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Marshall was staring at her. She was just tipsy enough that she actually considered leaning forward slightly and pressing her lips to his. The ringing of Marshall’s phone in his pocket startled her back into reality and saved her from doing something she would definitely regret.
    They stepped apart and he fished the phone out of his pocket. He answered it as they headed back over to their table.
    “Hey baby,” he said. Eva made a face before she even realized what she was doing, it must be Simone. Marshall listened to what was being said on the other end of the line for a long time before saying, “Oh my God, that’s terrible Simone. What did the cops say?”
    Eva waved at the cocktail waitress but she was busy, so she got up and went over to the bar. Marshall glanced up at her as she left, but he was still listening to whatever Simone was saying. Eva felt a little bad about making a face; whatever Simone was telling him must be intense from the look on his face. She had already had three…or maybe four drinks though, so she didn’t really care…about anything.
    Eva stepped up to the bar and tried to get the bartender’s attention. He was at the other end of the bar and being barraged by a gang of college students. Eva turned to look back at where Marshall sat and suddenly there was a young man in her face. He had blonde hair that looked like it was bleached from hours in the sun or the ocean and a tan line on his face from either sunglasses or snowboarding goggles. He had a long, lean body, but it was muscular in places like his biceps and calves. Eva could see his calves because he was wearing a pair of long board shorts and a tank top with a surfing logo across the front. He was really good-looking and normally Eva would have been intimidated beyond her powers of speech, tonight was different though, her inhibitions had been armed with a thick coating of Pink Ladies.
    “Hi,” he said with a toothy grin.
    “Hi,” Eva said.
    “I’m Justin.”
    “Hi Justin,” she said, looking over at Marshall, still on the phone. “I’m Eva.”
    “Where are you from, Eva?” he asked.
    “Right here in North Carolina,” she told him.
    “Where are you headed?”
    “California, how about you…Justin?” she said with a look that moved from his head to his toes.
    His smile turned lustful as he returned her look. Then he said,
    “California too, I’m following the waves.”
    “You’re a surfer?” she said.
    “Yes ma’am. All the way to my soul.”
    “I thought you looked like some kind of athlete,” she told him, batting her long eyelashes. She felt silly flirting like one of the empty headed models that Marshall usually dated, but she was here to have fun and that’s what she was doing. The bartender approached then and Eva told him what she wanted. Justin gave him his order too and told the bartender,
    “I’ve got hers.”
    “Why thank you, Justin,” she said. Eva drank her drink through the straw as she and Justin talked. He told her he had borrowed his father’s RV and he was making a trek across the U.S. from New York to California. He was picking up a few friends when he got to Arizona and then they would head to their destination in California.
    “So is it surfing season in California?” she asked him.
    “California surfing season is year round, baby! We’re gonna hit the Mavericks and Encinitas’s Swami.”
    Eva laughed and said, “It sounds like you’re speaking a different language.”
    “The Mavericks are a few miles north of Half Moon Bay. It’s a natural phenomenon, dude…I mean, Eva. It’s not just a wave, it’s a perfect wave.”
    “What makes a perfect wave?” she asked.
    “It’s a 20-foot wave that breaks like a hollow 6-footer. It explodes from top to bottom so fiercely that it makes grown men shudder.”
    “It sounds fun, and dangerous,” Eva said.
    “Fun yes, but I live for danger,” he said. Even drunk, Eva wanted to roll her eyes, but she forced herself not to. She