I Can’t Even

Chapter Thirteen

“S o, what you’re saying is that you’re totally chasing Liam, but it needs to appear like you’re not,” Soph said.

“Exactly,” I said.

Soph blew out a breath. “Huh, I don’t think I can help you. I was knocked up at nineteen from my very first time at bat. I’ve never chased anyone in my life. I’ve never been chased either for that matter. It sounds like it could be fun, though.”

She let out a wistful sigh and took a sip from her steaming mug. She and Em were in the kitchen with me, sharing morning coffee while I told them both about my evening with Liam. I left out the three orgasms, keeping it vague, but told them pretty much everything else. Soph was the only one of us who was showered, dressed, and ready to face her day.

Em and I were in pajamas, mine being Wonder Woman and hers being those buttoned down stripey things she wore. I preferred mine, but I was relieved that at least she had dragged her butt off the couch at some point during the night to actually put on her jammies and sleep in her own bed. Presently, she was chomping down the biggest bowl of sugary, crunchy cereal I had ever seen. Given that Babs had never let anything with that much sugar and artificial everything into the house, it was quite shocking.

“Don’t look at me,” Em said. She didn’t bother looking up from her phone. “I don’t know how to do any of that stuff, although you’re welcome to borrow my boots any time you want. They were a huge hit at the farmer’s market last night.”

“You went to a farmer’s market dressed like that?” I asked.

“They were having a happy hour.” Em shrugged. “Free wine samples.”

“But you don’t drink,” I said.

“Maybe I do now,” Em retorted. This time she did look up, tipping her chin in a defiant manner, the impact of which was diminished by the messy ball of hair on top of her head. I glanced at Soph, fearing Em might have an epic tantrum at any moment.

“Okay, let’s table that.” Soph waved a hand in Em’s general direction as if to say it was too much to deal with so early in the morning. “And focus on one Blumer sister issue at a time.”

“That’s fine with me,” I said. “So long as you’re not going to try and talk me out of pursuing Liam.”

“You mean stalking,” Em said.

“Whatever.” I shrugged.

“I have to ask,” Soph said. “Why can’t you just tell him the truth about why you left with Jessie?”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing.” Em gestured with her spoon, splashing milk on the table, which Sophie dabbed with a napkin. “I mean I know it must be hard revisiting the past, but do you really think Liam can forgive you if you never tell him what actually happened and why?”

My sisters had a solid point but given that they only knew half of the story, and I wasn’t at liberty to share the rest of it, it was a tricky question to answer.

“I want to tell him,” I said. “I do. I wish I had before. It took me a long time to get over what Babs did, and now that I know she wasn’t even my moth—”

I glanced at Em, worried that my harshing on Babs would set her off again. Amazingly, it didn’t. Instead, she nodded as if she understood.

“She wasn’t your mother,” Em said. “It’s okay, you can say it. I’m getting used to it just like you are.”

She looked at me with an understanding I hadn’t expected, and I felt my shoulders drop in relief from their high alert position up around my ears.

“Yeah, I am.” I nodded. “As for Jessie, well, those secrets aren’t really mine to tell, are they? I mean the stuff between Jessie and Liam isn’t any of my business, right?”

“I don’t know.” Soph sounded miffed. “Since you’ve never told us the details of you and Jessie. I can’t really say, can I?”

“I promise someday I will, but Liam deserves to hear it first,” I said. They seemed marginally accepting of that.

We were quiet for a moment, and then I looked at the clock. It was after eight. I turned to Em and said, “Not to panic you or anything but aren’t you late for work?”

She didn’t glance up from her cereal. “Nah, I told Mr. Drake I needed more time.”

“And he’s okay with that?” Soph asked.

“How long are you planning on taking?” I asked.

“Yes, he is, and I don’t know.” Em shoveled more cereal into her mouth while still studying her phone. She must have felt us staring at her because she finally looked up and swallowed. “What? It’s the world’s most boring job, sitting at a desk all day dealing with people complaining about their claims, their coverage, their shitty marriages, and their lousy kids. I need to get away for a while.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Yeah, sweetie, we get it,” Soph said. “It’s just that you’ve been there for a few years, and you don’t want to lose your benefits.”

