Read Ahead in the Heat for Free Online

sand.
    At least his big donation meant he got house calls from Annie rather than having to go into her office. Money did count for something.
    Except the downside of training at his house meant they were training by the beach. It was bullshit. He was still looking at the one place he’d kill to be. Surfing cleared his head to make him feel like something more than a dirty little kid.
    He’d lost that. He’d injured himself and lost that connection to the water.
    He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone more than three days without hitting the waves. Even in January, he’d wear a full-body wet suit. Some of the best waves came when the weather was shitty and storms were rolling in offshore.
    “When do I get to surf?” It was still difficult for him to breathe, which was hard to understand. All he’d done were some arm lifts and extensions. Under normal circumstances, he could run five miles against the extra resistance of soft sand, then do forty-five minutes of weightlifting. But sweat had sprung up across his forehead. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and slugged back some Powerade.
    “When you can do five overhead lifts without breaking a sweat.” She was folding up the table she’d brought along with her. He’d had to liefacedown on it and swing his arm up and down as if he were a kid playing come-get-me with the monster under the bed. He’d felt stupid. Worse than that.
    His shoulder throbbed in a different way than it had over the past week. It was less sharp pain and more like a steady ache. “That’s easy. I just won’t drink any water the day before and there’ll be no sweat.”
    “Oh yay,” she said with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “Screw up your health in order to game the system. Good plan.”
    He capped his drink and put it down on the edge of the stairs. “I wasn’t serious.”
    She sighed. “I know. Sorry. You didn’t deserve that one. It’s just been a long day.”
    “It’s only eight. What could be wrong?”
    Her hair was pulled back in her short ponytail, complete with a thick fringe of bangs. But she’d left off the eye makeup, and purple shadows clung underneath her lashes. She shook her head. “You don’t really care.”
    He stood, his stomach giving a weird little flip. Was that what she thought of him? It didn’t say much about him, did it. He gently stretched his arm, letting the pain burn through his muscles. It wasn’t all bad pain. There was the sweet sting of muscles being able to do what they wanted for the first time in a couple weeks. The sun rose above the house behind them, streaking warmly through the air. The water called his name, but even he knew it would be foolish to grab a board and try anything stupid. “Maybe I won’t care, but give me a shot. Maybe it’ll be more like a distraction.”
    She sighed, but her hands stopped messing with the straps and struts of the table. She turned away from him. Her shoulders were narrow and her back even skinnier. She wore a T-shirt with shorts that showed off toned legs. Not surprising, considering how much she skateboarded. She had a skinned knee too, as if she were a kid. But the swell of her perky ass was all woman. “I’ve got this boy who comes by every now and then. Tim. He can grind for fucking miles. He’s got shockingly red hair and pale skin. Turns out, skin that pale—it shows bruises really well.”
    “Shit,” Sean muttered.
    “Yeah.” Her shoulders lifted and dropped as she sighed. “He came around at four this morning.”
    “His parents?”
    “Dad.” Her voice broke even on that tiny, simple word, but she stayed turned away from him. Her shoulders bowed in farther, almost as if she were trying to hide.
    Sean turned toward the water. She obviously wanted a minute of privacy. A breeze on its way offshore tickled the back of his neck. At least his mom had never raised a hand to him. He’d been lucky in that respect. It had been part of why he’d never had a way out, which was