Body Surfing with Indi

I was getting tired of this useless back and forth.
“Indi! Go in!”
“No, you!”
“I’ll go in when you go in.”
“You go in first.”
“No! How about you go in and then I’ll go in right after you.”
“No!”
“Together, then?”
“Okay.”
We didn’t get to go together. A huge wave had just crashed in front of us forcing us to run back to the beach. When we got to the hard-packed sand, our bodies already half soaking, we stood there for a second, looking at each other and suddenly burst into a fit of laughter. The water was so cold and neither of us wanted to be the first to jump in. Walking tentatively back out into the crashing waves, I didn’t look behind me at my cousin’s blurring figure as I dove down. When I resurfaced a startled breath escaped me. It wasn’t all that bad. Indi appeared next to me, her face just as wide-eyed from the chilling water as mine. Then, finally, together we both body surfed each incoming wave, riding it back to the shore.

We did this a number of times while she and her family were here in Carmel. Some days the waves were so big, it was hard to keep up. I’d like to say we became somewhat professional body surfers in those two weeks. Though… not really. Accompanying us in the water was a plentiful bunch of kelp that I kept trying to gift to Indi, but she rudely refused each of my offers. Anyway, we’d always end our body surfing expeditions by riding one last good wave and then we’d make our way back up to the house to take hot showers and to reheat ourselves. And no matter how hard I tried, I still found sand hiding away somewhere on my body the next day.