“It’ll be fine,” Em said.

I hadn’t told Soph my suspicions about Em being in love with her boss. Probably it was for the best that she was taking extra time to herself. Maybe the distance would help her gain some perspective on him as well as losing Babs.

Em pushed out of her seat, scraping her chair against the tile floor, and then brought her bowl to the sink. She was still studying her phone but paused in the doorway to face us.

“Jules, if I were you, I’d find out who this woman is that Liam is dating,” she said. “Then you can figure out if the relationship is as serious as he said or if he was just trying to throw you off; either way you’ll have a better idea of how to proceed with your stalking.”

I blinked as I took in her rather savvy advice.

“That makes sense,” I said. “Thanks.”

“No prob.” Em turned and left the kitchen, leaving Soph and I puzzling after her.

“Okay, what are we doing about that?” I pointed with my thumb in the direction of the doorway.

“Nothing,” Soph said. “At least, nothing yet. She’s grieving and we all do that in different ways.”

There was something in her tone. I looked at her and saw her frowning at me.

“What?” I gave her a side eye.

“Jules, do you think maybe you’re using Liam to run away from the bombshell Mr. Loren dropped on you? I mean shouldn’t you be dealing with the fact that our parents hid the truth of your parentage from you? That you have a birth mother out there who may very much want to meet you?” Soph asked.

“Well, that was blunt.”

“Sorry, but it’s been several days and you’re not talking about any of it. Instead, you’re off chasing your old high school flame.” Soph shrugged. “It just seems so frantic, as if you’re trying to distance yourself with something else, something all consuming, like the boyfriend you never got closure with.”

I stared at her. Did I like what I was hearing? No. Was it something I’d already thought of myself? Yes. Did I care enough to change my behavior? No.

“You’re probably right,” I said. “I know I’m not dealing with my new reality very well.” I was quiet for a moment. “You know what I keep thinking?”

Soph shook her head. She cradled her coffee in her hands as if she knew a cold wind was coming and she’d need the warmth.

“Babs took everything from me—my real mother and Liam, too. I hate her for that.”

“I know,” Soph said. “You have every right. What she did the night you left. I can’t...” She shook her head as she placed her hand on mine. “I hope you know you have us, me and Em. She could never take us from you. Ever.”

My stubborn streak pushed the tears back. I was so over crying. “Thanks,” I said. “As for the Liam thing? Maybe getting him back is so important to me because then it’s one less thing Babs stole. I didn’t expect to still feel this much for him, not after all these years. We only get one shot at this thing called life, and I’ve already made a mess of it, Soph. I really don’t want to walk away from something this good, not again, not when I know for sure that he’s the one for me.”

The look in her eyes was full of sympathy tinged with sadness, and her voice when she spoke was so soft I had to strain to hear her. “But are you the one for him?”

Ouch! I had thought of that, too, and rejected it. Leave it to big sister to toss it out there in the open. The only answer was an honest one.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But if I don’t try, I’ll always wonder.”

She stared at me for a long moment. “You really are the bravest woman I know.”

I laughed. Maybe. But I suspected it had more to do with an overabundance of bullheadedness in my DNA. I wondered if I got that from my real mom. It seemed unlikely, otherwise, why would she have given me away? I shook off the thought.

“Whatever happens, I’ll be fine.” Big fib. “The bigger concern is Em. What are we going to do about her?”

“We need to give her time. We all need time.”

“Time or a slap upside the head?” I asked. Soph gave me an unamused look and I sighed, “Fine. We’ll give her time.”

I decided the boots were too obvious to begin my campaign with and that it was better to ease Liam into the reality that I wasn’t going away. I figured my best move was to go back to where it all began. I dug out my old surfboard from the shed behind the house and cleaned it up. I mounted it on the side holder on my old beach cruiser

Judging by the day I’d seen Liam in his coffee shop, his preferred time to surf was when the waves were in abundance. Clearly, one of the perks of owning your own coffee shop empire was the ability to take a break whenever you wanted one. I had checked the surf report and knew that right now was going to be the best time of the day.

