The Tour

forty-two / i'll watch

I rolled over in my bed, grabbing my phone off of the nightstand. There were plenty of new notifications, but the one at the top was a message from my dad in a group chat consisting of him, Mr. Sanders, Will, Noah, Evan, and I. "Time to get up kids, we're all going surfing today! Be ready by eight."

My dad enjoyed making group chats way too much. He was probably already outside with all of our boards packed, just waiting for us to wake up. I groaned and got out of bed, opening the door and peering into the hallway.

"River, you're up! I was just departing whether or not we would have to send Evan in to wake you up, we're leaving in fifteen minutes. Go get changed and grab something to eat, the boys will be here in five," my dad instructed, grinning excitedly.

I nodded slowly and turned back around, still blinking to wake up. A light blue bikini was laying on my desk chair, and I threw it on quickly under a dress before heading to the kitchen. Evan looked as exhausted as I felt, sitting at the counter and rubbing his eyes.

"The Sanders are here, time to go kids!" My dad yelled from outside. The old beater minivan sat outside with our boards on the roof. Mr. Sanders was seated in the front, fully dressed and with his sunglasses on, while all of the boys were only in their boardshorts. The minivan meant that six adults had to squeeze in, leaving Will and I with our knees tucked up against our bodies in the back row.

Noah turned around from his seat with a grin, "So nice to see you again River, hope that you've gotten enough winning in on Tour to make this L you're about to take feel better."

"It's too early for this," I groaned, shaking my heads at him and leaning my head up against the wall to sleep.

"She's probably still on Bali time or wherever the heck she last was," Evan supplied. The boys continued to chirp at each other on the ride to one of the better breaks on the island, but Will got increasingly quiet as we got closer to the beach.

After parking, the two dads started to hand out surfboards to everyone. Mr. Sanders beckoned for Will to come up and grab his, but Will looked out at the ocean, clenching his jaw before shaking his head. "I think that I'm just going to watch."

Noah looked at his brother with concern, but didn't make any comments about it.

"Are you sure?" Mr. Sanders asked, still looking hopefully at the board.

"Nah, I'm good." Will glanced at me before looking down at the ground. I could see his right eyelid twitching frequently.

Evan nodded at his best friend, handing me my board before grabbing his own. I followed them through the loose sand out to the beach. My dad dropped the towels down and Will took a seat on one of them, leaning back on his hands to face the ocean. Everyone else started to jog towards the water, and I followed, glancing back at Will once. He forced out a closed-lipped smile which I returned before turning back to the waves.

My dad and Mr. Sanders joking around with Evan and Noah, trading waves and giving each other scores. While the sons were better, they had also learned from their dads. I was pushing my sun bleached hair out of my eyes when I saw my dad get a small amount of air off the lip of the wave, and we all burst out in cheers.

"When did you learn to do that, dad?" Evan asked with disbelief once he had paddled back out.

My dad gave him a wink. "Koa and I might go out and practice sometimes while you boys are away at school..."

"Sheesh, I didn't realize that these family competitions were getting so intense," Noah laughed, glancing at his dad, Koa, who looked rather sheepish.

I laughed along at all of their shenanigans but spent most of my time working on moves to pull out during competitions. Women's surfing had really been shifting in the direction of more airs than previously, and I intended to be on the forefront of the movement. However, that meant that I was ending up with a large amount of salt water up my nose this morning. The boys were giving me a hard time every time I messed up, but I knew that I could beat them in their own competition with only two waves.