Originally, the phrase 'dawn patrol' means a flight, especially during the early days of military aviation, undertaken at dawn or early morning in order to scout enemy positions. But when it comes to surfing, 'dawn patrol' is interpreted as the act of going out surfing at dawn.

It turned out, at four o'clock this morning, that Ed's way of making it up to me for last night was waking me up and dragging me out of my warm, comfortable bed to go surfing.

Don't get me wrong, I love surfing. But I also love sleep, and a girl's gotta have her beauty sleep, right?

"Skye?" Ed knocks on the side of my van before the sun has even risen.

I silently groan and roll over, wishing him to go away.

"Skye?" He knocks again, louder this time, "Skye? Are you awake?"

"I am now!" I yell, sitting up in bed.

Ed chuckles to himself, "Get yourself into your wetsuit; the waves are great out here."

"But it's still dark out!" I groan, flopping back onto the bed, hand flung over my eyes dramatically.

"Skye Jameson." Ed speaks again, sterner this time, "Get your cute butt out here right now, or I will break down your door and come and get you myself."

"Not Bessie!" I shriek and jump out of bed, flinging the side door open and glaring at the sexy god stood outside my van with a smug smirk on his face.

"Thought that would get you up." He laughed lightly, adjusting his board under his arm.

"Lemme get into my wetsuit." I roll my eyes and slam the door shut again.

It takes me around three or four minutes to drag my bikini and wetsuit onto my exhausted body, and, after a quick brush of my teeth and a quick wash of my face, I'm ready to go.

Jumping out of my van and seizing my board, I jog down to the ocean, where Ed, Sophie, Cole, Kai, and (surprisingly) Jessica are stood waiting for me.

The waves are awesome; this is the biggest I've seen them whilst being here, so a huge grin quickly stretches over my face.

"Hey everyone!" I smile widely at them when I reach where they're stood.

"Hey." Cole and Kai say almost in sync, and Sophie smiles a 'hi'.

"Have you ever been out on dawn patrol before?" Jessica asks, though not unkindly.

"Nope." I can't seem to stop smiling, "I've never ever been up this early, either. First time for everything, right?"

"Right." Ed confirms, winking at me, "C'mon then."

He grabs my hand and runs out into the surf, dragging me along with him, nearly yanking my arm off in the process.

Despite the magnitude of the waves, paddling out still easy, and my board glides through the choppy waters. I catch myself yawning widely as I sit up on my board.

Running my fingers over the top, I realise that I need to add some more wax after this session and make a mental note to do so.

"You good?" Ed asks me.

"I'm tired as hell." I roll my eyes, "But I'm still glad I'm out here."

"Enjoy it whilst you can." He looks out across the horizon, "There's a storm front moving in, and it's supposed to hit us in a couple of hours."

I move a bit closer to him, "Is that why you got me out here?"

"Nope." He pops the 'p', making me fixate on his lips... "I'm making up for yesterday—that's what today's all about."

"What are we doing after this, then?" I frown.

"I'll tell you when we go in." He tells me, and gestures to the wave approaching us, "After you."

"Thanks, babe." I grin, lie down on my board and do some short but powerful paddling to get me out in front of the wave.

It's just as I'm popping up onto my board, and beginning to ride the wave, that I realise that I just called Ed 'babe' for the first time. I don't know whether that changes something in our relationship, or whether I'm just overthinking things.

Either way, I push the thought to the back of my mind, and focus on the wave that I'm riding, ensuring that my body is balanced on my board, and that my eyes are focussed along the wave.

The barrel starts closing in on me, the wave cresting, so I duck down a little. Leaning into the wave, I continue riding it out, my fingers running through the silky water that's getting brighter by the second as the sun appears over the horizon.

Surprisingly, I make it out of the wave before it closes in on me and locks me inside—I rode the wave all the way until the end.

"GO SKYE!!!" Ed yells across to me, whooping before paddling to catch a wave of his own.

I smile widely and take a moment to sit up on my board and push my wet hair away from my face, revelling in the changing colours of the sky—the dark blue night sky transitions seamlessly into the streaked pink and orange tones of the morning sky, stars fading and being replaced by light clouds.

