"You'll be back for the games in March?" Will murmured into my ear as we hugged outside his house.

"Yeah, I'll be there," I said, squeezing a little tighter.

We relaxed our grip a second later and he reached down to grab his backpack. "You know, this has always sucked but it's worse now."

I laughed a little and nodded, hoping to avoid making it worse. "I'll see you on the flip side."

Will smiled softly and smiled, turning and taking a step towards the car where his dad sat behind the wheel. He turned back to me a second later and brought his free hand up to my face and cupped my cheek. He kissed me firmly, clearly still emotional. A second later he was pulling away and offering me a crooked smile before walking around and stepping up carefully into the passenger's seat.

Heat rushed to my cheeks as I watched his dad joke around with Will in the car as they pulled away. Rachel was smiling from her spot on the front porch when I glanced at her, and I tried to hide my blush with my hair.

"Young love..." She said and I shook my head at her enthusiasm., "Good luck with your next competitions, River."

"Thanks, I'll see you sometime when I get back?" I asked.

"We'll see you at whatever games you can make it to."

"Are you going to all of them?" I knew that they usually made it to a lot, but I wasn't sure if it would be different now due to Will's unlikely playing time prospects.

She smiled and brushed her brown hair back out of her face. "We'll be at all of them. I think after all of this Koa and I have realized that we should appreciate all of this while we have it. Even if Will's on the bench it will be good for us to support Evan and the other boys. There's only a few more years of this free entertainment, and then all eyes will be on you and those waves."

"Hey, it's not free though. That school charges more for a game than I pay to bring my boards on a flight," I laughed.

She laughed with me and nodded. "Well, I won't keep you hanging around here. See you in March!"

I gave her a wave and headed down the road towards my own house. Evan was spread across the couch watching TV when I walked in. "Kiss your boyfriend goodbye?" He asked in a mocking voice.

"I did, actually," I responded while throwing a pillow at him.

"That was a rhetorical question. I don't think you're supposed to kiss and tell," he continued to tease.

"Hey, you asked." I sat down on his shins, forcing him to complain and move them so there was actually room for sitting on the couch.

"From this moment on, as you're my sister and his best friends, I would like no further relationship updates until he is literally down on one knee. And I know about him waiting until marriage, you also can't corrupt his innocence," he said as he continued to stare at the television.

I looked at him with a horrified expression. "Who do you think that I am?" I managed to splutter out before I ran into my room to start packing. His laughter echoed down the hallway as my face turned red for the second time in the last hour.

The second event of this year's Championship Tour, the Sunset Open, was actually on the island but I had decided to go live in the Ripcurl house anyways so that I could stay closer to Sunset beach. It would allow me to get more time in with the other girls and my coach. That, and there would be fewer distractions. Will needed to focus on getting back into school life anyway, and Evan would be fine without me. Noah was supposed to be working on getting a real job, but we had yet to see if he would actually be successful.

Thankfully, packing for Hawaii was less complicated than packing for trips where it would actually be cold outside of the water, like France. Oahu packing consisted of me throwing ten bikinis in a suitcase, along with a long sleeve springsuit in case the water happened to cool off rapidly.

▵▵▵

One thirty minute drive later had me at the Ripcurl house. I dragged my boards around to the backyard which faced the ocean and deposited them on the board rack. A minute later Sarah was jumping on top of me as soon as I walked in the front door. My suitcase fell over behind me as I staggered to stop both of us from falling.

"It's been so long!" Sarah squealed in my ear as she let go and backed up a few feet.

"Nice to see you too, bro," I laughed and picked my bag back up.

"Wanna be my roommate? Your other option is Jaylin so pick wisely..."

She didn't even wait to hear my response before she ran off, waving for me to follow her to what was supposedly our room. "Cozy," I replied dryly after evaluating the cramped pair of twin beds shoved next to a dresser. "I might actually want to share with Jaylin."

"Oh, I was just kidding," Sarah stifled a smile, "She specifically said to all of us that she would not be living with the girl who only won rookie of the year because she had a nice smile."

I fanned myself dramatically, "She thinks I have a nice smile? This is the best day of my life."

Sarah giggled and I began to shove my stuff into the empty drawers. "Tatiana and Eva are sharing a room downstairs, we were thinking about heading out before sunset to catch a few waves if you want to join."

Twenty minutes later we were on our boards and paddling out to where the waves were about to break. Tatiana had flown in last night from Australia and Eva had come in from California that morning. That meant that Eva was the only one who had been out here recently, but it was one of my home breaks so I did have an advantage. Sarah was from the big island and had also spent a fair amount of time here, so it was really just Tatiana that needed to feel things out.

I took off for my first wave, realizing as soon as I began to pop up that this was not going to end well. The water dropped out from under me and I quickly took a ten foot fall over the falls and into the water. The current pushed me around under the surface, and I was able to claw my way back up just in time to see another wave come crashing down.

The wave shoved me right back under and I tumbled around, trying to reorient myself. Thankfully, the swell wasn't huge and five minutes later I was out of the impact zone and heading back toward the girls.

Giggling noises flew right over the water, and I rolled my eyes at them. "I thought that you were a local," Sarah managed to gasp.

Due to my high level of maturity, I paddled right up to her and shoved her off of her board. She came up spluttering, but managed to pull down the nose of my board and land me back in the water.

"I wish that I had this on film," Tatiana remarked to Eva. I splashed her too.

"Don't come to me crying when you wipe out tomorrow and don't score well," I responded sassily.

Thankfully, I managed to avoid any more dramatic wipeouts for the next hour. I hung out with the other three girls and thankfully avoided Jaylin, although it was only a matter of time before she was back on her petty grind. The four of us were sitting in the living room a few hours later, wasting time before we went to bed.

"Okay everybody, it's time for our regularly scheduled boy drama!" Eva sung out enthusiastically.

Sarah sat up straighter and got a glint in her eye, so I quickly volunteered her to go first. "Alright, well this snowboarder followed me on Instagram a couple of months ago and eventually slid into my dm's. He's pretty cute, and we've been on a couple of dates when I was on the mainland for a month or so. It probably won't go anywhere major, but it was fun while it lasted," Sarah gushed.

"Tatiana?" Eva asked.

"Eva, I'm pretty sure that everyone here knows that I got married, you don't need to publicize it," Tatiana laughed and answered our questions about her wedding and honeymoon.

"And how's the boy that you went home for," Sarah nudged me.

"He's good, he's back on his feet and left for college the other day. We're all really thankful."

Sarah scoffed at my answer. "Okay, maybe I need to clarify, when I asked how the boy was I meant how many bases have you and this boy run around since you've been home."

"First of all, get your mind out of the gutter!" I exclaimed. Then more shyly I added, "And second of all, he has been upgraded from best friend to boyfriend so you did get that right."

"I freaking knew it," Eva smiled and Tatiana rolled her eyes at her. "I thought it would stay platonic. I was wrong," Tatiana provided.

"I can't wait to be a godmother," Sarah said dreamily.

"You can leave," I gave her a look, "And yeah, I'm excited, the distance will just be hard."

Tatiana held up her finger. "You just have to get him to put a ring on it. Then he'll be all over traveling with you whenever he can. Devon is finishing his last week at his office job up and then he's getting a remote one so that he can tag along with me. I'm so excited."

"I'll keep that strategy in mind," I laughed.

We got some drama coming in the next one ;)

Guys I watched outer banks a few weeks ago and thought I would hate it but actually liked it kind of a lot??? Plz drop show or book recommendations in the comments though haha it would be highly appreciated.