The Day the Jerk Started Falling (Jerk #2) Read online

  “Listen,” I said with a smile. “I’m leaving in a few days, but I’m bound to make time to ride before I do.” Their eyes rounded even further. “Let me take your number. Maybe we can hook up and catch a few together. I’ll even bring our new line of boards.”

  “Holy shit, that would be epic!” a second boy with a shell necklace breathed.

  I dug around in my pocket for the discarded paper with Ceila’s number, scribbled it out and handed the paper to the boys to write down their info.

  They moved quickly, leaning on one another’s backs to write down what seemed to be a full fucking essay of information.

  I paid little attention, though, pulling out my phone as it dinged with an alert for an urgent email.

  Only certain addresses had priority, and the rest, I honestly largely ignored.

  The distribution center’s address was not a welcome sight.

  Three months into our new distribution pattern for Surf Arsen—the surf gear company I’d formed in the years following my retirement from the pro circuit—and of working with a new partner, and we were still eliminating the kinks.

  I shoved the phone back into my pocket with a mind to deal with the problem directly after I was done playing chauffeur and took the paper back from the boys.

  “Thanks, mates. I’ll reach out to you, and we’ll meet up, yeah?”

  They all nodded excitedly as a few other pieces of paper, notebooks, and other random paraphernalia appeared in front of my face. Already over the charade, I didn’t really even pay attention to who the goods were coming from, as I grabbed item after item and scribbled my name to them.

  I’m sure that’s hard to believe, Luck, given the heavy female contingent you noted in your own account of this, but if you’d put every single one of them into a police lineup right then, I wouldn’t have been able to identify any of them.

  As the crowd finally thinned, I excused myself with a nod and a wave and dug around in my pocket for the sign I’d made with the name Lucky Wright on it.

  Surely, the woman who matched the name would be there any second, and maybe if I held it really convincingly, people would stop recognizing me as anything other than a driver.

  Shoving the sign higher into the air, trying to make it so that a woman who wasn’t my size would be able to find it and me in the crowd, I watched as the absolute opposite version of the woman I’d been expecting eyed the sign.

  You, love. I’m talking about you.

  [laughs and then groans]

  All long legs and creamy skin, with a skintight, long black skirt covering the majority of them and ending in the point of a spiky heel, you were, at first glance…breathtaking.

  Of course, the more I looked, the more I found.

  Your red hair was tied back in a bun, and the fabric of your blouse shimmered.

  Good God almighty. So taken aback by the contrast of what I knew of my sister Allie, I took the differences out on you.

  Allie was a girl of thongs and cutoffs and tank tops even in the chill, and I wondered extensively how she’d landed herself a best mate who looked so opposite.

  For all I knew, she dressed like this now.

  And I hated the idea that I might not know how much my sister had changed since she’d moved away.

  A cart of heavy luggage ahead of you, you shoved toward me with a scuttle as my insecurities rounded full circle.

  My crumpled outfit was barely matching and smelled like the bloody sea, and you were nearly runway ready.

  While it wasn’t like I could do a costume change then…or even that I would…the dissimilarity still niggled a bit.

  “Lucky?” I asked, just to confirm my instincts hadn’t been faulty.

  Undeniable recognition lit your blue eyes at my use of your name.

  “Uh…yeah… That’s me… Hi.”

  Frozen to your spot—perhaps scared by the idea of getting into the car with a stranger and driving off into a foreign country with him, supposed brother of her friend or not—I did the work of closing the space between us.

  Physically, it couldn’t have been more than a dozen steps, but metaphorically, characterized perfectly by the nervousness in your smile, it might as well have been a mile.

  I had to look down to meet your eyes, even with the dressy contraptions on your feet. You weren’t a descendant of the Amazon, not even close. You were cute and perfect and petite.

  Eager to cut the tension between us, I started with a simple greeting and a few crumbs of proof that I was, in fact, the bloke you were looking for.

  I held out a beefy hand to envelop your dainty one and shook pleasantly. “It’s nice to meet you, Lucky. I’m Oliver, but call me Ollie.”

  With the bags on your cart already stacked and accounted for, I winced at the knowledge that you’d probably been waiting for me—searching for me—a little longer than either of us bargained for.

  “How long have you been standing here?”

  “Not too long.”

  Your words were conciliatory, but good Christ, you looked uncomfortable.

  [laughs]

  That, as you may guess, started a dangerous line of thought that would turn our meet-cute into a meet-ugly in a heartbeat.

  Maybe it’s her clothes, I thought to myself. No way I’d have survived a full day’s flight in those things.

  And, well, unfortunately, I didn’t keep that thought to myself.

  [groans]

  “You wore that on the flight?”

  Ugh. And just like that, we were off.

  Into the twisted hell that was our argument about bloody clothes, of all things.

  Christ, I hate this part. No matter what I said at that point, you were destined to twist it into some god-awful argument, and arguing with a woman, sadly, was an occurrence with which I was painfully familiar.

  [laughs]

  Of course, I’d usually had at least forty-eight good hours with the woman by then, though.