Paddling across, I make my way over to where the rest of the group now appear to be, sitting up on their boards, also admiring the sunrise.

"Hey." I breathe and sit up on my board as well.

Ed's nearly here as well, riding out the last of his wave, and he joins us, beaming at me.

"Hey, babe." He smirks at me, and I blush fiercely, despite the cool water.

Maybe it has changed something in our relationship...

"Is the sunrise always this beautiful here?" I question my friends, turning to watch the sun's ascent once more.

"Most of the time, yeah." Cole responds, much to my surprise, "But they're always more beautiful when you're watching them with people close to you."

"Woah," I joke, "Cold-hearted Cole has people close to him?"

Jessica laughs lights, "He wasn't always that way."

"Yeah," Ed joins in, "He used to be such a sweetheart when we were kids."

"Hey!" Cole exclaims indignantly, "I'm still right here, ya know?"

The smiles fall off everybody's faces, until Cole laughs, "I'm fine, guys! I've been a bit of a jerk recently, I get it."

"A bit of a jerk?" Jessica echoes, smirk pulling at her lips. "Cole, you are literally the biggest jerk I know."

"Well, Jessy." Cole turns to her, using a cute nickname that I've not heard anybody else use towards Jessica yet, "You dated this big jerk for a year and a half, so more fool you."

"It was good at the start." She smiles, closing her eyes and undoubtedly remembering the good times that they had.

I feel like every relationship is great at the start, because everything's so new and undiscovered and beautiful in every single way. It's wrong to even be thinking about the bad times whilst I'm living in the good times, but I know that it's only a matter of time before my luck runs out and I find myself in a ditch again.

"Ugh, relationships are way too much effort." Sophie groans, rolling her eyes.

"You won't say that when you find the one, Soph." Ed dishes out some brotherly advice.

"There's no such thing as 'the one'." Sophie scoffs back at him, beginning to paddle away.

"I wouldn't be so sure..." He says softly and his eyes catch mine, sending pleasurable shivers down my spine; his eyes are looking deep into my soul, and his facial expression reads: I want you; I want all of you.

And it's not just sexual desire either, it's romantic, and loving and in that moment, I want to stay with him for the rest of my life, and grow old and tired with him, watching the sunset over the horizon night after night in our little beach hut that he built from driftwood...

Then he looks away, and my illusion is shattered; I don't belong here. Never have, never will.

"I'm gonna catch some more waves." I announce to no one in particular and paddle out into the swell—thoughts whirling like the wavy ocean, and wheeling like the gulls above me.

Shaking my head, I position myself in order to catch another wave.

Before I know it, I've ridden five or six more waves with increasing greatness (if I do say so myself), and the sun is now quite high up in the sky.

"Hey." I breathe to Ed as I paddle across to him. He's frowning into the sun, so I ask, "Are you alright?"

His frown lessens ever so slightly as he turns to look at me, "I really like you, Skye."

"I...really like you too." I respond, frowning back, hoping he isn't going to say those three little words just quite yet. Actually, I don't know whether I want him to say them at all.

"And I..." He swallows, Adam's apple bobbing up and down, "I...erm—"

"Hey Teddy!" Cole yells to him, cutting him off.

"What's up, Cole?" He asks, looking a little annoyed at the guy who's supposed to be his best friend.

"Oh...did I interrupt something?"

Hell yeah! I want to yell at him; Ed was about to open up to me, and Cole came in like the blundering fool that he sometimes is and interrupted a very big something.

"Nah, man." Ed shrugs it off, "What's up?"

"I can come back later..." He floats on his board uncomfortably, probably sensing the tension between me and Ed.

"I think you should." I say bluntly, but try to make it as kind as possible.

"That's totally cool," He lies back down on his board and paddles away, "No problems at all."

"Wow." Ed huffs, "He was being surprisingly understanding."

"What were you gonna say before?" I ask.

"Well, erm..." He bites his lip, and picks at something on the leg of his wetsuit. "You know what Soph was saying earlier?"

"About 'the one'?" I check.

"Yeah, that's it." Ed nods.

"What about it?" I'm trying to keep cool, but I just want him to spit whatever he's going to say out already.

"Do you...do you believe in it?"

Hmm, that doesn't feel like that's everything....

