Chapter 13
SUMMER
Nobody knocked on my door at nine in the morning on my one morning off. It was supposed to be just coffee and cartoons. I looked forward to the lazy mornings when they didn’t have to be rushed out the door and Becca wasn’t rushing around.
River looked up from the sofa like she wasn’t sure she actually heard it.
I opened the door to find Colt Anderson glaring at me.
Little rude. He was wearing a blue shirt that was clinging to his body.
I hated that I noticed. He’d been running again.
But clearly his run wasn’t very relaxing.
His jaw was clenched and his eyes said it all.
He was pissed. At me. I didn’t know what I did.
I was still on my first cup of coffee. Little early to be out pissing off the world.
“Colt.”
“Summer.”
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
“Who pissed in your Wheaties?” I asked.
“I don’t eat cereal.”
“That tracks. You seem like someone who eats steel-cut oats with no sugar. No—yogurt. Definitely a yogurt guy. With a green smoothie. The kind that tastes like someone mowed their lawn and tossed it in their blender.”
“Summer.” He said my name like a warning. He was not in the mood for humor.
“Do you need to borrow a cup of sugar or what? Why are you darkening my door so early?”
“My port site was trashed this morning,” he said. “Actually trashed. Spray paint. Vandalism.”
“More poop?”
“Poop can be cleaned up. This is different. This is destructive.” He was looking at me like he was waiting for me to confess.
I straightened up. “I hope you’re not standing on my porch implying that I had something to do with that.”
He stared back at me. I glared, folding my arms across my chest and tapping my foot. If he was going to accuse me of a crime, I was going to make him say it.
“No,” he said finally. “I don’t think it was you.”
“Great.”
“But I think you might know who it was.”
“I don’t.”
“Summer, this is serious. The man that’s running this business is not happy. He’s getting the police involved. I’m worried someone is going to get in real trouble. If you know who they are, you need to tell them to stop.”
“I don’t know anything and if you keep accusing me, you’re going to be cleaning up a lot more than dog shit.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.”
“Look, I’m giving you the heads-up and maybe you can talk to the few people that are being the loudest,” he said. “I know you’ve heard things. Bodhi knew about the project, which means others knew.”
“Colt, I’m going to be honest with you.” I kept my voice even, trying not to take offense to his insinuations I had anything to do with what was happening.
“I haven’t talked to a single person in this town who wants that port.
Not one. So your suspect list is basically every person who lives here, and that’s not me being difficult.
That’s just the truth. It isn’t a few people.
Bodhi is just the one that had the guts to say it to your face. ”
He exhaled through his nose. “If people actually understood what this project does for a town like Surfside—”
“Oh, here we go. Please, pitch me. That’s exactly what I want to hear this morning.”
“We’ll be bringing in new clientele. More customers. More money. Exposure that will bring people in.”
“Exposure.” I scoffed. “Colt, do you hear yourself? Surfside doesn’t need exposure.
You know what exposure gets you on the California coast?
You get found. You get put on a list. You get a hundred thousand Instagram posts that bring ten thousand strangers who park in the locals’ spots and leave trash on the beach.
They drive up the rent until half the people who made this place worth finding can’t afford to live here anymore.
” I shook my head. “You know what makes this town rare? It’s still small.
It still feels like something real. That doesn’t exist out here anymore.
Do you know what Malibu used to be? Laguna Beach?
This place is a jewel, and everybody who lives here knows it because that’s exactly why we stayed.
You could have known that too if you’d ever spent enough time here to see past the investment opportunity. ”
He stared at me.
I stared back. “You visit your mega mansion a couple months out of the year. You don’t know what it’s like to live here.
You operate in a tax bracket that is not real life.
Don’t come here and try to tell us what we want.
What we need. We don’t need private jets and mansions to be happy.
We’re content with our basic bitch stuff.
Old trucks. The surf and our zero-star restaurants. Period.”
“Are you done?” he asked.
“Are you?”
I could see he had a lot to say and I almost welcomed it, but he simply stared at me.
“Good.” I reached for the door. “I have a full pot of coffee and two kids who are about to start a new episode without me. Enjoy your day.”
I closed the door, leaving him to stand there if he chose.
My dad was on the sofa with Ocean wedged under one arm and the remote in his hand.
“Who was at the door?” he asked, without looking away from the screen.
“Some guy trying to sell something,” I said, moving back to the kitchen. “I sent him on his way.”
“Good girl.”
Becca walked into the kitchen in her robe. She reached for the pot and filled her mug. I dumped pancake mix into a bowl, filled it with water, and whisked it a little harder than necessary.
“Who was it really?” she murmured.
“Nobody.”
She looked at me sideways.
“Colt,” I said quietly.
Becca stared at me over the rim of her mug. “Why?”
