The Tour

twenty five / reality

Evan: we're at the Sanders for game night, come over when you get back

The notification appeared on my watch as I brought my wrist out of the water. I hadn't been in the habit of wearing a surf watch for the past few years, but I picked one up and had been using it over the past month or so. It was fun to see how fast I went on waves and how many I caught in a session, but I mostly just wanted it in case something urgent came through about Will during the first few weeks.

"How many more you got in you?" Alani called from her spot in the water twenty feet away.

I glanced around at the open ocean, looking at the rapidly setting sun on the horizon. The waves were coming in at about six feet and had been fun for the past few hours. "Actually, I think I'm going to ride one in. Evan just alerted me that we have game night at the Sanders."

She nodded and turned to paddle towards the lineup. "Sounds good, I'll follow you in then."

The next set came quickly, and I popped up, gliding over the glassy surface of the wave. Drops of water sprayed me as the wave began to curl over, and I squatted down and allowed the crystalline water to bend over me. Everything was bathed in a teal shadow for a few moments before I shot back into the evening light. The whitewater brought me slowly back to the shore where I waited for Alani. She ran up the beach a few minutes later and we headed back towards our cars.

I threw my board into the back of the old truck that had been turned into a surf beater. Alani hopped in her car and rolled her window down to face me. "Have fun with your boys," she winked before pulling out of the parking lot.

I laughed at her before leaning over to throw my dripping hair up into a bun. It wasn't going to be worth it to shower before going to see everyone, so the change of clothes in the truck would do the trick.

It was a half an hour drive to the other side of the island, and by the time I turned onto our street the sun had almost completely set. The sky was still slightly blue, but most of it was dark, leaving the light on the Sanders's front porch to illuminate the house. I pulled into the driveway behind their cars and jumped out of the truck.

As soon as I turned to close the car door I heard their front door squeak open. Someone was standing on the porch, but it was hard to tell who it was with the way that they were illuminated from behind. I walked up the path to the door, squinting slightly to make out the figure.

He was leaning up against the door frame, one shoulder on the wood and the other hand in the front pocket of his jeans. My feet seemed to slow down as I gazed up at him, not quite believing my eyes.

Will stood before me on his own two feet, a smug grin on his face as he took in my shocked expression. "Is this real?" I breathed, unable to take my eyes off him.

He continued to stand silently, pushing himself off of the door frame to stand on both feet. There was a slight wobble when he did this, but he didn't seem nervous as he extended his arms wide.

My heart felt like it was going to burst with joy. I ran the last few steps towards him, wrapping my arms around his middle and earning a slight grunt from him as he rocked backwards. His long arms circled around me, holding me close to his chest as he rested his head on mine. After leaning down to talk to him for so long, it was a crazy reminder of how tall he actually was. Back at his full six three height he beat me by quite a few inches, but it only made me feel happier.

After a few seconds he pulled away slightly, bringing his hands to rest on my waist. His brown eyes stared down at mine, a smile still stretching slightly across his lips. I only had another second to think about his lips before he was leaning down, tilting his head and bringing one hand from my waist to my cheek. His lips were pressed against mine in the next second, working gently with the trace of the smile still left. I brought one hand to the back of his neck and stood up on my tip toes to reach him. My chest felt like it might explode.

I started to smile into the kiss, and he pulled away and stood up straight a few seconds later. The grin wasn't going to leave my face anytime soon, and he chuckled lightly as he looked back down at me. He pulled me back into another hug, and even with all of the other things swirling through my mind I was still wondering how much arm work he had been doing that possibly allowed him to hold me this tightly.

We stood there in each other's arms for another few minutes before I finally let him go and backed up to get a full view of him. "How..." I trailed off.

Will brought one hand through his long hair, smoothing it back. It was impossible for me not to notice the way that his bicep flexed when he did it, but I quickly forced my  attention back to his face. Preferably not his lips.

"Well, after I let you come to PT I got a lot of feeling back in my legs, pretty much all of it. They started to put me through these machines that basically walk for you, just for the sake of getting your muscles moving in the right ways. I still had no control over my movement, but one day about a month ago I just got some. Only a few toes, but it was huge. I almost called you and told you a hundred times, but I wanted you to see it all at once more."

I nodded and he continued, "It just came back, slowly but surely. It's honestly a miracle," he shook his head, "No one expected it to happen, least of all me. The doctors are still pretty surprised. Young muscles and a bit of God, I'm thinking."

"This is crazy," was pretty much all that I could muster up.

"I know," another smile spread over his face, "Sorry for kinda lying about learning to walk along with your future kids the other day."

I had to stop my brain from running down a rabbit hole with the possibility of him being the dad of my future kids- gosh, we've only kissed once, get it together. "I'll let it slide this once."

He shuffled himself around so that he was facing the front door again. "Okay, can I have a hand though, because I was kind of showing off and I still need a walker to walk without falling over."

I laughed before walking over to him, where he placed a hand on my shoulder to steady himself as he walked jerkily forward. It wasn't pretty yet, but he had time.

As soon as he opened the door we were met with clapping and cheering. My face reddened immediately and I buried my face into Will's shoulder. He had thrown his arm around me upon our reception, so he was working as a great shield from the embarrassment now.

"Guess you won't be saving your first kiss until marriage," Noah said dryly from the couch while Evan cackled next to him.

"I've already been waiting my whole life to kiss her, I figured that was long enough," Will responded.

I'm pretty sure that the moms were close to tears in excitement. Will let me go after my dad stood up to give him a hug and his own dad gave him a pat on the back.

Evan looked over at me with a sigh, "I thought that I made myself very clear about you dating my teammates."

I laughed at that. "I feel like this is a little different though."

"Only if you think about it in the sense that Noah and I have had a bet going since we were like twelve, then it becomes slightly more acceptable."

My eyebrows shot up at that. "You guys have been placing bets? Who won?"

"Well actually, pretty much everyone that knows you has been talking about it for as long as we can remember,  so it wasn't just us. Just ask our dads about their over under bet... But anyway, I think I just won because I claimed that it would happen this year," Noah answered with a smug expression.

"In my defense, he has said that every single year, so that puts me on about a ten year win streak that just got broken," Evan responded.

I glanced across the room at Will, who was now leaning up against a walker and talking to my dad casually. He caught my eye over my dad's shoulder and gave me another grin. I wasn't sure if my heart was going to stop skipping beats for the rest of the night, but it seemed pretty worth it.

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Fun fact about the author time, my heart was also skipping beats as I wrote this. Possibly because I was nervous for this to actually happen, more likely because I'm pretty sure it skips like one every ten beats all of the time.

Anyways, lemme know your thoughts? Did you like the timing?

As always, thanks for reading :)))