Page 41

(Scout)

“Good, good, keep your knees bent and shift your weight forward, just a little. There you go, feel the rhythm of the wave, don’t press, just roll with it,” Mark encouraged from where he sat on his board several feet away.

Balance was the key. That was the one thing Scout learned the many times he’d been sent flying off the board today.

The water was perfect, cool without being cold.

The yellow and black wetsuit Mark had given him to put on covered him from neck to mid-thigh, with sleeves that ended a few inches above his elbows.

Snug, but not too snug, it was comfortable enough to let him move freely, bending and twisting until he finally felt like he was guiding the board instead of being spun around like back when he’d been learning to ride a mechanical bull.

His ribs ached a little, and a few twinges had downright hurt, but he’d learned to breathe through the pain so he could keep right on chasing those waves and learning from the gruff club president who was also as encouraging as Scout’s own father.

Find the rhythm, feel the rhythm, and let it become as much a part of him as the beating of his heart. Shifting his weight, he made the board turn and crouched as the board rose onto the crest of the wave and straightened up as it carried him towards shore.

Closer. Closer.

Scout could hear Mark whooping in the distance, hollering encouragement as Scout managed to stick with the wave and his board until the wave finally died.

His dismount, if one could call wobbling before toppling off backward a true dismount, left a lot to be desired.

But he’d ridden that thing to shore, and he was damned proud of that accomplishment.

Scout was shocked to hear clapping, though.

Wiping the water from his eyes, Scout spotted the last person he expected to see standing on the shore with a surfboard sticking up out of the sand beside him.

Kong.

“Nicely done,” he called as Scout tugged on the leash attaching him to his board and hauled it closer.

“Thanks,” Scout said, before he turned around and paddled back out to where Mark waited, with a shrewd gaze that missed nothing.

“You’re getting the hang of it,” Mark said.

“Once I started to focus on how it was similar to learning to ride a mechanical bull, a few things clicked, and the flow started to come together.”

“You can ride a mechanical bull?”

“Haven’t been bucked off in years.”

Scout knew he sounded a little cocky when he said it, but he was proud of that fact and all the money he’d made betting on himself when he’d been with the Hounds.

One of their favorite means of passing time in the clubhouse, especially when it was too wet out to ride, was to see who could stay on that bull the longest. Scout had taken pride out of knowing that was him.

He’d also loved wiping the smirks off the faces of some of those badasses when they’d stepped up to the plate to challenge him only to be flung off in a heap of defeat and snarled curses.

Mark stroked his goatee as he eyed Scout. “We might have to break out the one we’ve got in storage and see if you are as good as you claim. But not until that rib is finished healing. I’d hate to see you break it completely if you’re too rusty to hang on.”

Scout chuckled at that but kept his mouth shut, having finally learned to tone it down a little, especially when someone was being considerate of him.

“Did you know he was gonna be here?” Scout asked as his gaze skimmed past Mark’s shoulder, seeking out the next wave to ride.

“Creature mentioned the possibility that he’d show,” Mark replied. “He also told me that he’d warned Kong against trying to press if you told him that you didn’t want to talk to him.”

“I’m not sure what I want,” Scout explained. “Just that I’m not ready for the lesson to end yet.”

“Then he can wait.”

Grinning, Scout caught sight of a wave building in the distance, bigger than any of the previous ones he’d attempted to ride. He swung his board around, but when he leaned forward to start paddling out to reach it, Mark stilled his movements with a short, sharp command.

“No. That wave isn’t for you,” Mark declared. “You’re not ready for one that size yet. That one has my name all over it.”

Nodding, Scout sat back up and watched as Mark paddled with hard, rapid strokes, as the wave continued to build, the two colliding at the perfect moment as Mark spun and popped up onto the back of the board with perfect balance to take command of it.

Scout watched his serpentine movements as he maneuvered across the top of the wave, then dropped into the barrel, fingertips skimming the crest before it spat him out.

Mark’s bark of triumph and the jubilant expression he wore as he spun into the wave that followed were the last things Scout expected to see from the gruff, usually grim-faced club president.

Out here, he was just free and loving every moment of it.

