Chapter 21
SUMMER
Ipicked up an avocado, gave a soft squeeze, and added it to the bag. It was my turn to do the grocery shopping. I moved on to the tomatoes and then picked up a bag of grapes for the kids.
I was going through the mental checklist in my head when I nearly walked into Lana coming around the end cap. She had a stack of papers tucked under one arm and a bag over her shoulder that looked like it weighed more than she did.
“Oh,” she gasped and moved back. “Sorry.”
“Hey,” I said. “What are you doing?”
She shifted the bag higher on her shoulder. “Errands.”
I looked at the papers. They were face down. “You need help?”
She smiled. “I’ve got it,” she said. “I promise.”
She was up to something, but I couldn’t figure out what that was.
“Lana, is everything okay?”
“I’m good, Summer.” She adjusted the bag again and gave me a look that said, drop it. “See you on the waves later this afternoon.”
And then she was gone, leaving me standing there with a cantaloupe in my hand.
“How weird,” I murmured.
I finished my shopping and headed up to the checkout. We usually bought the same things every time, but it was inevitable I forgot something every time. I stood in the middle of an aisle, staring at the contents of the cart, and decided I had everything we needed.
I loaded everything onto the belt at checkout. The cashier looked up from her register with a smile.
“Summer.” She started scanning. “How are you?”
“Good. You?”
“Good. Busy. We don’t even have that port and we’re seeing a bump in business. People are coming into town to see what all the excitement is about.”
“That’s good,” I said. But was it? Did we want that kind of publicity?
I knew what they would say about us. A bunch of backwoods people that didn’t know what was good for them.
NIMBY. I’d seen the stupid comments online.
They were right. Not in my backyard. They could put it in Judd’s backyard.
I would say Colt’s, but in a way, it was in Colt’s backyard, so that argument didn’t hold.
The cashier was the daughter of the couple who had owned the market for as long as I could remember.
She’d grown up behind that counter the same way I’d grown up in the water.
The market was as much a part of Surfside as the sand.
She knew every regular by name and what they bought and which days they came in.
The market wouldn’t survive a population influx.
She’d be pushed out when some big chain moved in.
That’s how it always was. We’d have some Kroger monstrosity.
It wasn’t just her business. It hurt my heart to think of all my friends losing their jobs because of greed.
Colt could say what he wanted about it helping all of us, but that was only half of it.
“I was watching the livestream from the protest,” she said, over the beeping sound of my groceries sliding across the scanner. “I couldn’t leave the register but I had my phone propped up the whole morning.” She shook her head, grinning. “My mom was out there. She said it was incredible.”
“It was something,” I said carefully.
“You think it worked?” she asked.
She wanted me to tell her yes. But I didn’t want to lie.
“I hope so,” I said honestly. “I really do.”
I loaded my bags into the back of the truck. The morning was warming up fast. I had everything sorted and was just closing the tailgate when I heard footsteps behind me.
Bodhi was walking toward me with his deep tan and his tousled curls and that grin he’d been deploying since birth. He was wearing board shorts and no shirt. He had on a pair of flip flops. Bodhi, the picture of a SoCal surfer guy. He even had a green smoothie in hand.
“Hey, Banks.”
“Bodhi.”
He stopped a few feet away and looked me over with the same appreciation he always had, completely unbothered by the fact that I’d made it abundantly clear we were done.
I wouldn’t say we ever really started but he didn’t need to know that.
It would hurt his ego. Maybe. I wasn’t sure anything could ever hurt Bodhi’s ego.
“I saw you at the protest,” he said.
“Half the town was at the protest.”
“Yeah, but I saw you.” He pointed at me with his smoothie cup. “You stood right in front of Anderson, blocking his path. All angry and riled up. I always did like seeing you like that.” He shook his head slowly with a big grin. “Sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. A little wildcat all ferocious. Rawr.”
I pulled my keys from my pocket. “Goodbye, Bodhi.”
“I’m serious,” he said, falling into step beside me as I moved toward the driver’s door. “You’re a fighter, Summer. I’ve always liked that about you.”
“Bodhi, you are so barking up the wrong tree here,” I told him. “We are so never going to happen.”
“Baby, we already happened.”
“And I have told you, we are not going to be together, ever. If you want to be friends, that’s fine. You have to respect that or we’re not even going to hang out.”
He laughed. “What do you mean? You’ll cold shoulder me at parties?”
“I will pretend you’re made of air and don’t exist. Yes.”
“Whoa, man, chill out,” he said. “We’re friends. Why are you freaking out?”
“I’m not freaking out. I’m just telling you to back off.”
“Fine, I won’t compliment you anymore.”
I rolled my eyes. I was pretty sure the sun had fried his brain.
“You know that’s not what I meant,” I said. “Repeat it back to me, sweetie, so I know you understand. What will you stop doing?”
“You wound me,” he said, hand over his bare chest.
“No, I didn’t.”
He laughed. “Fine, I will stop hitting on you.”
“Thank you. Now I need to get my groceries home. I’ll see you later.”
I drove along the road that ran parallel to the beach.
