Chapter 7
Wes
The rhythm of the windshield wipers swishing back and forth makes me drowsy. The road is slick as I wind through the mountains, so I have to be careful. I flip on the radio and tap my fingers on the steering wheel as I sing along to So Easy to Fall in Love by Olivia Dean.
This is the first new car I’ve ever owned. Generally, I could only afford beat-up pieces of shit. With this new job, I got myself a Nissan Leaf EV. Dennis will be so proud of me for going electric.
I’ve been driving for about two hours now, as I make my way home to Cannon Beach. Is it still home if I have a new condo in Eugene? I’d like to think so. One is the home I live in, while the other is a home I can always come back to, filled with love and friendship.
Currently, my place in Eugene is filled with stress, thanks to Jared ‘Jett’ Cordier. Asshole. God, why does he have to live in the same building as me?
One minute, he’s brushing me off, and the next, he’s trying to compare dick sizes as we go for a run. Then he felt me up and made me come. After that, he dick-measured again in the meeting the other day.
Whiplash.
That’s what I feel whenever I’m around Jett. Fucking whiplash. And that’s what I’m going to call him from now on, if he calls me Wilson once more.
And here I was thinking something tragic had happened to him. Nice to know he’s just an asshole who does whatever he wants.
Still… I fucking came when he touched me.
A dude. Talk about a first. I’ve been wrapping my head around that craziness for the past week.
Not to mention how many times I’ve masturbated to visions of that night.
It’s almost embarrassing. I can’t get over how I reacted to him with so little effort and resistance.
Yeah, I need my family and friends to ground me, which is why I’m heading home for the weekend. I need my feet firmly planted on the earth again. No one knows I’m coming, so I can surprise them.
An hour later, I pull into the small driveway of my childhood home.
A bit of homesickness hits me when I look at the one-story cottage home built in the late 1940s.
It’s painted in olive green with white trim and a bright red door.
It’s only about 900 square feet, with only two bedrooms, but when I turned thirteen, my granddad converted the storage loft above the kitchen into a room for me.
Is it a room when there’s only a ladder to reach it and no walls?
It was to me. It wasn’t quiet, but I loved having my own space after sharing a room with my mother for years.
The place may need some TLC, but the best part is the beach, which is only five blocks away and where I trained almost daily.
I climb out of the car into the drizzling day and head for the front door.
Everyone should be home, except for Mom, since she works most Saturdays.
Grandma works as a seamstress for the community, making curtains, dresses, and stuff.
Grandad has his own mechanic shop, but he’s semi-retired.
He can’t really retire since he’s the main breadwinner.
Now that I’m working, I’ve started sending them money to help out. It’s the least I can do.
I open the front door and walk into a cramped home filled with warm wood, white shiplap walls, and mismatched furniture.
I like to call it ‘boho-coastal-poor’. Grandma made all the decorative floral pillows and curtains for the house, and she has shelves and shelves covered in old books, sea glass bottles, and seashells.
The house smells of bacon and apple pie.
I’m hit with memories of family game nights, learning to cook with Grandma, reading to Mom, and talking with Granddad whenever I needed to discuss ‘man’ stuff.
Fuck, I miss this house. While we struggled a lot, it was never without love.
I was the first in my family to graduate from college, let alone get my doctorate. It was a big deal. In fact, sitting on the living room coffee table is a large, framed photo of me in my cap and gown.
“Hello?” Grandma calls out.
“What’s up, G-Ma?”
“Wes, is that you?”
“The one and only.”
I greet her in the kitchen, lift her, and give her a little spin off her feet.
“Put me down, Wes,” she giggles. “I’m too old to be spun around like that. Now, I’m dizzy.”
I grin, setting her back on the floor, and plop onto a kitchen chair. “I thought I’d make a surprise visit.” I reach for an apple, sitting in a bowl on the kitchen table, and take a large bite. “Are Granddad and Mom home?”
She fixes some stray gray hairs that have fallen out of her braid. “Your grandfather is on his way home from the shop. There was a transmission problem with a car. Your mother is working. She’s going to be so happy to see you, Wes. She misses you.”
“And I miss her… all of you.”
She washes her hands and dries them on a dish towel. “I’m making BLT sandwiches with potato salad. Are you hungry, dear?”
“For your cooking? Always.”
“Please tell me you aren’t living on PooDash or whatever it’s called.”
“Pft, you know very well, it’s called ‘DoorDash’. Besides, you’ve taught me better than that.”
