Page 43 of Courting Danger

“Why the hell don’t they just say that?” Roan asked. “Why come up with some fancy-ass word instead of just saying to draw two lines under what the subject was doing? That would have been easy.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that you never went to your teacher after class and asked her to explain it to you better,” Pope said.

“Fuck no,” Roan said, vehemently shaking his head. “I hated that lady. Every time she returned one of my papers, she made a crack about me exhausting another one of her red pens while she was correcting it and that I’d need to put in more effort if I had any hopes of getting anything higher than a C minus in her class. I was happy to take the pass and get the fuck out of there. I was already working my ass off to get the C minus.”

“Were there any classes you liked?” Pope asked.

“Art, even though I sucked at it,” Roan admitted. “And I always got As in shop and music.”

“After hearing you sing, I can see why,” Pope replied.

“I loved art and music,” Ocean said. “But I was an utter disaster in shop, like seriously, the teacher told me he’d pass me as long as I promised not to touch anything else since he was tired of having to send me to the nurse’s office.”

“And on that note, I know who we’ll be keeping away from power tools,” Danger remarked, chuckling as he reached for his pop.

“I loved my history classes too,” Ocean admitted. “All the conquests and exploration were seriously badass. Still blows me away that people actually lined up across from one another on the battlefield, though. The guys in the front were basically cannon fodder. Math class was too easy most years, so I’d just blow through the homework in class to save time while the teacher was still going through the lesson.”

“School never held much appeal for me, either,” Pope said, which practically sent Roan’s brain into meltdown mode after the way the other man had commanded everyone’s attention today while he’d been sharing some of the lore he’d collected. “But stories and legends did, so I set out to collect as many as I could.”

There was a pause as Pope fiddled with the cap on his bottle.

“Let me ask you this,” Pope said after he’d taken a swig. “Has there ever been anything you were passionate about?”

Squirming, Roan shrugged and would have stalled by sipping his own drink if he’d remembered to grab one. “Just singing, but I mostly do it where no one else can hear.”

“Why?” Danger asked. “After what I heard the other night, there’s no reason for you to hide your voice.”

“I guess,” Roan muttered. “It would be cool to have a thing that I was good at, the way you’ve got all those accounts you keep track of and Ocean has surfing and Pope has his books.”

“Then make singing your thing,” Pope said. “Mark’s always looking for live entertainment. There are a few other guys in the club who play instruments; you should get together with them and talk. You might discover the makings of a band.”

“I’m not ready for all that yet,” Roan said. “But if you really think it will be alright, I’ll sing something on the next talent night.”

“And we will be in the front row watching you,” Ocean declared.

“Exactly,” Pope said, while Danger nodded.

Him, Roan wasn’t so sure about. He might be in the front row, but whether or not he’d be paying attention was up for debate.

“What if I’d rather have you play guitar while I sing?” Roan asked Pope.

“Then you pick the songs and I’ll be there,” Pope said.

“Thank you,” Roan replied, feeling far more comfortable knowing that he didn’t have to get up there alone.

“Wanna know how I got to be the club’s numbers guy?” Danger asked.

“Because you’re awesome at it?” Roan ventured.

Having worked with Danger, Roan had seen how many businesses he was responsible for, including the annual club audit that included all the files trucked down from the Kill Devil Hills chapter. Collecting everything and organizing them to Danger’s specifications was a task in and of itself; he couldn’t imagine having to go through every shred of paper to make certain all the numbers added up.

“Only because I have no choice but to be or face Mark’s wrath,” Danger explained. “I was clueless too until the club pushed me to pursue accounting so there would be someone they could trust handling the books. I don’t love accounting. Hell, I’ve never loved math. I was just good at it. If you’re going to follow a path, you should do something that makes you happy, because it fucking sucks being stuck.”

“Can’t you get out of it?” Roan asked.

A heavy sigh escaped him as he leaned against the arm of the chair. “Not unless someone else steps up and gets their CPA, which I don’t see happening anytime soon.”

“I’m not ready to retire from surfing professionally,” Ocean blurted, “but I am ready to put down roots. Bouncing back and forth across the Pacific has been awesome, but the East Coast surf scene is amazing too from everything I’ve seen and read about it. So, I’m going to shoot for the East Coast Championship. It’ll still mean a ton of miles in the Jeep, but I like having a family again. I don’t want to be halfway around the world from you guys.”