“He came over to ask if I knew who vandalized the construction site,” I said, keeping my voice low. I jerked my head toward the living room where Dad had Ocean tucked under his arm and the volume on the television was mercifully high. “That’s it. That’s all it was.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I told him I didn’t know anything and sent him on his way.”
“Did you?”
“Becca.”
She held up a hand in surrender. I turned back to the bowl and added the chocolate chips to the pancake batter. Becca grabbed the bacon and placed strips in the cast iron pan. The sizzle filled the kitchen and I felt some of the tension in my shoulders release. Bacon made life better.
“So he just came over,” she said.
“Don’t.”
She flipped the bacon. “I’m making breakfast.”
I poured batter on the griddle. I could hear River laughing at something on the television. Dad loved the easy mornings. We all did. And that’s what I was focusing on.
I flipped the first pancakes, focusing on the edges and trying to get the image of a sweaty Colt out of my head. It wasn’t fair that he had gotten sexier. He was already starting at a ten and now he was a solid fifteen. How was I, a mere mortal, supposed to ignore him?
By the time everyone was settled at the table, the pancakes were stacked high, the bacon was drained on paper towels, and I had fresh coffee.
“These are the good pancakes,” Ocean announced.
“All my pancakes are good,” I said.
River grinned. “Chocolate chips are my favorite.”
“I know.” I pushed the pancakes closer to her.
The table was quiet as we stuffed our faces. Feeding the kids chocolate chips drizzled in syrup was probably a bad move, but it was a treat.
“So,” I said casually. “Sounds like someone made a statement down at the construction site last night.”
Dad looked up from his plate. “Oh?”
“Heard it was pretty thorough.” I sipped my coffee. “Signs, spray paint. The whole nine.”
“Signs saying what?” River asked.
“That the beach belongs to everyone,” I said. “Which is true.”
River nodded like that was perfectly reasonable and went back to her pancakes.
Dad set his fork down and folded his hands on the table. “I heard something about it on my walk this morning. Sheryl mentioned it.”
“Sheryl’s already heard?” Becca asked.
“Sheryl hears everything,” he said with a small smile that I was choosing not to examine right now. “She said the Facebook page was lighting up.”
Becca already had her phone out. I watched her scroll, her eyes going wide. “Oh my God.”
“What?” I asked.
She turned the phone around and slid it across the table toward me.
The Surfside Cove Community Board had at least forty new posts.
I scrolled through them with my thumb. Photos of the construction site, the spray-painted fence, the kelp draped over the orange netting.
The hand-painted signs driven into the sand.
Someone had gotten close enough to photograph the note in the sheet protector.
Another person had taken a wide shot that showed the whole scope of it against the backdrop of the beach in the early morning light.
I scrolled further and stopped. There was Colt, standing at the edge of the site with his hands on his hips, still in his running clothes, sweat-damp and jaw clenched.
A man in a suit stood beside him with his phone pressed to his ear, gesturing at the fence with his free hand.
Someone had caught the moment from a distance.
I looked at the photo longer than I should have.
He looked tired. And I actually felt a little bad for him.
I could almost understand he believed he was doing something good.
But he just didn’t understand that we weren’t all like him.
We didn’t all need the thrill of commerce.
We lived here because we liked the way things were.
I handed the phone to Dad. He studied it for a moment, clicking his tongue, and passed it to Becca without comment.
“Keep scrolling,” Becca said.
I took the phone back. Below the photos, someone had shared an event.
The profile was a cartoon wave with sunglasses.
The account name was SaveSurfsideCove and it had been created sometime in the last twenty-four hours.
The event was called Stand for the Shore and it was scheduled for Friday morning at the Front Street building.
The group wanted people to bring signs and their voices. The post had over a hundred likes.
“Huh,” I said.
Becca raised her eyebrows at me.
“What’s that?” River asked, craning her neck.
“A community event,” I said.
“Like a party?”
“Sort of. People are going to get together to talk about something important that’s happening in town.”
Ocean looked up from his third pancake. “Like a protest?”
“Where did you learn that word?” Becca asked.
“School.”
Becca looked at me. “Are you going?” she asked me.
I shrugged. “It’s not going to change anything.”
“Still. We should go.”
“I agree,” Dad said. “At least to support those that are trying to fight it.”
“Why didn’t they fight when the land use proposal was moving through city council?” I asked.
“Maybe they didn’t know about it.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m not interested in drama.”
“We’re going,” Becca said. “The kids can make signs.”
I stared at her. “Becca!”
“What? It’s art. Civics. It’s a learning experience.”
“Just don’t let yourself get used as a pawn,” I warned. “You know how these things get.”
“It’ll be enlightening,” Becca said. “You should go. If that monstrosity goes in, you’re going to lose big.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Do you really want to be surfing with giant boats polluting the water? People running their jet skis and just clogging up the beach in general.”
All good points. “We’ll see,” I said.