Meet Me in Hawaii by Georgia Toffolo (best affordable ebook reader TXT) 📗

‘Oh, I’ve been on a board, just not the surf variety.’

‘Ah, snowboarding?’

‘Nope. Skate.’ He looked to her and caught her raised brow, her choked laugh. ‘What?’

She shook her head, her eyes dancing. ‘I figured with your entrepreneurial lifestyle, snowboarding would fit, but skateboarding…?’ She laughed openly now. ‘I just can’t see it.’

He laughed too, but only at the idea she conjured up. Of him. Now. On a skateboard. Never. ‘Call it a wasted youth, I’ve not been on one in almost twenty years.’

‘It sure came back to you on the water.’

‘Some skills you never quite lose, I guess.’

‘You must have been good. What was it? Stunt parks at the weekend? Racing down the streets with your mates?’

He scoffed. ‘I wish. It was work. Fun too at times, but mostly work.’

‘Right, rewind, what kind of work involves the use of a skateboard?’

‘Running errands, delivering parcels, being a paperboy… whatever I could get and handle with my board. I was too young to drive.’

‘On a skateboard? I get the whole bicycle thing but…’

‘A skateboard could travel with me, back and forth between foster homes, a bike wasn’t so easy to transport, plus they’d only get nicked. At least I could keep the skateboard with me at all times.’

‘Wow – how old were you?’

‘I don’t know, eight, maybe a little older. It got me out of the house too, and who could argue if I was bringing money in? I had a nice little enterprise running by the time I could drive and managed to buy my first car. It was a clapped-out banger, but I paid for it outright. There weren’t many in our neighbourhood who could claim the same.’

‘And the businessman was born.’

She said it jokingly, but he could hear the open admiration in her tone. He didn’t have many nice memories from that time but what he had gained was a determination to succeed.

‘Something like that.’

‘I’m impressed. I can’t think of many children who would have skateboarded their way around the streets to earn their pocket money. Well, save for one guy, Finn, he’d have been right out there with you.’

‘Finn?’

‘He worked with Zoe at our local Crab Shack when we were teenagers, a walking advert he was, attracting all the local girls to spend money there, much like you—’

She cut herself off short, her eyes snapping away.

‘Much like me…?’

‘Na-ah, I wasn’t saying anything.’

‘You sure? Sounded to me like you were about to pay me a compliment.’

‘Maybe.’ Her shoulders eased as she looked back to him and he felt his body warm over the admission. ‘OK, I was, but not just because of your looks, what I was trying to say is that I’m impressed since most kids I knew would have freaked at a paper run on a bike.’

‘Well, I can’t say it was fun in winter but…’ He shrugged. He’d done what he’d had to. He’d craved freedom, control over his own life, and knew to gain it he needed to make himself financially independent. For all she may have joked, he knew his upbringing was the reason he was the man he was now, a man beholden to no one with more money than he knew what to do with. But that’s why he was giving back too, trying to help people like he’d once been, to inspire them into wanting more and taking control of their dreams.

He felt her eyes still on him and he looked to her. ‘What?’

She shook her head, a smile slow to form.

‘What?’

‘I wish my friends could meet you, they’d never believe me.’

‘Haven’t I already met your friends?’

‘No, I mean my friends from Hawke’s Cove.’

‘What wouldn’t they believe?’

‘That a man that looks like you, talks like you—’

‘Don’t be going all Jungle Book on me.’

She laughed. ‘You had time to read when you were younger with all that running around?’

‘I watched movies occasionally, it wasn’t all work.’

She was quiet for a moment and he could practically feel the cogs turning in her brain.

‘Well, if you have some time next week, my friend Zoe is visiting. She’s stopping off on her way to another resort somewhere, not that I can remember where, she travels so much with work.’

‘What does she do?’

‘She’s a travel writer, she gets to stay in loads of fancy-schmancy places reviewing them for accessibility.’

‘Has she visited you before?’

‘No, none of my friends from the Cove have, but Zoe coming out…’ her voice had turned soft, wistful, ‘it’ll be amazing.’

He wondered at the look in her eye, the tone to her voice. ‘What do you have planned?’

She took a long breath, ‘We’re going to surf… it’ll be her first time back on a board since… well, you know.’ She turned to face the window; her eyes unseeing on the passing world. ‘Zoe was my surfer pal, after Koa, she helped fill that void, she was my sanity, my partner on the waves, and after the accident… well, it wasn’t possible anymore.’

He could hear the weight of it in her voice. ‘You shouldn’t feel guilty, you know.’

She gave him a sharp look. ‘I didn’t say…’

‘You didn’t have to, it was the way you described the accident to me, how you compared yours and Lils’ injuries to those of V and Zoe, how you look when you talk about it.’

Her lips quirked a little. ‘Well, I don’t need to worry about V anymore, she has her man who loves her regardless, just as he ought to.’ She gave a soft sigh. ‘They got engaged at Christmas and it was so perfect, so lovely, and they’re happy, really happy.’

He couldn’t help wondering from her dreamlike tone whether for all she acted like she didn’t want that for herself, deep down it was there, a need she couldn’t completely quash. He shook off the thought, he had no business probing there, and turned his mind to Zoe’s visit instead.

‘And Zoe, getting her on a board again, surely that will show you it doesn’t