A Matter of Forever (38 page)

“I have been waiting for this day for years,” Logan yells over the roar of the boat’s engine. He looks maniacal, he’s so excited. “Storm of the century!”

“You’re sounding very Patrick Swayze right now, dude. It’s a little creepy.”

He just fist pumps in the air, leaning his head back to howl.

Seriously, though. How did I get to this place, both metaphorically and physically? I mean, shit, I’ve been surfing for all of five months; guys who have their heads screwed on right do not attempt a break like Mavericks after being on a board for such a little time. I should know, considering. And now, I’m staring at some sick, monstrous waves in front of me and it’s like I’ve finally come home, that this is where I belong. And that maybe, just maybe, I’ll find all the answers I’ve been searching for to questions just out of reach on these waves, which is not normal for a guy who spent the past four years in Arizona and the twenty before that in Minnesota and never saw the ocean until he visited his roommate’s family for Christmas break one year.

“Bro, I am so glad you finally got your head out of your ass and got out here,” Logan is saying to me. “Jesus. If I had to spend one more summer in Arizona ...”

I’ve heard that for four years running now, even since we were freshmen in undergrad school trapped in a dorm room together. “I kind of had to wait to get my acceptance letter. Wasn’t going to move myself across the country again without it, you know?”

I still don’t understand the deep need inside of me that insisted on moving to California. For most of college, I kept thinking I’d head back to Minnesota, even though nothing was really left for me there. As an orphan, my parents are long gone, as are all of my grandparents. But then Logan kept hammering me about his hometown of Santa Cruz, and ... damn, I don’t know. California sounded perfect for grad school.

He does this horrible wink-wink thing. “Sure you were.”

Asshole. Although, he’s totally right. So there was more than one reason. And yeah, it was a pretty fantastic reason.

Logan never knows when to stop, though. “Nice, trying to pin your move on school. Just wait until I report that one back.”

I’m not worried. I simply flip him off.

“Truth is, you weren’t thinking with your head, that was for sure.”

I punch him in the arm for that one.

All I get in return is a lazy grin. “That said, what the fuck was
I
thinking,” Logan says, “going to school in the desert?”

“You were thinking free ride,” I smirk. “Scholarships are handy like that.”

“Don’t start that shrink shit on me.” He throws a ball of wax at me. “This is a shrink-free zone, remember?”

I just laugh. He knows I’m right. I’m pretty damn good at reading peoples’ emotions.

Thirty minutes later, I’m paddling like hell, the waves roaring around me as other surfers fight for their spots on this monster I’m ready to fall down on, and all I can think is:
finally
. There’s white foam all around me, and Jesus,
this is what I’ve been missing.

I’m home.

“Did you guys have fun?”

I throw my bag down on the tile and lean over and give Ash a kiss. She’s barefoot and hot as hell right now, wearing one of my college sweatshirts and tiny shorts. “Yeah, it was fun.”

“Fun?” She laughs, shakes her head so that her light, golden brown waves go flying. “Fun is going down to the boardwalk. Fun is definitely not risking your life just for a high. I totally expect this sort of behavior from him,”—she hooks a thumb toward her brother—“but not from you.”

“You make me sound so boring,” I murmur, pulling her close. Damn, she smells so good right now, like vanilla and cake, which makes sense since she works at a bakery until she finds a job out here.

“Oh, you’re definitely not boring,” she murmurs back, standing up on her tiptoes to kiss me. “I don’t think anyone could ever call you boring.”

The same could be said for her.

And ... then Logan is there, shoving his hands between us. We both sigh and then laugh. “Not in front of me,” he says. “It’s bad enough you guys are living together now. I don’t want to see my best friend and sister makin’ babies, you know?”

Ash kicks his butt; he just grins and heads toward the fridge.

“So, you survived,” she says to me.

I pretend to look wounded. “You didn’t think I would?”

I did more than survive. I lived, I think. When I hit the white water after my first ride, I had this moment, though, where I looked around for ... I don’t know. Something. Somebody? Not Logan, though. It was weird. I wanted to share this moment with ... hell, I don’t know. Somebody that should have been here?

“I had faith in you, baby,” Ash is saying. “When you put your mind to something, you always do it.”

I’ve definitely got my mind on a few things right now, and they don’t have a thing to do with surfing.

Logan passes over beers to the both of us before cracking his open on the counter. “You’re like a communist, Ash. You grew up on the ocean. Hell, you learned to surf before I did. How could you say that about Mavericks?”

She takes a log swig before saying, “It’s because I grew up surfing that I say this about Mavericks.” And then, “Lo, I love you, you’re my favorite brother—”

“Your only bro,” he pipes in. “And your twin. So, there’s that.”

She simply smiles. “But honestly. You have a college degree. Don’t you know what
communist
means?”

“Not all of us went to an Ivy League, babe.”

She turns to me. “Somebody switched babies in the hospital. I can’t possibly be related to him.”

Logan pulls a lime out of the fridge and tosses it onto a cutting board. “More like you were a greedy little twin who siphoned all the good stuff in mom while we were baking.”

She rolls her eyes. “We’re fraternal twins. We had separate amniotic sacs, you idiot.”

It’s nuts, but I envy them their bickering. It’s not real; these two are as tight as they come. As an only child, I would kill for this kind of relationship. It’s embarrassing, and not anything that I ever tell Ash, but part of me is resentful for what they have. Sometimes I wonder if, in a past life or something, I had a twin of my own, because all too often it feels like I miss him or her so much without even knowing who they are. Like I’m missing a limb or something. My psych advisor tells me it has something to do with being an orphan, but ... I don’t know. It’s eerie, and every day the sensation grows stronger.

