Free Blue by Lisa Glass

and most of us have surfed naked at least once. So I guess you could say we’re pretty comfortable in our own skins. My legs were having a battle about whether to go check him out, but my brain kicked in and stopped me. What would I do if he saw me? Jump in the shower with him? No way.
    I sat on the bed and ate a ham sandwich. Then I remembered that Zeke was vegetarian. I peeled apart all the sandwiches to look at their fillings and there were only two cheese ones on the whole platter, so I figured I’d have to eat all the meat and tuna ones before he got out of the shower.
    By the time Zeke came into the room a few minutes later with a beach towel around his waist, I had downed six sandwiches, including the crusts. Only the cheese ones remained on the platter. Zeke was holding a small hand towel and rubbing his hair with it, leaving it sticking up at crazy angles. He looked at me with my mouth full of bread, then at the platter, then back to me.
    “Wow,” he said, and then added, “Impressive.”
    “Missed lunch,” I said. “There’s some cheese ones for you.”
    “Sweet.” He pulled on some checked boxers, dropped his towel and then went to a chest of drawers and found some loose jeans. I thought about all those girls in his phone; wondered how many of them had been in my shoes, watching him get dressed.
    He pulled on a gray vest, cut deep across his shoulder blades, and then he fished a blue and white Hawaiian print shirt out of a plastic bag. He used his teeth to pull off the tags and I noticed the shirt was really creased from sitting in the bag. I could see him looking around for an iron.
    “Wardrobe?” I said.
    I watched as he set up the ironing board, peering beneath it to look for the little lever that released the catch. He dragged it over to a socket by the dressing table and plugged in the iron.
    “I’ve actually never seen a boy iron something before,” I said.
    “Anders says I gotta wear a shirt tonight and not look like a surf troll. Oh crap,” he said, “I was supposed to shave too. Wait a minute.”
    He went into the bathroom and came out holding an electric shaver. He switched it on and raked it against the stubble of his cheek, the hair disappearing in clean little patches until his face was totally smooth. He looked different. Younger.
    The iron was hissing away, steam pouring out of the front, and Zeke still hadn’t eaten a thing.
    “I’ll iron your shirt,” I said. “Eat your sandwiches.”
    “No way, you don’t have to do that.”
    I took the iron out of his hand and said, “Go eat.”
    My mom had taught me to iron at the age of eight, and I’d been doing my school uniform and my mom’s work clothes ever since, so ironing one boy’s shirt was hardly going to break my back.
    He scarfed down the sandwiches like he hadn’t eaten in days.
    “Anders has got me doing all this extra prep. He wants me to be at my strongest this season. Some of the workout sessions are insane. Plus, he has me doing like a hundred push-ups every morning and night. I’d better do the night ones in a minute actually.”
    “Anders seems like quite a character.”
    “Yeah, he’s nuts, but real good at his job. I’m stoked you came, Iris.”
    “Kelly kind of dragged me here. Not that I didn’t want to come. It’s just, I had work all day, and I couldn’t face a big night.”
    “Remind me to buy Kelly a drink. So I guess you know I’ve been telling Anders all about you?”
    “Me? Why are you telling him about me?”
    “You’ve got real quality. The way you were ripping Fistral . . . That tube you caught was a perfect ten. Cool dress, by the way. I should have already said that.”
    “It’s Kelly’s. I was going to wear jeans, but she thought I should dress up.”
    “You look crazy hot.”
    If it’s possible for a whole body to blush, then mine did. Zeke, a pro-surfer with an international reputation, had said that I looked crazy hot. I glanced at the glitzy mirror hanging over the