looks fairly trim. I could eat every meal off of abs like that.
Maybe he can be my video game tutor. Maybe we can play video games together, and laugh, and work on destroying bad guys as a team. And before we moved onto to the next level of the game, he’d turn off the Xbox, toss the remote onto the ground and slide me underneath him on my couch, one quick hand moving down to my hipbone, touching me there in a way that sends fireworks to every point in my body, before he smothers me in a kiss.
It’s a kiss that doesn’t leave any questions. It’s a kiss that turns the rest of the world black and white, and only this, only him, is in color. A gentle slide of his tongue, an insistent press of his soft lips, and I am his, swimming in the sweet heat. I can feel the kiss in the center of my being, and then it radiates all the way to my fingers and toes. I want to be kissed like this always. By someone who knows how to kiss me, and who says in how his lips consume me, in how his hands hold on tight, in how he shifts his hard body against mine, that he wants all I have to give.
I’ve become hypnotized as I watch him, mesmerized by the way his body moves with a fluid sort of grace. I place my palm on my chest, imagining my hand is his hand, that he’s touching me gently for the first time, that he’s exploring my body, eager to learn how I respond to his touch, to his strong hand on my breast, then my belly, then my hips. I’m him for a moment, fingers trailing across my mid-section, ready to sneak under the fabric of shirt, spread his hand across my stomach and…
What the hell? I’m in some sort of trance, touching myself, pretending he’s touching me.
I put on the brakes. If I let this go further I’ll be a tongue-tripped mess when I see him tomorrow morning. And we just can’t have that, can we?
* * *
My timing is impeccable.
I do not want to miss a chance to see Chris walk across the sand, so there’s no reason for me to be on time when I can be early.
I park on Taraval Street along Ocean Beach, get out of my car, and wait. I try my best to look busy, fiddling with my phone, and checking compartments in my purse, but when Chris appears on the horizon, surfboard in hand, wet suit tucked under his arm, I freeze.
And then I blush, remembering what he did to me in my mere imagination yesterday. I’m sure he’ll be able to tell, to read it in my eyes. I really should pretend I’m not watching him. But it’s impossible not to. I didn’t look away during that scene in Casino Royale either when Daniel Craig emerged from the water. He wears board shorts, low on his hips, and a pair of flip flops. I watch him as he walks through the sand, closer, closer and there, now I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I would like to lick all those water droplets off his chest and his abs and then run a hand down his body to sear into my memory the feel of that kind of firm outline.
He’s lickable. He’s kissable. He’s chat-up-able. He’s precisely the type of guy a girl can fall into some kind of crazy crush for. He catches my gaze, and I should be embarrassed, I should act as if I’m not staring, but there’s this fluttery feeling inside me, and I want to hold onto it, especially because he’s looking at me and not letting go either. Those green eyes of his are the definition of dreamy, and if I were a writer, I’d find a way to pen a song about them, how they draw me in, romance me, entice me.
Soon, he’s mere feet from me, scratched-up surfboard by his side, in all his glistening, ocean-ed up glory. Neither one of us says anything for a few seconds, and it’s the kind of silence that’s filled with unsaid things.
With wishes, with hopes.
Mine at least.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
“Thanks for meeting me here,” he says, as a wet shock of hair falls across his forehead. He pushes it back.
“Thanks for being a surfer,” I say, then I want to kick myself for sounding so goggly-eyed.
He flashes me a grin and walks to his car, a sporty red car that I recognize as being one of the newest hybrids. He stows the wetsuit in the trunk, then slides the board into the rack on the roof, stretching his arms to lock the board in place. I picture myself slinking into the narrow space between Chris and the car, the look of surprise on his face, then wicked delight, as he closes the gap between our bodies. He’s warm and wet from surfing and sun, and I’m warm and wet from him, and I imagine him lazily tracing a finger down my arm, enjoying the way the slightest touch sets me ablaze. I’d shift closer, my h*ps inviting him to become a puzzle piece that locks into place with me.
I force myself to shutter those images, because they have no bearing to reality.
He opens the passenger door, reaches inside and hands me a bag with the camera in it.
“Good as new,” he says.