I even dreamed about it one night. Dreamed about surfing with someone who looked like me. Woke up feeling ... sad. And yet, hopeful all at once.

“Why you keep hanging out with this knucklehead is beyond me,” she’s saying to me.

As her brother slices the lime for our beers, I pull her close. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have met you, would I?”

Logan cackles. “He’s got a point, Ash!”

She looks up into my eyes, and I’m wishing her brother were far, far from here right now. Because my girl is sexy as hell right now. Meeting her was the luckiest day of my life. “Okay. I’ll give him that.”

Logan comes back over and shoves lime wedges in our beers. Then he holds one up. “To surviving Mavericks.”

To coming home, I think.

We clink our glasses together and take long swigs.

“And, to you two crazy kids. You’re fucking nuts, moving in together at such a young age—”

“We’re twenty-four and five,” Ash reminds him at the same time I say, “Mid-twenties aren’t exactly young, dude.”

“But I guess everybody has a soul mate, right?”

Yeah, I think as I look down at my girlfriend of two years. My heart twists in this funny, blissed out dance. They really do.

I make my way out of the house, having napped way too long this afternoon. It was a wonderful luxury, though; lately, it seems there’s never enough time to just relax anymore.

Jonah and Kellan are already down at the beach. I can see them; they’re probably a hundred feet away from the wrap-around porch, waxing their surfboards as they talk.

I drop down onto one of the rockers; I don’t want them to know I’m up just yet. I like these moments where I can simply watch them doing things like this. Actually, I like watching them do just about anything, especially when they have no idea I’m doing so.

Their heads are fairly close together, shiny black hair merging seamlessly together in the bright sunlight. It appears that Kellan is telling Jonah something funny, because my husband is smiling like crazy. Kellan’s smiling too, cracking up in his boyish way that never fails to charm me. I can’t help but wonder what he’s saying; part of me yearns to just go down and make him start from the beginning so I can be part of it, but this is their thing, their time together. There’s a bond between the two of them that no one, not even me, can understand.

I watch them for a long time, rocking back and forth, contentment wrapping around me like a warm, soft blanket. Kellan’s story has now finished; Jonah’s shaking his head in that exasperated, amused way that I know all too well. And then he looks up toward the house, they both do, and I’m waved down to join them.

“You going to surf with us today?” Kellan asks me as I approach.

I sit down in the sand and let him know I’m more than happy to just watch, thank you very much.

He does this thing, where he almost rolls his eyes but then stops. “She’ll never get better if all she ever does is watch,” he complains to Jonah.

“It’s okay,” Jonah answers. “She can’t help if she wasn’t born with surfing in her blood. Give her time.”

“How much more time does she need? Hasn’t she been trying for over a decade now?”

I try my best to keep my mouth straight. “I’m sorry I can’t be awesome like you two.”

“You could be.” Kellan gives Jonah a meaningful look. “If you only practiced more.”

Jonah merely chuckles at this and leans over to kiss me. Butterflies swarm around my chest.

Kellan pretends to gag. “Do you two have to do that around me? You know it makes me uncomfortable. So.
Gross
.”

“So.
Sorry
,” I tease. “We’ll try to remember that next time.”

He stands up, smacking sand off his hands and knees. “No you won’t. You two are impossible. It’s
embarrassing
. You’re too
old
for this sort of behavior. None of my friends’ parents do this sort of stuff.”

Jonah exacerbates the situation by kissing me once more before also standing up. “I’m fairly certain they do. Your friends would not be in existence right now if their parents didn’t.”

“Ugh!” Kellan sticks his fingers in his ears. “That’s child abuse right there. You should never talk to a kid that way.”

“By the way, Kellan” I point out, “we’re certainly not old. In fact, we’re considered young parents by most standards.”

“Mom,” he huffs. “I thought we went over this. KC. Call me KC. Why is that so hard to remember?”

Jonah gives me a look that basically asks:
what can you do?
Our son has made it abundantly clear over the last few years he prefers the nickname Emily Graystone bestowed upon him than the one we gave him at birth. I mean, I’m not shocked by this. He and Emily are thick as thieves despite their age difference. And KC makes sense: K for Kellan, the uncle he doesn’t know, and C for his middle name Cameron, the grandpa he worships.

“Fine.” I let out an exaggerated sigh. “We’re not old,
KC
.”

He mutters something under his breath, but I see the mischief sparkling in his green eyes. My eyes—the only feature he seems to have gotten from me. Everything else is his father’s. Same hair, same complexion, same facial features—same everything except the color of his eyes. I have a stack of photos from Callie of Jonah and his brother all throughout their childhood. My boy is, without a doubt, more of a Whitecomb than a Lilywhite.

Even his craft. He is an Emotional, just like his father and uncle. I think Jonah hoped that he might be a Creator like me, but I always wished for another Emotional. When Astrid told us this—I talked her into being the Seer present at his birth, which only made sense—I was incredibly relieved. My son will be strong, she told me. And powerful. A true mover and shaker in the Magical worlds, much like his parents. But he’ll never have to worry about the weight of the worlds like I do, and that is a great comfort.

The newest Creator still hasn’t been born yet. But I look forward to when they do, so I can teach them all I’m still learning. Until then, I love bringing my son up knowing who he is, what he’s capable of, and allow him all the choices Jonah and I were once denied.

It’s been beautiful, watching him grow from tiny baby clutching my finger to a strong, smart boy. I see far more of his father and uncle in him than I do of myself; I have to admit, it secretly pleases me to no end. Jonah insists that Kellan—sorry,
KC
—is prone to wild emotions neither he nor his brother would have ever expressed (and therefore must come from me). And I’m glad for that, too, because KC’s freedom of emotions has allowed Jonah to open up his a little bit more over the years, to gradually let go of notions his father tried to drill into him.