I’d spent two days lying low and licking my wounds, prepping my gear. It was a relief to finally head for the nearby beach which was locals only. Because of its rocky coastline, Gull’s Harbor was a turfy stretch of beach where tourists and visitors were actively discouraged. By this, I mean with really harsh language and occasionally fists were involved.

When I arrived, nostalgia swelled inside me, churning just like the surf in front of me. The very few times I had come back to visit my family over the years, I hadn’t taken my board out of storage, mostly because I hadn’t wanted to run into Liam, but also because it was something I had loved so much that I didn’t want it to call me back to this place. I had needed to break away from Babs and her toxic hold and if I reconnected with the things I loved, like surfing and Liam, I might get sucked in, and I couldn’t let that happen. I was back now, and I wasn’t leaving, at least not for a while.

I locked my bike on the rack loaded with other cruisers, grabbing my bag and board. I started the steep walk down the trail that snaked the face of the cliffs to the narrow beach below. This particular surf spot was one of the few in the area that wasn’t peppered with big rocks. Since it had been a while, I thought it best to wait before taking on anything like Devil’s Backbone. Besides this was where I’d seen Liam go yesterday. Yeah, in a town this small, it’s pretty easy to track a person’s movements.

The weight of the board was familiar, but I was out of practice and it was a bit unwieldy. I slid on some loose gravel and had to catch myself before plowing into the back of another surfer headed down the trail. I managed to kick some rocks at his heels and he whipped around, probably to see if I was about to fall on him.

I gave him a small smile and a finger wave. He glowered.

“This is locals only, girl,” he said. He wore his hair in long dreadlocks that touched his waist. His black wet suit, which covered him from neck to ankle, accentuated his thin long limbs, giving him the look of a spider.

“I know, Ten,” I said. “I am a local or at least I used to be.”

He planted his vintage long board in the loose dirt and studied me like a lost person might study a map.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. He smiled and his gold incisor winked at me in the sunlight. “Little surfer girl is back.”

“Not so little anymore,” I said. My face heated under his scrutiny.

Ten, so nicknamed because he could hang ten, meaning have all ten toes curled over the front edge of his board longer than anyone else in Gull’s Harbor or likely San Diego County, had seen me grow up on these beaches. He was a local legend, like Mission Beach had their SloMo, we had our Ten, and I was ridiculously pleased that he remembered me after so many years away.

“You and coffee boy used to spend hours down here on the water.” Ten smacked his lips together as if considering why I was alone. “He still comes down here.”

“So, I’ve heard,” I said. I glanced out at the surf as if studying the waves.

Ten was the watcher of our local beach and our downtown for that matter, given that he never had a permanent residence and yet never left town. No one knew exactly where he crashed but I suspected he moved from place to place and knew exactly who was who and what was what. If I was looking to see if Liam was serious about this girl he said he was going to marry, Ten might be the guy to ask.

“So, does coffee boy bring any girls down to the beach to surf?” I asked.

Ten blinked at me. His old eyes were full of information, unfortunately not the kind that answered my questions. “He almost got himself killed on Devil’s Backbone when you left.”

There was no judgment in his voice just facts, but it made my breath catch and my heart hurt all the same. I hung my head. What was I doing here? I had no right to try and win Liam back after what I’d done to him.

“But he didn’t,” Ten said. His voice was suddenly upbeat as if he’d just announced great news. “And now surfer girl, the only woman I’ve ever seen him surf with, is here. So that’s an interesting development, don’t you think?”

My head snapped up and I met his considering gaze. I wondered if my relief showed. Probably. I decided I didn’t care. Liam’s whatever she was, I refused to call her his girlfriend, didn’t surf. That was a check for me in the cool chick column. Booyah.

“Did you wax your board?” Ten asked.

“Duh,” I said.

“Don’t drop in on anyone.”

“As if.”

“And don’t be a kook,” he said.