  As it was, calling you high-maintenance definitely wasn’t the way to go. I’d apologize now if I even knew how it happened, but I honestly still don’t know.

  I’d had the best of intentions when I’d arrived in the bowels of Sydney’s finest airport, but it’d all fallen apart.

  With a quick step, I reached down and took the load of the cart from your tiny hands and started to push. “My Jeep is outside,” I remarked.

  Other than the clack of your heels on the tile behind me, you made no response.

  And unfortunately, love, the lack of thank you from your pretty lips was all the confirmation I needed.

  You and me. We weren’t meant to mix.

  * * *

  Needless to say, you weren’t quite as thrilled with a topless Lottie as I’d first suspected—even hoped—you might be.

  For a moment, I feared some sort of murder-suicide situation would have to occur before I’d get you in the Jeep, but after some fast-talking and a little hard-knobbing, you were strapped in and blowing in the wind as I tore down the highway.

  Quite, I should note, unhappily.

  Sorry to say, I found myself laughing as your normally stunning face turned into something more reminiscent of Wallace Shawn, gritted against the wind. In fact, I’m still laughing.

  Your perfectly pinned hair was ragged around the edges and far less stuffy, and the way it framed your face actually made me do a double take a couple of times. Not right then, while you were huffing like an abused runner and scowling like a middle-aged man…but definitely when you weren’t.

  “You all right there?” I asked as we careened around a turn and weaved in between two slower-moving cars and into free space again.

  “I think…I swallowed a bug.”

  “Oh hell,” I replied with a smirk, the urge to tease a woman so miserable becoming overwhelming. Don’t feel offended, though, Luck. I’m not only this charming around you.

  My apparent lack of compassion in a woman’s times of discomfort is actually a pretty big staple on the list of qua
lities I’ve been told are the reasons I should “eat shit and die” over the years. “It didn’t look poisonous, did it?”

  “How the hell would I know if it was poisonous when you’re going 150 miles per hour!” you snapped before chugging a swig of water from the days’ old bottle in my cupholder, clearly horrified at the thought of having actually swallowed something harmful.

  As though I’d be so cavalier if I thought my sister’s best mate was liable to cark it in the front seat of my Jeep. I’m a little disappointed you thought so little of me, love.

  “Kilometers, doll. Aussies haven’t used miles since before I was a babe.”

  “Use whatever measurement you want. Any faster and we’re bound to warp into some time-space vortex like in Back to the Future.”

  “Ah, had a crush on Marty, huh?” I asked with a laugh.

  “What?” You whipped your head to the side to look at me and got a mouthful of your own sassy red hair.

  “Sheilas only remember a movie like Back to the Future when they’ve spent solid time daydreaming about unzipping Marty’s McFly.”

  “Every young girl has a Michael J. Fox phase,” you muttered through the hair sandwich before pulling it away. It was hard to hear you over the wind blowing off the coast, but I managed.

  Thank God.

  I’d have hated to miss such an exquisitely personal detail of your sexual awakening.

  [laughs]

  “Interesting. Just out of curiosity, who else played a role in little Lucky’s fantasies?”

  “None of your business!” you responded, completely appalled. “And just FYI, asking about someone’s fantasies isn’t the kind of question you start with ‘out of curiosity.’”

  “All right, then,” I conceded with a laugh. “What is the kind of question you start with out of curiosity?”

  You shook your head and glared at me. “Get-to-know-you questions. Where are you from? What books do you like? What’s your favorite food?”

  “Those seem boring.”

  “They’re polite.”

  “All right, all right. Polite is what I’m after, I swear,” I said with a smile. “Allie’s best mate has to be quite interesting—I know my sister’s not the type to settle for some ordinary girl. So, tell me about yourself. How did you and Allie meet?”

  Wary of my turn to the innocent, your eyes narrowed as you mumbled the words.

  “At college.”

  “And you’ve kept in touch?”

  “We work together.”

  “Ah, right. I knew that. In New York. You like living there?”

  “SoHo is nice.”

  Look at us, a couple of regular conversationalists, yeah?

  [chuckles]

  Too bad it was about as interesting as watching a pail of paint dry. I needed you to loosen up. That was surely the only way the two of us would survive, I thought. And to loosen up, I always go to one, and only one, thing.

  Aerosmith.

  With a flick of my wrist and a push of a button, I switched the stereo in Lottie from the radio to my CD and listened as Steven Tyler’s pipes flared to life.

  Keeping rhythm with the beat of my thumbs on the steering wheel, I lost myself to the lyrics of “Walk This Way.”

  I chair-danced, I head-tossed, I sang my bloody heart out as you sat still as a statue in the passenger seat.

  I thought you’d loosen up as the songs played on, but by the time the third came to a close, you were no more singing along with me than a woman without vocal chords. Of course, now, I know how truly painful you found the experience. Then, I had no idea. I honestly thought we were just having a jab and a poke at fun.

  “You like Aerosmith?”

