Sex and Skateboards by Ashley Bartlett

Author:Ashley Bartlett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: ! Yes
ISBN: 9781602825628
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2011-09-20T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter twelve

Dropping Theo off was weird. There were a bunch of parents

with screaming five-year-olds. That was to be expected I

guess. Most of them knew Wes even though they didn’t know me. I

should have stayed in the car. One chick was definitely glaring the

entire time.

“Does that happen a lot?” I asked once we were back in the car.

“What?” She looked confused.

“That mom who was trying to kill us with her eyes.” I’m not

sure why it bothered me.

“Oh, that. She probably thought I got knocked up as a teenager.”

Wes shrugged it off like it was nothing. “And to top it off…we look

gay.”

“We are gay.” Now I was pissed.

“One offense is forgivable here, but two?” She shrugged again.

“Let’s just say a good portion of SLO County votes Republican.”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

“It used to. Now I don’t bother getting worked up because

people are ignorant. Their issue, not mine.” She didn’t even have to

think about it. I wished for a moment that I’d been that together at

her age. Hell, for a second I wished I were that together at my age.

Then the moment passed.

“That’s cool.” It made sense. I was still irritated though. “But if

you want me to go back and beat her up, I totally will.”

Wes started laughing. “Thanks. I think.”

• 109 •

aShley bartlett

We were pretty quiet the rest of the drive except for her giving

me directions. We headed south passing all the tourist places like

Avila and Pismo. Then she directed me down a small road that led,

it seemed, to nowhere. It was cliché, she said, but there was a secret

spot, one her dad had shown her. Hard to argue with that. The place

was secluded, down a long winding road that smelled like cool,

damp wood and sunshine. It smelled like California.

We had to park on the road and walk through the eucalyptus

trees that went nearly to the edge of the water. The beach was

empty; not even birds interrupted the flash of the sun on the water.

Maybe it was just because I was born in California, but there was

something about standing on a beach looking west where, with the

right imagination, you could see the water start to curve away. It

resided in my gut, that knowledge that the world was perfect. I just

had to look the right way.

“Sometimes I just want to come and sit here and…” Wes and

I had both stopped and stared, the surfboards forgotten in the sand

behind us. I took her hand. Five, ten minutes, maybe an hour passed

watching the Pacific. “…I don’t know…never leave.”

All I could do was nod because I felt it too.

We surfed, of course. It felt like we were out there for hours.

Just us, the cool, briny water, and the sun. When we would sit on our

boards and wait for a wave, the heat would soak into the neoprene

on my back, then the cold water would rush back in when I went

under. I started to get it. Not just how to surf, although I was able to

stand up way more, but why people surfed. That rush that felt like

either sex or skateboarding.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.