Forbidden Boy

Hailey Abbott

been more the swimmer and surfer in the family, while Julia

Beyond the cluster of hot surfers, Julia

“Lucy!” She called out to her friend, but the crashing of a wave swallowed her voice. Julia

Julia

Forbidden Boy

like that so instantly. And the way he’d looked at her right before she ran off . . . Her stomach twisted into a million pretzels just thinking about it. He had looked at her the way she looked through her camera at a perfect shot—transfixed, amazed, like he could suddenly see everything clearly. Talking to Remi was the most fun she’d had in months—and she liked to think that she had a pretty awesome time, generally speaking. Their banter had been so breezy and electric. And now all she wanted was to pick up where they’d left off.

Well, Julia

She shook her head to herself. Although the realization made her vaguely sick, she couldn’t deny that seeing Remi might have been a one-time deal. Refusing to sulk on such a beautiful day, she paddled back into the crowd of laughing surfers and swimmers, feeling the sun warming her back through the water. Her muscles already loose from her swim, Jules stretched her arms as far as they could go, reaching out for the perfect slicing stroke and shooting through the water. About twenty yards out, she stopped swimming and bobbed up in the cool surf, waiting for the swell of waves behind her. Since she didn’t have a surfboard with her, she figured she would just ride waves toward the shore for a while, then ask to borrow someone’s board once she got the hang of it. As she heard the familiar roll of an approaching wave, Julia

Hailey Abbott

wave did. The growing wall of water caught up to her back and pushed her toward the beach. As the white bubbles of the breaking wave crashed over and around her, Julia

Gri

Bobbing under the water from time to time as she swam out, Julia

“Oops. Sorry about that, I’m a newbie,” Julia

“Oh my God!” It couldn’t be. It was just too surreal.

She’d met this guy for five perfect minutes at a party, and now he was popping up again the next day? These things only happened to Cinderella.

Remi’s eyes were the size of silver dollars and his eyebrows were knitted together in confusion. He was wearing board shorts, and his hair was still damp from his last dunk. He sat astride his surfboard with his bare calves dangling into the water, and his fingers absentmindedly drumming on the board’s surface. Jules realized with a shock of adrenaline that he’d been in the pack of surfers she’d been admiring earlier. He kept opening his mouth mechanically but no sounds came out.

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Forbidden Boy

“Um. Wow. Um. Just . . . um . . . wow. What are you doing here?” Julia

Remi opened and closed his mouth a few more times. He looked like a goldfish reaching for his fishy-flakes. A particularly hot goldfish.

“Are you okay? Are you lost? Are you suffering from sunstroke?” she went on, half-laughing, and fully hoping that she wasn’t hallucinating from the sun herself.

“I’m, uh, fine. Totally fine. Just . . . surprised.” Remi recovered quickly, ru

“Yeah, me too. If I remember correctly, you don’t usually make your big entrances upright.” Jules laughed, trying to play it cool even though her heart and her stomach were tumbling over each other and leapfrogging up into her throat.

Remi blushed, which of course made Julia

He looked slightly off his game—antsy and utterly unac-customed to the sun after a long, gray, Seattle spring.

Even in the bone-melting heat, Julia

“Were you . . . ?” Remi’s voice trailed off, but Julia

“Yeah, actually. Do you . . . ?” She laughed and tipped her head back toward the beach.

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Hailey Abbott

“Sure.” Remi beamed, sliding off his board and back into the cool water.

As they swam toward the sand, Julia

“The waves were awesome today,” Remi noted happily.

“They’ve been beautiful so far this summer,” Jules agreed. “It’s a good sign.”

“Is there some sort of Palisades folklore about what you can learn from a summer of good waves? Some sort of Southern Californian old wives tale?” Remi teased.

“Oh, yeah, definitely.” Julia

Remi laughed and splashed Julia

Forbidden Boy

a pier about a hundred yards down the beach. “Now it’s held on the boardwalk by the Fishtail. Have you been to the Fishtail yet?” Remi shook his head. “Oh, you definitely have to check it out. Everyone hangs out there in the summer. They have awesome live music. Let me know if you want to check out a show or something,” she finished shyly, casting her eyes toward the sand under her feet. “Oh! And over there . . .” Julia

“When we were in elementary school, we would have our ‘girls-only club’ meetings in the rocks under those cliffs. The ‘boys-only club’ was, like, three feet away.” She gri