Page 10

Even more distracting, now that my brain is on the dick-observation train, is the shape of his…fruit. Ozzy is large absolutely everywhere. His banana is supersized. I have never, ever, not once in my life been served something so large.

“I’m comfortable.” Hazel eyes sparkle at me. “Thank you again for the fruit tree. It is now one of my most prized possessions. I keep it in my bedroom.”

“Pants. Now. Please.”

I absolutely don’t feel a frisson of pleasure at my gift-giving success. It was meant to needle. He doesn’t deserve to enjoy it, and I am not warmed by his graceful thanks.

Ozzy is busy considering my newest request/demand. “But I’m in my own home! It’s a pants-optional zone. Feel free to remove yours.”

We both look down at my pants. The only explanation for this is that he has short-circuited my brain with his pants-less state.

I look down, he looks down, and we both independently come to the conclusion that my righteous indignation has brought me outside with less in the way of pants than is ideal.

I’m wearing a fuzzy brown sweatshirt and coordinating lounge shorts that expose my vampirically white legs.

I may glow in the dark. Software engineering is not conducive to tanning—or vitamin D, outside time, and sunshine.

His mouth curls up in a wicked smile. “You look like a little brown bear! I’m going to call you Panda.”

“Pandas are black and white,” I point out. I ache to tell him to back off, that I’ve had my fill of cruel/unfortunate nicknames, that I’m tired of laughing along with other people’s jokes.

“Not the really special ones!” He curls upward in an impressive display of abdominal muscles. His fingers tap mine where they are wrapped around his ankle.

No, wait. He reaches around me to pluck a stray Post-it note off my butt with surgical precision. His fingers don’t stray, don’t touch me. I mourn that touch I will never have.

I make a note to google pandas.

And also: download a hookup app.

Surely, I can carve out an hour a week for sex.

A half hour. I’ll eliminate the awkward preliminary meetup for drinks, coffee, or dinner.

Skip the boring intro to the book for the good part.

Dating sucks and I hate it. Why would you go to a restaurant and pay for an entire meal when you just want the éclair that comes at the end?

His foot flexes. His toes work against my palm.

I will never be able to buy bananas again. I institute a lifetime ban on the produce aisle.

He is still talking.

I tune back in just in time. Maybe.

I fire right back. “Why are you always here? Shouldn’t you be out surfing?”

He should live somewhere where there are waves and TV cameras and prizes, right? My knowledge of competitive surfing is minimal despite my extensive post-kiss googling, but this building doesn’t even possess a pool.

Also: I have the conversational sophistication of a five-year-old. A shadow passes over his face. It could be a passing cloud, a plane overhead.

“Bum knee. I’m professionally retired.” He taps a faint red line that mars the smooth perfection of his thigh. I am the asshole here.

“No more competitive surfing?”

“Nope. Occupational hazard.” He shrugs and flows into another position. “Wall Pilates helps.” He studies my face. My guilt must be written there in all caps. “And it’s not a good time of year for surfing here anyhow.”

“Oh.” My face burns with embarrassment.

“Hey,” he says, far too kindly. “The best waves are January to March. It’s June. And you have to watch out for baby seals and sharks.”

Wait. Does he remember our kiss under the boardwalk? I hate that I can’t be sure, at least not unless I ask him outright, which is a level of awkwardness that I refuse to deal with. I’m drowning in a sea of mortification, and a shark attack might be a blessing.

“I’m sorry?” I force the words out. They don’t sound believable but I mean them.

I search his face for clues. Does he or does he not recognize me?

He smiles back at me. I vote: not .

“You want to come surfing with me?”

No. No, I do not. I’ve seen Jaws and I like my sharks best in an aquarium. Shark safety is mission critical.

He laughs at the expression on my face. “Just kidding, Panda Bear. I haven’t been on a board for months.”

“I have a name.” And so many questions.

Why no surfing? Was there a wipeout? A rival surfer who kneecapped him? Vicious penguins?

He winks. Now he’s trying to embarrass me. You couldn’t pay him to end my suffering. “I like it here.”

He executes a spectacular backward roll, leaps to his feet (whatever is wrong with his knee does not affect his agility), and then vaults one-handed over the wall. He is in my space.

“Can I come in? To borrow a pillow? A cup of sugar?”

He leans around me, shamelessly peering in my slider door.

“Your place is great!” His big shoulder gently bumps mine. It’s a love tap. The barest of nudges. “I love it. Mine is so empty.”

I turn away. “Okay?”

He laughs happily and ricochets to the far end of my balcony. He is a ball of endless, irritating energy. “I know, right? Can we online shop together?” He rushes on without waiting for an answer. “We can be shopping buddies! I bet you know all the best places for pillows!”

I must have been a truly terrible person in some former life. Or I’m being paid back for my teenage years when I raged and shouted and trampled all over everyone in my life. It’s only fair. I was awful.

“Are you never serious?”

Ozzy replies, “I am very serious about pillows. And tension. You look tense.”

He wanders up behind me, and I pretend I don’t feel him coming. He doesn’t smell like pineapples. Cedarwood, maybe. Lemons and salt. Something expensive and wild. I exhale, evicting the Ozzy scent from my nostrils. Breathing is optional from here on out.