"I'm not sure." I shrug, "There's a lot of things I don't understand, and one of those things is love. And 'the one', you know, I don't really get the whole idea of a soulmate..."

"I can help you understand." Ed says next, and my heart begins pounding so quickly it's a miracle that it doesn't spring out of my chest and straight into Ed's hands.

Involuntarily, I shiver, and then rush out, "That was a cold shiver, not a shiver at the thought of you helping me understa—"

"I know, Skye." He laughs, "I'm freezing cold too."

"Do you...wanna head back to my van?" I offer, shrugging a shoulder, "My solar shower should be warm."

"Yes, definitely." Ed's eyes literally lit up, "Besides, we need to finish up what we didn't get to end the other night..."

My jaw drops a little when I think about Ed's body pressing my body up against my van, and our hands running through each other's hair, and our passionate kissing that I never wanted to end...

Then the kettle boiled, and Ed had to go to work, to a job that he doesn't really need.

"How could I resist that offer?" I tease, and we paddle into shore.

Most of the group have left now already; only Cole and Jessica are still out surfing.

Ed and I race up to Bessie, boards under arms, and both of us end up with stitches from laughing so goddamn hard.

"Damn..." I wheeze, gently dropping my board to the floor, "You're pretty fast."

Ed laughs, following suit with his own board, "I'm just ready for my shower with you."

I laugh back at him, and go to check the solar shower.

"Oh shit." I chuckle, "I didn't put any more water in it."

"That's fine." Ed steps over to me and opens the side door of my van.

"We should ditch our wetsuits out here." I tell him, and we do so.

As soon as I clamber into my van, I rush over to the radio and plug my iPod in, hitting play on the next song. Next, I quickly tidy up my messy bed, not that it actually ended up mattering.

After a brief pause, the music starts playing and Ed climbs into my van.

"Hey." He smiles at me.

"Hi." I smile back.

The song that's on is the Ryan Riback Remix of 'Call on Me' by Starley, and its chill vibes relax me immensely.

Some people would say
To accept their fate
Well, if this is fate
Then we'll find a way to cheat

'Cause, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh we'll say a little prayer
But, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh if the answer isn't fair...

Ed wraps an arm around my shoulders and guides my lips up to his, and we kiss like this for a minute or two before he flops back on my bed, dragging me with him so that I'm lying on top of his stunning body.

He brushes a lock of wet, salty hair off my face, tucking it behind my ear, before kissing me again, his tongue slipping into my mouth easily. Then his hands move around behind me and start feeling and squeezing my ass.

A little moan escapes my mouth, and Ed grins against my lips, and we kiss again, becoming more and more intimate second by second.

Ed grips my ass a little tighter and I accidentally bite his bottom lip, sucking it inside my mouth. His tongue explores my mouth a little more, tasting every part of me.

Before we take this too far, I roll off him, breathing heavily as I stare up at the ceiling. Ed links his fingers through mine.

Part of me can't believe that I've got Ed on my bed beside me, but he's here, and I don't want this moment to end.

The song's just ending, so I hum the last few lines.

When you're, you need someone (just call on me)
You need somebody to cling to (call on me)
When you're, you need someone (just call on me)
You need somebody to dry your tears
When you're, you need someone (you can call me)
You need somebody to cling to (just call on me)...

"Skye?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something?" He asks, making me roll over and turn my body to his, so I'm looking him straight into his heavenly sea-green eyes.

"Sure." I respond a little breathily, almost ready to do anything he asks of me.

Almost.

"You know how much I like you, right?" He checks.

"Yeah..." I bite my lip...where the hell is this going?!

"I...really want you to meet my dad." He finally spits out what he didn't earlier.

"Your dad." I echo. "As in the CEO of Reiley Incorporated."

"Yeah, my dad." He teases, "You know, as in the man that raised me and my sister."

"Are you sure?" I frown, "I mean, you haven't even known me a week."

"Is it too cliched if I say that this feels right?" He grins.

"Fine..." I sigh, sitting up and rubbing my face, seriously needing a shower. "When is this happening?"

Ed sits up as well, still grinning widely, "This afternoon."

"THIS AFTERNOON?!" I screech, totally and completely unprepared.

Holy shit.