Mark’s ride didn’t end until the wave ran out of steam and dumped him into the shimmering sea. He popped up laughing, another surprising thing to see before he paddled back over to Scout.

“Now that was wild,” Scout said. “And definitely too much of a wave for me.”

“In time, you’ll learn what you can handle and what you can’t,” he said. “In all things, not just out here.”

“How long did it take you to learn?”

“Somewhere between turning eighteen and having my first kid at twenty,” he replied.

“I scared Kat half to death when I got drilled into a reef while surfing off Banzai Beach in Hawaii. We’d gone over to visit family, and of course, I’d insisted on taking my board and checking out the legendary waves there.

Learned the hard way why they were legendary too.

Still have a few scars to show from it.”

“Fuck, seriously? How long have you been surfing?”

“Since before I could ride a bike,” Mark explained. “The pedal kind. My old man was a surfer and used to take me out when I was just a tiny shit. It got to where I’d wake up before he did and make my own cereal, just so I’d be ready when he got up and headed straight for the beach.”

“That’s how it was with my old man and the scrapyard,” Scout admitted.

“He used to try and leave me and Sawyer at the house when he went out to pull parts off something. We’d be sitting at the table when he stepped out of his room, with waffles warm from the toaster, shoveling in bites and getting all sticky because we hadn’t even bothered with utensils.

We were in that much of a rush to spend time with him. ”

Mark chuckled at that and nodded. “My boys were the same way. Always trying to tag along behind whatever I had planned for the day. They were little shits about it too. Would never take no for an answer, either. I caught Cody hiding under a blanket, huddled on the floorboards one morning, back when Kat and I still had our old Charger. I hauled him out of there and sent him back into the house without ever thinking about checking the trunk. If I had, I’d have found my oldest boy, Case, hiding back there with my toolbox and a bunch of other crap pulled in front of him to keep me from spotting him if I opened it just to toss something in.

Kid wound up making it all the way to Raleigh with me before I realized that I had a stowaway. ”

“How’d you figure it out?”

“Hit a bump, and he hit his head hard enough to holler, which scared the fuck out of me,” Mark admitted.

“I pulled over in a spray of gravel, heart pounding because I thought I’d hit something when I’d been fiddling with the radio.

As soon as I realized there was nothing in the road but heatwaves rising off the hot asphalt, I opened the trunk and saw blue eyes peering out at me while he rubbed his head.

You best believe we had a long chat once he was buckled into the front seat next to me. ”

“Did you punish him?” Scout asked, curious, though a little cautious about asking the question.

Teddy had told him that Mark was a stern Dom who didn’t take any shit, but Teddy had also said that Mark was the kindest man he’d ever known.

For him to say that even after Mark had taken his property-of tag away from him had left Scout confused about how someone could be both.

Spending time with Carl was starting to teach him where the lines converged and how a Dom could be super stern in setting rules and enforcing them without being harsh.

Being with the Hounds, he’d never understood that there was a difference.

“Made him spend the weekend helping me and his mama empty the garage, power wash the interior, build the new metal shelving units we’d picked up, sort through everything, and get things organized into totes to go on the shelves,” Mark explained.

“He was so tired by Sunday night that he didn’t even ask to stay up an extra hour to watch the end of the wrestling pay per view. ”

“Oh man, pay per view nights were my favorite growing up. Sawyer, my dad and I love pro wrestling, and not just the popular promotions either. Dad would sometimes pick up these DVDs of CZW and All Japan Pro, and those guys were phenomenal. He’d barbeque late in the afternoon and pick up ice cream too, just so we were ready for the preshow event and the countdown to the main card. ”

“Sounds like my house,” Mark said, then inclined his head towards shore. “I know someone else who is a huge wrestling fan, too.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh yeah, he and Creature both. Creature even dabbled in it for a time, though it was more of the deathmatch stuff,” Mark admitted. “There used to be a pretty decent wrestling school around, until the guy who owned it passed away.”

“Whoa, I know what I’m gonna ask him about when I get home,” Scout said, casting a glance at the beach, to where Kong sat in the sand beside his board.