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.
“How did you fix it?”
“I can’t give away all my secrets now, can I?”
I smile. “I suppose not.”
“But maybe you’d be willing to tell me your last name now that I’ve fixed your camera.”
Another smile. Another nervous laugh. “McKenna. McKenna Bell.”
“Well, thank you for letting me fix your camera, McKenna Bell.”
“Maybe if I’m lucky, the cat will pee on my router next.”
He smiles, then runs a hand through his wet hair. There’s something so effortless about the way he moves, so natural, that I don’t even think he’s aware of the effect he has on women.
Of the effect he has on me. I want to run my hands down his chiseled chest, exploring the lines between his muscles, the way his stomach is outlined so firmly. I want to know what those arms feel like wrapped around me, pulling me in close. I want his hands on my h*ps as he teases me and taunts me with sweet kisses on my cheeks, my eyelids, my forehead. Then his tongue flicks across my earlobe, and I gasp with pleasure. He pulls back, a satisfied little grin on his face before he returns to my neck, burning up my skin in an instant with those lips that were made to mark my body.
Then I stop the fantasy from going any further. If I don’t, I’ll just start panting right here on the sidewalk, and he’ll know I was this close to undressing myself for him.
“I should go, Chris. But thanks again. This is awesome.”
There. I’ve got plenty of self-control, and he surely can’t read my mind and know I was about to become liquid heat for him.
“Yeah, watch out for cats,” he says, and that’s all. That’s it. No flirty comeback that says his imagination is running wild too.
Then it hits me. A guy like this – successful, hot, and totally talented – must have a girlfriend. He must have many girlfriends. He has that California ease about him, a laid-back charm that reels girls in.
As I walk away, he calls out casually, “Or maybe the cat will pee on your iPod.” I look back, meeting his gaze even from several feet away as he adds, “If I’m lucky.”
I drive to Golden Gate Park with those three words playing on repeat. If I’m lucky. If I’m lucky. If I’m lucky.
Then I tell myself he’s just a flirt. Because there’s no other reasonable explanation.
Chapter Five
All I can say is Andy was wrong.
Because there is nothing pathetic about Meter Man.
Nothing at all. At least from a distance. He is walking toward me right now and I like the way he walks, I like the way he moves.
I’m camped out on a bench in front of Shakespeare Garden, surrounded by the ponds and hills and bike paths of Golden Gate Park. Though Shakespeare Garden has a big name, it’s a little spot, maybe the size of a large backyard or a private courtyard. Twin columns frame wrought-iron double gates, a brick walkway cuts across the garden, and a sundial stands in the middle.
I like this spot for many reasons, but especially because Todd and I never went to Shakespeare Garden in all our time together. It’s untouched by the enemy.
I met Todd because we took the same bus to work every morning, him to his PR shop and me to the fashion brand, Violet Summers, I worked at before I started my blog. Almost every morning I watched Todd get on the bus, slightly disheveled, wearing a blue, white, or blue-and-white striped button-down Oxford cloth shirt and khaki pants. He always sat in the same spot, two seats from the front of the bus. I started inching closer, a seat a day. Two weeks later, I was in the seat behind him.
“Nice day, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yeah, and that’s quite a feat in this town.” He turned around, his elbow resting on the back of the seat. “You know what Mark Twain said about San Francisco?”
His eyes lit up, he was excited, like he was about to share the coolest, most unusual quote in all of literature with me. But like everyone else who’s ever set foot in San Francisco, I knew it by heart, so I said loudly, “The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.”
He smiled back, his light blue eyes twinkling mischievously. He didn’t say anything for a few seconds and his sneaky silence unnerved me. Then he said, “Not that one. This one.” Then he quoted the Mark Twain saying that no one ever quotes about San Francisco, but one that is more beautiful, more original, more sexy. “It is the land where the fabled Aladdin's Lamp lies buried – and she, San Francisco, is the new Aladdin who shall seize it from its obscurity and summon the genie and command him to crown her with power and greatness and bring to her feet the hoarded treasures of the earth."