“Really?” I asked. “You’re calling me a kook, like I’m a noob who’s never surfed.”

“I didn’t call you one,” he argued. “I said ‘don’t be one.’ There’s a difference.”

“I think I can handle it,” I said. “It hasn’t been that long.”

He studied me for a moment and then his brown wrinkled face burst into a huge smile.

“Yes, but can you handle him? Hee hee.” Ten hooted and turned back to the path. He was humming and it took me a minute to recognize the theme to the old TV show The Love Boat .

Kill me now. Maybe showing my hand to Ten had been a bad bet.

Once on the beach, I found a place off to the side to practice, away from the other surfers. I pulled off my T-shirt and shorts and dug my wetsuit out of my bag. It still fit, yay, and I felt as if I was slipping on an old familiar skin. I wore a thick wet suit in winter months. Since summer was coming, I had lighter gear that kept my core warm but didn’t cover my arms and legs. The Pacific was cold, but it was a lot of work to surf, which kept a girl warm.

Ten stopped on the beach to do his usual sun salutations. He always did a series of them before he entered the water. For some reason, the continuity of this, the feeling that the more things changed the more they stayed the same, gave me great comfort.

I glanced up at the cliffs, hoping to see Liam’s familiar head of dark hair. Instead, I saw a shock of blond hair, a pair of aviators, and a navy hoodie. It took me a second, but I remembered the man who’d been staring at me in Liam’s coffee shop. I couldn’t be positive, given the shades, but I got the distinct feeling he was watching me, and my creeper meter went into the red zone.

Well, he could watch me all he wanted, but if he couldn’t surf, he couldn’t catch me. With that, I jogged out into the ocean with my board tucked under my arm and the water churning around my knees as if eager to play.

My dignity was the first thing to go. It had been a long time since I’d surfed and as much as some of it was like riding a bicycle, I was nine years older and not nearly as strong as I was back in the day. It was a battle to get past the surf and out to where the waves were breaking. There were about thirty surfers out today and the lineup was well established. Ten, who had done his warmup and still managed to beat me out to the break, waved me in and introduced me to a few of the locals, including a woman named Ruby. Like her name, she had deep red, not natural, hair and a sleeve of tattoos most of which depicted mermaids.

“Ten says you used to be good,” she said.

I shrugged. I knew it was best to keep it humble until I got my cred back. I straddled my board riding over the top of a set of waves. I needed to catch my breath and get my head together before I dropped in. Also, I was preoccupied with watching the cliff looking for Liam. I didn’t want to be cruising a wave and miss him.

The blond man had left his perch and was walking down the trail to the beach. In addition to the hoodie, he was wearing jeans and sneakers, not exactly beach attire in May.

A big roller came our way and I watched as Ruby and another surfer got ahead of it and started paddling. Ruby caught it but the other surfer didn’t. It washed right over him, but she rode it almost all the way to the shore, whipping her board around and diving into the surf at the last second. I felt a surge of adrenaline hit me. I hadn’t surfed in so long and I’d missed it so much.

“It’s yours, surfer girl!” Ten called to me and I glanced behind me to see a perfect wave rolling my way. In the lineup it was clearly my turn and I decided to take it. Belly down on my board, I started to paddle, trying to build momentum. I knew the minute my board merged with the wave, and I popped up into a crouched position. It took me longer than I would have thought to get to my full height but when I did, I felt the same sense of glory sweep through me that I always had when the wave and I became one. Best feeling in the world.

As I neared the shore, I saw the blond man, bent over my stuff. I stared until I noticed he was rifling through my bag! What the hell?

“Hey!” I shouted. He couldn’t hear me over the roar of the surf, so I waved a fist at him and yelled again. “Hey, that’s my stuff!”

Of course, that’s when Liam appeared, walking down the beach, carrying his board, staring at me as if seeing a ghost. I tried to gesture for him to grab the man, but at that moment, the wave dropped out from beneath me. I went one way and my board went another and the next thing I knew I was sucking in saltwater and getting a sand facial. Damn it!