The Shore (6 page)

Ryan had just enough time after returning from her lunch with Abby to play a little catch on the beach with Berkley and get ready for her date with Cody. She was grateful she had spent the afternoon with Abby. It was great catching up with her, but it also helped keep her mind off her upcoming date. She liked Cody, and the more she thought about the date, the more nervous she got.

Knowing they were climbing the dunes that night, she wasn't quite sure what to wear. She wanted to be cute, but the dunes weren't going to be easy and she'd likely be sweating by the time they were done. Staring at her clothing options, she heard her phone ding with a text message.

“Oh, crap!” she said out loud to no one, realizing she hadn’t called Madison to let her know how the date had gone the day before.

She picked up her phone and smiled, seeing the text was from Cody.

Cody: 
Hey. Got caught up on a project and am running about 20 minutes late. Be there as soon as I can.

Ryan was happy to see he had been able to dive back into his work after they had texted earlier. She knew what those creative ruts were like, and they sucked. Plus, his 20 minute delay meant she’d have a chance to call Madison and fill her in. Before she made the call, she sent a quick text back to Cody.

Ryan: 
No problem. See you when you get here.

Smiling to herself as she dialed Madison’s number, she loved that he was courteous enough to let her know he was running late. Chalk up another positive mark for the guy.

“Where in the hell have you been? I wasn’t sure if you were dead in a fucking ditch somewhere!” Madison answered.

“So much for hi then, huh?” Ryan said, laughing.

Only Madison.

“Hi,” Madison answered meekly.

“I’m fine, Mad. I’m sorry I didn’t call last night. We got back late and I was exhausted from spending the day at the beach. Still love me?”

“No.”

Ryan laughed again. Madison could be so dramatic when she wanted. “If you were that worried, why didn’t you call me?”

“Oh, so now it’s my fault I thought you were dead?”

Ryan couldn’t help but laugh again. God, she loved this girl! “So how are things going? Miss me at the office today?”

“Fuck yes. It’s not the same when you’re not here. But I don’t want to talk about this place. How are things with Cody?”

“Things with Cody are… they’re great. But I have one work question for you.”

“What’s that?”             

“How are things going? Has anyone been looking for me?”

“First of all, that was two questions. Second, you’re on vacation. I’m not talking about work with you. If someone needs you, they know how to find you.”

“Fair enough.” Ryan was quiet for a second. “I guess the world is still spinning then.”

“Ring around the fucking rosie. Enough stalling. Tell me about Cody.”

Ryan could picture Madison sitting at her desk, chewing on a pencil, dying to drag all of the sordid details out of her. “Well, we went to the beach yesterday, hung out with a bunch of his friends…”

“Okay, are you going to get to the good stuff or what?”

“Are you only interested in whether or not he’s a good kisser?”

“And if he’s got a smoking hot body.” Madison added and Ryan knew she was 100 percent serious.

“Yes, Mad, he is a
very
good kisser. And you would not have been disappointed when he took his shirt off.”

“Woohoo!” Madison nearly screamed in the phone.

Ryan really hoped the girl was at home and not in the office. “Oh, shut it, Mad.” Ryan could feel herself blush even though she was alone and no one could see her.

“It’s about time you find yourself some hunky dude that treats you right. He did treat you right, right? If not, I’ll come down there and kick his ass.”

Ryan laughed. “Yes, Mad, he was a perfect gentleman.”

That is, if gentlemen kissed like that.

“Are you going to see him again?”

“I am,” Ryan said and Madison could hear the smile in her voice. “In fact, he’s coming to pick me up in about ten minutes. He’s running late, which is why I had time to call you.”

“I see, ditching your friends already?”

Ryan laughed. “No. I ended up running some errands and stuff this morning, and then had a late lunch with Abby. I think I’ve told you about her.”

“Wasn’t she the girl you hung out with on your vacations when you were younger?”

“Yep, that’s her. You’d love her. She is totally down to earth and can make me pee my pants I laugh so hard.”

“That’s cool. Glad you had a chance to catch up with her.”

“Yeh, me, too.” Ryan heard a door slam. “Hey, Mad, I think Cody is here so I need to go.”

“Okay. Have fun tonight. And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“Umm, Mad? That would leave me with a
lot
of options.”

“Exactly! Let me know how it goes. If you happen to walk down his happy trail, I’m definitely going to want details!”

“Oh my God, Mad!”

“Love you, girl! Have fun and don’t forget your raincoat!”

“Don’t you mean
his
raincoat?”

Ryan heard Madison make a kissing mwah sound in the phone and the line went dead.

She is such a shit!

Laughing to herself, Ryan walked to the door to greet Cody. She hadn’t realized just how excited she was to see him until he was standing on the other side of the glass. He had on his ball cap, of course, backwards this time, a dark green t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts. The color of his shirt made his eyes appear darker than they had been the day before. She opened the door.

“Hi,” Ryan said, a smile on her face.

Cody didn’t say anything. Instead, he wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her to him, and pressed his lips to hers.

He had been looking forward to this moment all day.

When he pulled back, he left his arm around her waist and smiled. “Hi.”

Ryan looked fucking gorgeous. She had pulled her hair into a side ponytail so it laid over one shoulder and was wearing two tank tops, one blue, the other white, and a pair of denim shorts. He was going to have a hard time keeping his hands off her tonight.

“Well, hello to you, too.” Ryan grinned and gave him a light kiss.

