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T urtle and I spent the rest of the afternoon shredding up the much more manageable pipelines on the main beach of Stars Cove.

Blake joined us, and it was cool to see her ride. She was pretty fucking good, which really hammered home her warning about Leviathans even further.

Not that I was going to listen to it… but still. There was definitely some hammering going on.

If someone as skilled as Blake was that terrified of that beach, I would definitely need to train and study. Best case scenario would really be for me to get an actual coach. Someone who had experience with that specific beach and could run me through all the ins and outs.

See, the trouble with a hidden, local secret like Leviathans is that there wasn’t any information online about the wave patterns. More popular beaches like the Banzai Pipeline in Hawaii, for example, have a plethora of information you could study before diving in.

Learning why waves formed the way they did was important to keep yourself safe, as they usually formed due to underwater hazards such as coral reefs or rock formations.

Knowing what you were getting into was half the battle.

As Leviathans was a closely guarded local secret, I couldn’t find anything online about the beach, so I would need to dig up an expert to guide me if I was going to be successful.

The trouble was that Blake hadn’t been kidding about the townspeople of Stars Cove not being thrilled about me buying Jake Whittling’s old place.

As we bobbed on our boards, waiting for our turns to drop in, Blake introduced us to some of the local veterans. None of them seemed interested in speaking to me, let alone coaching me.

“Tough crowd,” Turtle mused as we turned in for the night. We strapped our boards onto Shelly’s roof, and I shrugged, not dissuaded in the slightest.

“They’ll warm up to me.” I winked at him. “No one can resist the dimples.”

“You swore you would only use your dimples for good!” Turtle cried dramatically as he tore a joint out of his wet bag before climbing into the driver’s side of the van. “You were the chosen one! Your dimples were meant to bring balance to the force! Not destroy it!”

I cackled as he perched the joint between his lips but didn’t light it. He knew better than to drive under the influence, especially with me in the car. After what happened to my mom, I refused to smoke or drink.

Turtle still did, but he never did it before he had to drive. He just had a bit of a hand-to-mouth fixation and liked to play with his joints before he smoked them.

Hopping into the passenger seat, I waved goodbye to Blake as we pulled out of the boardwalk parking lot .

Turtle alternated from glancing at Blake and his rearview as he reversed, and I grinned at him.

“She’s cute, huh?” I offered, and he grinned at me.

“She’s more than cute, bro. I wanna split that girl in half.”

“Jesus,” I snorted. “Slow down, we just got here, maybe you shouldn’t shit where we eat.”

“Who said anything about shitting? She could be wifey material. Mrs. Turtle has a nice ring to it.” He grinned as he pulled onto the main road and headed toward my new shack.

“I’m going to start calling you Rabbit instead of Turtle. You’re moving at the speed of light, bro; I have whiplash.”

His smile just widened. “I figured it was just ‘cause rabbits like to fuck a lot,” he joked, and I shook my head, laughing.

“Just get me home, you d-bag,” I muttered, suddenly glad we weren’t sharing the van anymore. The last thing I wanted to do was be up all night listening to Turtle jerk off to visions of Blake in her little red Sharkies shorts.

“Aye, aye, captain.” He winked and turned on the stereo, cranking Noah Kahan’s soft acoustic notes.