“May I?” His hands hover above my shoulders.

“Yes.” I am oxygen starved. That’s why I consent.

His big hands cover my shoulders, warm and firm. They knead and squeeze. He finds tight spots, and they magically unfurl like panties dropping. He isn’t doing anything a paid masseuse wouldn’t do, but my body is on fire and my brain offline.

“Is the surfing retirement why you aren’t you still working with Miles to Go?”

I blurt the question out, and Ozzy is on me like a shark on chum. “You read my LinkedIn! Is that where you first noticed me? At a surf competition promoting the app?”

I must be desperate to avoid humiliation, because I prevaricate. “It doesn’t speak well of you that you can’t remember our introduction.”

He crows, “So you admit we’ve met!”

Twice.

“It’s not impossible,” I confess.

His hands drop away from my shoulders. I’m disappointed. I won’t be tipping him.

Oblivious, he grabs my hands and dances me around in a circle. I stumble after him awkwardly. “What are you doing? Why are you like this?”

“Tell me our origin story!”

“Answer my question first.” I negotiate for time.

Ozzy frowns. It’s adorable. “Miles to Go put together all these one-size-fits-all trips, but I didn’t want to go to those places alone. How did I know I would like them? Who would I talk to about them?”

I snort. “You wanted a travel buddy? You never travel alone.”

His jaw tightens. His frown deepens to something less cute and more pained. “You really shouldn’t make assumptions, Panda Bear. It’s rude.”

“Uhhh…” I stare into his eyes, and he stares back, like this lack of space between us isn’t setting off his proximity alarms. Doesn’t he have a travel harem?

He’s so popular. He’s sugar and spice, and everything nice.

Which I guess makes me snips and snails, but at least I get a shell and a portable home.

Snails are the RV dwellers of the gastropod world.

I open my mouth, possibly to apologize, but he says in a rush, “I spent a lot of time on the surfing circuit. Like, a lot of time. It’s a job that’s never done.”

I perform the mental gymnastics necessary to pretend that an entire ocean with monster waves is an office. Swap cubicles for surfboards. It’s a tough sell, and a little vague, but I think he’s saying he worked all the time. We…have something in common besides a shared wall?

Ozzy Wylder. Workaholic.

Possibly lonely.

“Life-work balance.” I make a face. “I mean, does that even exist ?”

He nods vehemently. We do agree on something. “When you love what you’re doing, it’s not even work, right?”

I’m not sure I would go that far.

I shrug.

He shrugs.

“And then,” he continues, our strange moment of détente over, “I wiped out, busted up my knee, and left the competition circuit. Which meant I left my friends there, too. Or maybe they were more coworkers. We don’t talk much, because all we had to talk about before was work. Waves.”

“Don’t forget the rip currents.” His hands return to digging into the knots beneath my shoulder blades, and it hurts so good. “I’ll bet you ran into a deadly sandbar or two. Maybe a shaved ice stand or a tropical lei.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Sure. All in a day’s work.”

The kneading of his hands makes it hard to follow our conversation. “So you’re saying you don’t have any friends?”

Ozzy nearly slumps against my back. “Not exactly.”

“But you’ve been so busy winning surf competitions that you don’t know anyone who doesn’t ride a board? And you don’t talk to the board-riding people in your life because you, yourself, are not currently riding any boards?”

Another laugh. “I know you! Are you free to travel around the world with me? I’m currently underemployed and looking to take my life in a new direction.”

There’s an idea tickling at the back of my head. “We would make the worst travel companions in history,” I say absently.

And it’s true. We would.

But it’s…an interesting idea.

I take the five miniscule steps over to my whiteboard and grab a marker. What if… What if the most important variable is who you go with and not where ?

I start sketching out the process to get someone from alone to paired up and on a plane. I fill the whiteboard with shapes and arrows. All the guidelines that the computer will need to perform its one task: matching you with your perfect travel buddy on your perfect trip.

“Don’t mind me,” Ozzy says. “I can see you’re busy.”

I dig in. The guidelines would have to be… Yes, that could work… What if I…

I scribble frantically. Draw circles. Arrows. Scrawl notes.

Ozzy colors in my circles. Moves an arrow. Lobs words my way that I ignore because I am in the zone. Asks a million billion questions that I also ignore. Who knew that annoying surfer dudes made for such great inspiration?

I have tried everything—even, at my nadir, podcasts on manifestation—and now I know what to do next.

Ozzy naps on my sofa. He wakes up noisily and rolls to his feet to go work out and do some stuff, but we should totally do this again! He looks adorably rumpled as he reminds me to credit him because he wants a byline . I bet he’d love the blame command in our version control system.

I work on. And on and on. By the time San Francisco’s infamous morning fog has burned off and I can see past my balcony, I have a wireframe and a new direction.

I do owe Ozzy something, I decide. A few clicks of my keyboard and I discover that Amazon will same-day ship cacti.

I can order enough barbed plants to line the entire wall, to turn it into a spiky fortification, a botanical KEEP OUT sign. Take that, Ozzy Wylder. Keep your feet to yourself. I don’t need your strong hands, big body, and offensive cheerfulness in my life.

My finger hovers over the Buy Now button. Clicks.

I’ll leave it on his doorstep tomorrow.