“Sorry I’m late. You ready to head out?” Cody asked. If he was being honest with himself, he would have been more than happy to forget the sunset and walk her straight up the stairs and spend the night kissing her and introducing himself to every part of her body. Yes, he wanted to get to know her better, but there was a magnetic attraction he felt whenever he was around her. He couldn’t help but want to touch her.

“Yep. Just let me grab my purse and I’ll be ready to go.”

Cody waited for her by the front door, not trusting himself to follow her up the stairs. They might have caught the sunrise the next morning, but he was certain they’d never make it out of the house to watch the sunset tonight.

When Ryan reached the bottom of the stairs, Cody took her hand and walked her out to the truck. He hadn’t turned off the ignition, yet another reason following Ryan upstairs would have been a bad idea, and country music was coming through the windows.

“For such a Bon Jovi fan, you sure listen to a lot of country music,” Ryan said as she jumped into the cab.

Cody closed her door and walked around to the other side to jump in. “I’d like to think I’m pretty open to what I listen to, but I’ve been on a country kick lately. Besides, I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh, no, I’m fine with it. I like this song.” They smiled at each other as Cody put the truck in reverse and backed out of the driveway.

“How was your day? It sounds like you hit a good spot on your project,” Ryan said, genuinely interested.

“I did. I was stuck on a bit of code that hadn’t been working and I finally found the bug.”

“Don’t you love it when that happens?” Ryan asked excitedly. “I mean, it sucks when it’s happening, but it’s so gratifying when you finally figure out the problem.”

Cody laughed. Not many people really understood what it was like to program. The logic involved. The many different ways the task could be handled, and that what was programmed could affect other portions of the program. The fact that accidentally typing a colon instead of a semicolon could be detrimental to the entire project and take hours to find.

“I’m glad you get it. Not many people do.”

Ryan smiled as Cody took her left hand in his right.

“And how was your day? Did you enjoy having the day off?” Cody asked.

“I did! I had lunch with Abby,” Ryan said.

“I heard. How is she?”

“How did you know?”

“Mac,” they said together and started laughing.

“Of course,” Ryan said with a smile. “I should have known.”

“She likes to keep everyone in the know, whether they want to be or not.”

“Sounds like you guys have a pretty close relationship.”

“I guess you could say that. Mac is probably the best thing that ever happened to Riley, and I’m happy for him. And she’s been a pretty great sister-in-law. In fact, they’ve been together for so long, it’s kind of like she’s just my sister, minus the whole ‘in-law’ part.”

“That’s really cool. I don’t get to spend a lot of time with Paige and her husband, but we aren’t really that close.”

“That’s too bad,” Cody said, not really wanting to talk about Paige, but it wasn’t like he could change the subject either. He was going to have to tell Ryan what happened eventually. Just not tonight.

“They live in San Francisco now. Her husband, Justin, is one of the trainers for the Niners, and Paige is a partner at her law firm.”

“Wow, that’s pretty impressive.” He saw the opportunity to change the subject and took it. “How does that work when the Niners play the Panthers?”

“Umm, no offense, but I could not care less about the Panthers. Now the Packers, they’re a different story.”

Cody came to a stop at the light and turned his head to look at Ryan in shock. “Seriously? The Packers?” He had just found the first thing wrong with the woman.

“What about them?” Ryan felt herself get defensive.

“How long have you lived in Charlotte? How could you root for anyone but the Panthers?”

“I grew up in Wisconsin, remember? No matter where I live, I will always,
always
, be a Packers fan. Green and gold, baby!”

“Wow. And here I thought you were shaping up to be the perfect woman,” Cody said with a sly grin on his face.

“Didn’t you know? Perfection wears green and gold,” she grinned.

Cody shook his head. “We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.”

Ryan looked at him slyly. “Okay.”

“So how was your lunch with Abby?”

“It was really good! I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve seen her. We used to spend every day together when I was here.”

“You guys just kind of grew apart then?”

“I guess. You know high school, friends, college… The summers kind of faded away into real life.” She stopped for a moment, then added, “She told me about Trey.”

Cody didn’t say anything, he just nodded slowly.

“I’m glad she had a place to come home to.”

“Yeh, me, too.”

Cody pulled the truck into the parking lot across from the dunes. The lot was for a two-story strip mall, but it looked as though all of the stores were already closed.

“Are we okay to park here? It looks like the parking lot is for all of these stores,” she asked.

“Oh yeh. We'll be fine. This location had become such a popular place to watch the sunset, the city finally put in a crosswalk for people who parked in this lot to climb the dunes. It's just assumed people will park here. And besides, they've never ticketed me, so I think we're safe,” he grinned.

They hopped out of the truck and Cody grabbed a bag he had tied down in the bed. Slinging it over his shoulder, he walked over to Ryan’s side of the truck and gave her a quick kiss as he reached for her hand. “Ready for the climb?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Ryan answered. She knew the final destination would be worth it, she just wasn’t looking forward to the actual climb.

After they crossed the street and stepped onto the sand, they bent down to remove their shoes. Cody put his hand out for Ryan’s, and she gave him her shoes with a question on her face. Her unasked question was quickly answered as Cody put both pairs of shoes into the bag.

“I’ve just learned it’s easier to throw them in a bag than carry them,” Cody shrugged as he put his arms through the straps to carry the bag on his back.

“Race you to the top?” Cody grinned and took off up the dune.

Ryan followed behind him, doing her best to keep up but failed miserably. How was she supposed to compete with someone who ran the dunes for
fun
every morning? She had never been able to wrap her head around the idea that someone thought running was fun to begin with, but adding the dunes to the mix? Wasn’t that the definition of insanity?