“Good.”
Grandma fries up more bacon, and as it sizzles, she slices tomatoes and soaks them in a balsamic glaze. Meanwhile, my stomach is growling. As I take another bite of my apple, Granddad walks in, shaking out his umbrella and setting it on the porch.
“Wes,” he says, clapping me on the shoulder. “Good to see you, son.”
“Hey, Granddad!” My nicknames annoy him, so he doesn’t get any. I smile, stand, and yank him into a hug.
“You okay? How’s your job?” He squeezes me tightly.
God, he knows me so well. They all do, but I’m pretty sure Granddad can see into your soul. “Everything’s good, great even, but I wanna run some stuff by you later.”
“Of course. I can pull out the fishing gear if you want.”
“I definitely want.”
Grandma puts a plate with potato salad and a sandwich in front of Granddad and me. “Eat up.”
I take a bite of my sandwich and groan. There’s something inherently more delicious about food that’s made by someone else. I love to cook, but my meals never turn out as good as Grandma’s.
We chat mostly about my job. I haven’t told them about Jett yet. I’m saving that discussion for my Granddad later, even if they’re already aware of my unhealthy obsession with him from when I was a kid.
After lunch, Granddad and I head to the shed in the backyard and pull out the fishing gear. We drop it in the back of his pickup and head to the bait and tackle shop.
He doesn’t talk nearly as much as I do, but when he does, it’s always filled with sage advice. Mom and Grandma are smart with these things, too, but I need someone who will give me objective advice.
We’re fishing away from the beachgoers as much as possible. It’s after the summer, so it’s not too crowded with tourists. The temperature is in the low 60s, and the waves are calm. At least it’s stopped raining.
No one swims unless they have a wetsuit, but little kids play on the edge of the water, looking for shells and sand dollars.
In the distance is the infamous Haystack Rock. Cannon Beach is filled with smaller ones. Dennis used to live there practically, checking out the tidepools, while my eyes were always fixed on girls in bikinis.
I throw my pole behind me and toss the line into the air. When it lands in the water, I slowly reel it back until a fish hopefully takes the bait. It doesn’t, so I reel the line all the way in and toss it out again.
“When we first fished, you used to get so frustrated,” he says.
I smile at that. “Well, when you’re little, you want everything to happen immediately.”
He chuckles and tosses his line out. “True.”
“Eventually, I came to love our fishing time. It chilled me out a lot. Taught me patience.”
“Patience is subjective when it comes to you, Wes.”
I stick out my tongue at him. He laughs and slowly reels in his line. “So, what’s troubling you, son?”
“Remember Jett Cordier? Back in high school? The runner?”
Granddad tries to hide his smile, but fails miserably. “How could I not remember? He’s all you could talk about for your entire freshman year. The entire house remembers Jett.”
“Tsh, well, when you say it like that… Yeesh. Sorry, I asked.”
He chuckles again and pats my back. “Chin up, Wes. As far as obsessions go, that one was pretty tame.”
Jeez. I think I’ll take all mentions of my scrapbook of Jett to my grave.
“I wouldn’t call it obsession…” I respond.
“Please, between you and Dennis watching him every time he had a big race on television, it was chaos.”
Once Dennis and I became friends in our junior year of high school, we were quite chaotic. We have similar personalities, which is why we meshed so well.
“What’s going on with Jett these days?” he asks, pulling his line back in, while I do the same. “Last time I heard about him, he was a no-show at the last summer games.”
“Believe it or not, he works at the university as an assistant trainer for athletics.”
“No shit? You know we’ve met his parents a few times over the years.
His father swung by the shop for repairs or oil changes before they moved to Hillsboro.
Your grandmother made all the curtains for Jett’s mother.
They never said a word about what happened to their son, but for a while there, the gossip was nonstop, being a small town and all.
I suppose that’s why they left town. Where’s he been all this time? He say?”
Screw it. Just bite the bullet. What the hell. “Nope, but he kissed me.”
Granddad gapes at me. “He kissed you? I mean… You talked first at least, right?”
I laugh and shake my head. Leave it to Granddad to bring you back down to earth. “Yeah, we talked first. The kiss was… a surprise.”
“And what did you do?”
“I, ah, kissed him back.”
He looks at the water as he throws his line back into the shallow waves, saying nothing as he processes.
“How do you feel about that?” he finally asks.
“Confused?”
“I bet you do.” He reels his line slowly back in. “So, do you like him?”