Moving in Reverse by Katy Atlas Page A

wearing
anything over the bikini?”
    Blake shot me a mischievous grin. “Oh,
you’ll see. And you should probably leave your phone here,” he
added. “Wouldn’t want it to get wet.”
    I smiled, excited and exasperated at
the same time, and set my purse down on his coffee tale.
    “ Ok,” I held up my empty
hands. “Now where to?”
    Blake only lived a few blocks from the
beach, so I was surprised when he led the way back out to his car.
I climbed into the passenger seat, buckling my seatbelt and leaning
my head against the warm leather. Blake punched in a code to open
the gate and turned right, away from the Santa Monica Pier and the
early morning runners on the boardwalk.
    He only drove for a few minutes,
turning into a parking space and climbing out of the car, pulling
my door open a second later.
    “ Where are we going?” I
asked, as Blake led the way toward the beach. He paused at a bench
that overlooked about a mile of open sand, and turned back to
me.
    “ You’ll see. Wait
here.”
    I shook my head, exasperated, but sat
down on the bench. The sun was up now, but it was still early
enough that the beach was basically empty. They say that New York
is the city that never sleeps, but the truth was that early
mornings are pretty peaceful wherever you are. I always liked the
streets best early in the morning, empty and grey in the first
light of the day.
    But the ocean, that was something
else. There was something so ethereal about it, glinting in the
morning sun. I shivered, pulling my knees up to my
chest.
    And then something neon blue dropped
into my lap. I looked down, uncomprehending, and felt the fabric
between my fingers.
    “ A wet suit?”
    I turned around to face Blake and a
total stranger. Both of whom were holding surfboards.
    “ I, um,” I paused, feeling
‘I don’t know how to surf’ on the tip of my tongue. But I was in
California, with my boyfriend, who wanted to go surfing.
    I swallowed it.
    “ What the heck,” I said
with a smile, shaking the wetsuit out in front of me. “No sharks,
right?”
    Blake grinned back. “Let’s
hope.”
    I picked up one of the boards and
followed Blake toward the water. “You know I have absolutely no
idea how to do this, right?”
    He looked over his shoulder at me, the
sun glinting off his hair like the ocean. “Don’t worry, Case. I
won’t let you fall.”
     
     
    But Blake Parker was a big fat liar,
because we surfed for two hours and I fell. Every. Single.
Time.
    My muscles were starting to turn to
jelly when Blake suggested we’d do one more and then call it a
day.
    “ Pretend you’re on a
balance beam,” he suggested, trying to be helpful.
    “ Trust me, that won’t
help,” I said sheepishly, thinking about the year or so of
gymnastics lessons that my parents had paid for before we’d all
realized that anything involving balance and coordination was never
going to be my strength.
    “ Here we go,” Blake said,
eyeing a wave that was headed toward us. “Wait, and...
go.”
    I paddled forward, feeling the wave
under me and jumping my feet onto the board the way Blake had
taught me. Taking a second to catch my balance, I kept my knees
bent, and slowly took my hands off the board.
    You’ve got
this , I thought, trying to psych myself
up. I kept my arms out for balance as I slowly tried to stand
up.
    And then, for a second, I was surfing.
I was on the board, stable and standing on the surface of the ocean
as the wave started to slow down, reaching the shore. I let out a
whoop, unable to contain myself.
    So this is what people like about
surfing, I thought as the board slowed down and I jumped into the
water — my own choice, this time.
    Blake swam up behind me a moment
later.
    “ You’re a natural,” he
grinned, splashing a little water at me. “Was it fun?”
    “ So fun,” I murmured,
still out of breath.
    We dragged our boards halfway up the
breach and laid them down, each of us sitting on one with our legs
to the side.
    “ Did you