  You smirked, for the first time in my presence, and I melted into a laugh. It was so exciting to finally see something playful under your painfully uptight exterior. “I like Aerosmith singing Aerosmith.”

  “But not me?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that question?”

  God, yes. I really did. Anything was better than boring pleasantries and polite chitchat at that point.

  After a brief explanation giving you permission to let me have the brutal truth and notifying you to expect the same from me in return—and an insult to my singing—we were back to our boring ways.

  It was like every time you started to open up to something interesting, you’d remember to be horrible.

  Quite the interesting twist on a first impression, if you ask me.

  By the time we made it to the hotel and I swooped up to the unloading station under the front carport, you’d compared me to a convict ex-boyfriend, deemed me to be the ultimate jerk so many women had called me before, suggested my singing be banned in all English-speaking territories, and accused me of calling you a bitch.

  I was flabbergasted that you’d thought to take me so seriously. No one else ever did.

  Still, evidently, bad first impressions were going around that day.

  Funny, in hindsight, how closely hate resembles love, huh, Luck?

  * * *

  Episode 3: Background Information

  And yet again, Day One of Falling continued

  She’s at her hotel. Is my assignment over?

  Simple and direct, I asked Allie for an excuse to absolve myself of my responsibility.

  At this point, I didn’t have much to go on about you other than the hostile words we’d exchanged, and if I was honest, I wasn’t even a hundred percent sure you made it to your room. After arrival, you’d exited the Jeep and left me to your bags as you strutted toward the hotel entrance immediately.

  I wasn’t entirely surprised by your behavior…

  [laughs]

  I mean, look at the start we’d gotten off to.

  But I wasn’t exactly impressed by it either.

  You were gorgeous. Feisty. Intelligent, clearly. But at that point, you were mostly just a pain in my ass.

  I’d just finished unloading your final suitcase as you returned with a bellhop.

  He loaded your one million bags onto his cart while we stood silent and stalwart, and I was getting ready to say some version of goodbye when Yuri Lapis commandeered my attention.

  Always liberal with his decorum, Yuri hadn’t even noticed the exchange—or awkward lack thereof—between us as he barreled right into the middle and pulled me in for a hug.

  We’d been on the circuit together during my final years before retirement, and against all odds, he was still surfing the tour.

  An undeniably nice guy, he looked a little like Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

  [laughs]

  I’m not sure if you noticed or not—though, I’m guessing you were too busy brooding about how awful I was to pay attention to him. But professional surfing, if you kept at it past your physical prime, was ungodly rough on the body.

  By the time Yuri had wandered on his way and I’d looked up again, you were gone and I could only assume you’d entered the hotel rather than hobnobbed it up with a random stranger in a foreign country.

  Still, I didn’t see it as in my best interest to discuss the possibility—however unlikely it was—with Allie.

  If her text message was anything to go by, she expected my assignment to last just about bloody forever.

  Consider your assignment on intermission, she’d texted me back. I expect you to look out for her while she’s there like I would.

  [sighs]

  As you can imagine, I was thrilled in the most sarcastic, not actually true sense of the word.

  Now, of course, I am thrilled she was so pushy.

  But, then? Yeah, I imagine I felt about as excited as you would have if she’d been telling you the same.

  After a brief text of begrudged agreement, I dropped my phone into the cupholder and shook my head, turning the ignition until Lottie roared to life. Low and humming, almost as though it’d been waiting for me, Aerosmith picked up right where they’d left off, and I shifted into gear.

  As the hotel faded in
my rearview mirror, I mouthed the words until lip syncing turned into a fanfared rendition at the top of my lungs.

  I stopped my Jeep as pedestrians crossed the road in front of me along the main drag of the coast, but I didn’t stop singing. The sun was shining, the temperature was up, and as weird as the morning had been, I was still in a good mood for the rest of the day. After a quick stop at Surf Arsen’s headquarters, I’d be back out in the waves in no time.

  Each word of “Dream On” was my muse, and I was powerlessly at her mercy.

  Gobs of people on both sides of the road looked up at the sound of my voice. The ladies smiled and the blokes winced, and unsolicited, I found myself considering your opinion. Maybe my version was nothing but a massacre of the track?

  Of course, even the thought of changing myself at the criticism of such a tense, no-nonsense woman made me scowl.

  And I redoubled my efforts in a blaze of “F-you” glory.

  I howled when Steven Tyler crowed, and I growled when he rasped. Adjusting my singing in an effort to match his, I doubled my passion and sang the chorus with everything I had.

  Unfortunately, the more I listened to my version of the words, the more I realized how bloody off I was.

  Out of tune, off-key, completely the wrong pitch—if it could be screwed up when singing, I surely had done it.

  All I could do was scowl as the song came to a close.

  Bloody women, I thought. Always ruining everything.

  Annoyed by the unwelcome and outside-influenced self-awareness, I switched off the CD and changed the setting back to the radio.

  Taylor Swift was singing some garbage about shaking it off, and I lost myself in the drivel of it.

  I didn’t need some uptight American woman’s opinion influencing the abandon with which I lived my vocal life, my sister’s best mate or not.