Henry
I’m embarrassed on his behalf.
Even more so when the engine growls out of the parking lot of the tiny airport that serves the Florida panhandle. The land is flat and unchallenging, safely traversed by Subarus and Wranglers with soft tops. Dad’s truck looks like it belongs on a rocky mountain, like an actual ram.
He’s got the windows down as we rumble toward Sugar Bay, a resort town on the Gulf of Mexico.
Its population is less than fourteen thousand, though that number balloons during the tourist season.
Sugar Bay boasts a putt-putt course, a few nationally renowned golf courses, a go-kart track, a marine conservation park, a couple of arcades, and various pontoon rental shacks.
There are a shit ton of beach-themed seafood restaurants, a bunch of hotels, and countless Airbnbs along the shore.
I know this because I’ve been to Sugar Bay once before, three years ago, for a weeklong visit a few months before my dad opened his sports bar.
“How was your trip?” he asks, his attention split between the highway and me. The sun’s working its way toward the horizon, and the sky’s blazing with light. Ahead, there’s a line of scrubby long-leafed pines and somewhere beyond them, the beach.
I shrug. “Long. Boring.”
I’d forgotten how long and how boring. The last time I was on a plane was two years ago, when my mom and I flew to Phoenix to visit my grandma.
That was a single three-hour flight—easy.
It’s taken me a whole day to get to Sugar Bay: Washington to Utah to Georgia and then finally to Florida.
My neck hurts from the kink I earned trying to sleep somewhere over Missouri.
Dad pulls his focus from the road. He’s sporting the sort of mirrored sunglasses a motorcycle cop would choose. Even though his eyes are hidden, I can tell my lackluster tone has set off alarm bells.
“It was good,” I amend. “Uneventful.”
It was my idea to come to Florida this summer. I should play nice.
Dad moved here from Spokane, where he and my mom were born and raised, same as me.
Four years ago, when I was thirteen, he decided it was his calling to open a sports bar—but not in Eastern Washington.
He wanted to live near the beach. Other than my single trip to Sugar Bay, I’ve seen him a couple of times a year: in September, when he treks back to Spokane to hang out with me for my birthday, and then at Christmastime, when we spend a few days shredding the slopes together.
I figured it was my turn to make an effort.
“You hungry?” he asks.
“Not really. I grabbed barbecue during my layover in Atlanta.”
“Tired, I bet.”
“I’m good. It’s only, like, three back home.”
His flinch is almost imperceptible, but I know it bugs him that I think of my mom’s house as home. Not because there’s drama between them—my parents get along fine—but because he’s been suggesting I live with him for ages. Give Florida a shot. Visit again, at least.
I haven’t, but not because I don’t like my dad.
He pays above and beyond what he owes in child support, calls once a week minimum, and gives me presents and cash on birthdays and holidays.
He asks about my grades, my teachers, cross-country.
He offers to help my mom in every way he can.
The reasons I haven’t visited are my own: I’m a creature of habit, and I feel bad about leaving Mom on her own.
“You really don’t want to swing by the bar to grab a burger?”
“Maybe later?”
“For sure. I can’t wait for you to see it.
Football season was a round-the-clock party.
And now that baseball’s in full swing, we’ve got butts in chairs every night and all weekend.
People visit Sugar Bay just to hang out at Blitz Brews.
More and more often, I talk to customers who’ve come from Pensacola and Tallahassee.
Last weekend, we had a crew in from Jacksonville. ”
This might impress me if I knew how far away those places are from Sugar Bay. Before my dad moved to Florida, all I knew of the state was Disney World, the Seminole War, and Ernest Hemingway. My knowledge base is still pretty limited. “That’s cool, Dad.”
Up ahead, a SUGAR BAY WELCOMES YOU! sign points toward an approaching exit.
The Ram trundles off the highway and onto a quiet street lined with tall palms. We travel a few blocks, and then the Gulf of Mexico announces itself.
The sand’s sparkling white—it almost looks like snow—and the water’s deep turquoise. The sky is cobalt and cloudless.
Dad makes a left toward a stretch of high-rise hotels and apartment buildings, then reaches over to jostle my shoulder. “Hey, buddy, about the whole Dad thing…”
I glance his way “Yeah?”
“You’re practically a man now.”
My eighteenth birthday’s in three months. “Okay. And?”
“I was thinking…what if you call me by my name? You know, instead of Dad?”
I laugh—I can’t help it. “Why?”
“’Cause in Sugar Bay, I’m Davis Walker, owner of Blitz Brews. You’ve spent a lifetime with me as your old man, so this is probably hard to imagine, but around here, I’ve got to maintain a certain reputation.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, trying and failing to sand the mockery from my tone. “And a teenager calling you Dad will screw that up?”
He turns a grin on me. “I knew you’d get it.”
I swallow a snort. “Sure, Davis. Course I do.”
Stupid as I find his request, arguing during our first hour together is a bad idea, seeing as I’ll be living with him for the next two months.
My mom has finally saved up enough to chase a Master of Science in Nursing, her dream for as long as I can remember.
She needs space to focus on her coursework, and thanks to Dad, I can give it to her.
That’s not the only reason Sugar Bay has become appealing, though.
Eight weeks ago, I dug myself out of the rubble of a train-wreck breakup with the only girlfriend I’ve ever had, Whitney.
Since then, engaging with her has been a fucking nightmare so, cowardly or not, I fled.
My dad—Davis—turns into the parking lot of a beachfront apartment complex. There are two buildings, ten floors each, with a courtyard in between. Sugar Bay Luxury Towers is way fancier than the little bungalow Mom and I share in Spokane.
“Home sweet home,” Dad says, pulling into a numbered space.
“It’s as nice as I remember,” I reply, because he feeds off accolades. He can afford to live in a luxury tower: He’s made it.
Since the last time I was here, he’s moved units.
The one-bedroom he had originally was too small, so as soon as it became available, he snagged a two-bedroom with a balcony overlooking the gulf.
The views are unreal. He’s been telling me that for literal years, and I’m sure it’s true, but what I’m really excited about is having my own room.
When I last visited, I slept on the pull-out sofa.
We unload my bags, then head for the east tower.
I’m trailing behind him when I spot a girl crossing the parking lot.
She looks close to my age, and she’s making her way toward the west tower.
Her dark hair is a mass of shiny curls. She walks with confidence: spine straight, shoulders back, head high.
She’s wearing a blue T-shirt with an indecipherable logo and denim cutoffs.
She disappears into the west tower, but not before dredging up the memory of another girl.
Not Whitney, but someone I met the last night I spent in Sugar Bay three years ago, a blond so pretty, fourteen-year-old me thought he’d died and stumbled across an angel.
She was crying at the pool under a full moon.
I had no idea what was wrong, and I was young and imbecilic.
I saw tears and wanted to run. But she looked so heartbroken sitting there by herself.
This protective instinct kicked in; I needed to make sure she was okay.
We ended up hanging out until dawn.
She was my first kiss, and she set a high bar.
We never spoke again.
God, I haven’t thought about her in ages.
Dad and I reach the building’s entrance. I follow him in, lugging my backpack and suitcase, wondering if the pretty blonde still lives at the Towers.