I stopped at a red light and glanced over, my fingers tapping on the steering wheel.
I had nothing on the agenda today. I did a few lessons this morning and now my day was clear.
Normally, it wouldn’t be a question about what to do.
There was always something to be done. But the air felt different.
It felt like we were all holding our breath. Everyone.
I watched a couple kids playing in the sand with colorful buckets.
Their mother was wearing a hat that looked like it could be mistaken for a UFO.
Tourists. Definitely not locals. More people surfing.
Trying to. The beach was dotted with women in bikinis stretched out on blankets. It was perfect. I lived in paradise.
And it might be gone very soon. I tried to imagine the beachfront, that was relatively empty now, littered with businesses. All those pop-up places that just killed a vibe. More people meant more noise. More smells. Was there nowhere else he could put his stupid little boating company?
A tap of a horn reminded me I was supposed to be driving.
I looked in my rearview mirror, waved in apology, and pulled away from the green light.
My drive home was slow. I was looking at everything with new eyes.
There were a few houses in prime locations near the beach that would definitely be bought and torn down.
The gentrification had tried to take over Surfside thirty years ago, but people like my parents fought back.
They refused to sell their homes, and eventually, the rich people moved on to other towns willing to tear it all down for one massive home.
I pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. Our beach house wasn’t a hovel, but it was smaller than a lot of the other houses on the shore. And it could definitely use some updating, but it wasn’t falling down. It was ours and we liked it just the way it was.
I opened the truck door, the damn thing doing its usual groan. Before I had both feet on the pavement, the back door of the house swung open and Ocean came barreling out like he’d been waiting behind it.
“I’ll help,” he announced. “Did you get cookies? And more chicken nuggets?”
“You know I did.”
River was right behind him in her swimsuit with her hair in a braid. “Mom said I had to help.”
“Grab something light,” I said, dropping the tailgate.
I took the two heaviest bags and followed them inside. Becca took the bags and started putting the groceries away.
“Something came for you today,” she said. “While you were out.”
I kept unloading. “What kind of something?”
“A box.”
I set the bag of grapes on the counter and turned to look at her. She was grinning like she had a secret.
“What kind of box?” I asked.
“The nice kind,” she said. “I put it in your room.”
“What is a nice box?” I asked.
“You’ll have to go see.”
“Becca,” I said. “Is it like a severed—”
I stopped talking when I remembered the kids were standing there.
“I don’t know what’s in it,” she said again. “I just put it where it would be safe.”
I abandoned the groceries and headed upstairs with the kids and Becca following me. The box was on my bed. It was a white rectangle with a thick satin ribbon tied around it. It was very fancy and definitely not like anything I ever had before.
There was a note tucked beneath the ribbon.
I owe you a proper apology. You know, one where I actually say the words. But I need more than a run-in on the beach to do it right. Put this on. I’ll pick you up at seven.
No signature. He hadn’t signed it. He hadn’t needed to. It was pretty obvious who it was.
I was aware of them all watching me. I set the note down on the nightstand and reached for the ribbon. I pulled off the lid. There was pink tissue paper hiding the contents.
“What is it?” River asked.
I pushed back the tissue paper and then I just stopped.
The dress was the color of the sky. A baby blue in a soft, airy fabric. I lifted it carefully and held it up. It was backless with a flowy skirt that would hit knee high. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
“Oh,” River breathed. It came out like a prayer.
I stood there holding the dress and felt my cheeks burn. I was thrilled and embarrassed and excited. Becca had a hand over her mouth.
“It’s so pretty,” River said. She reached out one finger and touched the fabric very gently, like it might dissolve. “Aunt Summer, it’s so pretty.”
“It is,” I agreed.
“You have to put it on,” she said.
“Oh, I’m all sweaty,” I said.
“Guys, go finish putting away the groceries,” Becca said.
The kids ran out of the room.
Becca looked at me. “So?”
“What?”
“He sent you a dress and he’s picking you up. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”
“Well, you’re about to.” She grinned.
“I don’t know if I should go,” I said. “It’s only going to complicate things.”
“It’s dinner,” Becca said. “He sent you a beautiful dress. When has anyone ever sent you a dress? An expensive dress at that.”
“Never.”
“Exactly. If I had your cute little body, I would definitely wear it.”
I laughed. “Fine. But I’m not putting that on until I shower and get cleaned up.”
She started laughing and shook her head. “You two cannot quit each other. You realize that, right?”
“And I’m going to get a big, fat broken heart when he goes back to Texas.”
“Don’t think about that,” she said. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. What if he stays? He is opening a business here.”
“Which is exactly why this is a bad idea.”
“Nothing is a bad idea when that dress is involved,” she said as she walked out of my room.
A few hours later, I was getting dressed.
River was sitting on my bed chattering away about the princess in the book she was reading.
I did my hair, leaving it loose around my shoulders.
I was used to wearing bikinis so the open back didn’t bother me a bit.
I never wore dresses. Ever. But I felt good. I felt feminine and pretty.
“You look like a beach princess,” River declared.
I laughed and spun around. “If only I had a tiara.”