Chapter 18
Mike fiddles with the radio. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I’ll rephrase my question.” I turn off the radio. “Tell me why your grandmother left you such a stunning yet derelict beachfront property.”
He groans.
“And I’m telling you now, no, I will not buy you a drink first. I’m giving you a ride home. You owe me an answer.”
“That’s one of the problems with lawyers—one of the many problems with lawyers. Everything is so transactional.”
“Do you want to get home? I could stay on this freeway all night.”
“Are you threatening to kidnap me, Bea?”
Gosh, the man looks gorgeous and completely at home in my passenger seat.
“Was it really your grandmother’s house? Not an ex-wife’s? Or some sweet senior citizen from the library. She took a bad fall, you stole her keys while you waited for the paramedics to arrive, and out of tremendous guilt, you’ve decided to fix the place up while she convalesces?”
Mike chuckles. “It really was my grandma’s house. But we can pretend she won it in a poker game, if it makes you feel better.”
“Paternal or maternal grandmother?” I demand.
Mike glares at me. “My only. My dad’s parents passed away before I was born. Grandma Evie was the only grandparent I’ve ever known.”
“So you inherited the property? Why? Generations usually aren’t skipped unless…” Oh dear. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t know anything about it. Not until my mom passed away.
I grew up here, but then it all fell apart when my folks moved to Texas for my mom’s treatments.
I thought I’d always have afternoons with my grandma and summers in the water.
I was going to be a lifeguard or teach surf lessons.
Be one of those high school kids who paddle the tourists out to Goldfish Point into the sea caves.
But that disappeared in the move. The plan was to come out to visit during the summer.
We did twice. I was supposed to write letters.
I called not even a handful of times.” Mike’s brooding.
“If I could do it over, I wouldn’t have gone.
I didn’t belong in Texas. But then, I didn’t belong here after we left. ”
He shifts, and the leather upholstery squeaks and groans.
I feel like a fool for turning off the radio earlier.
Silence isn’t anything I enjoy, even at the best of times, but now…
This is the type of awkward that breeds more awkward.
I’m lucky I’m driving—I have a job to focus on.
I swear, if my hands were not at ten and two on the wheel, I’d reach for him.
“So you were close? You and your grandmother?”
Mike chuckles. “Grandma Evie raised me. Picked me up from school, helped me with homework, ran lines with me when I got the lead in the sixth-grade play. She had dreams…”
He’s fading into silence again, and I can’t handle it. “Was your mom an only child?”
“I had an uncle. He didn’t want anything to do with the property after my grandma passed away. He died a couple years ago.”
We’re almost home, but Mike has side-stepped my most pressing question. “And you’re fixing it up now because?”
“Because it’s what Mom and Grandma would have wanted.”
I pull into my space. The ocean is so dark at night, like a black hole that sucks the light from every source on shore. The darkness amplifies the sound of the waves and highlights our silence as Mike and I sit in my car.
“They’d be proud of you.” I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know why I’m saying it. Mike is insufferable. Handsome, absurdly talented. And insufferable.
He shrugs as his fingers trace the leather stitching of my Porsche.
“I buy them tickets for every one of my shows. Two seats together in the back row. Just in case. It’s…
” He inhales sharply. “It’s the kind of crazy that I’m sure you’ll roast me about when I’m at my most vulnerable, but what’s the point of faith if you can’t use it to connect to the people you love in the moments when… ”
I’m smiling.
“You’re laughing at me.”
“I’m not.” I’m seeing the side of Mike who writes in the margins of literature—and falling harder. And I can’t do that. “I’m just trying to square your spirituality with your cosplay of a psychotic clown. Do you buy your mom and grandma tickets to Adam’s escape room?”
It was the wrong thing to say.
The hurt on Mike’s face makes that clear instantly.
I was trying to be funny. I was trying to be playful. Instead, I sounded mean-spirited, bratty, rude, belittling. “I didn’t mean—”
“What happened to you? What trauma did you sustain in your privileged little Del Mar past to make you such a prickly little shrew?”
My indignation flashes hot. “How dare you?”
“I’m just trying to understand,” Mike says, exiting the car.
“Is that what we’re calling insults now? Understanding? Sorry, I’m having a hard time sifting through all your arrogant, self-important, nauseatingly insipid drivel, so I’m a step behind. Why don’t you mansplain it to me while we stare out at the ocean from your inherited place of privilege?”
“Thanks for the ride,” Mike says before slamming the car door.
“Any-freaking-time!” I yell.