Chapter 36
COLT
Ispent the better part of the afternoon at the kitchen table with my laptop and a cold bottle of water, working through the legal angle on the Front Street covenants.
My attorneys in Texas had pulled the original documentation within an hour of me forwarding the details Gideon had given me.
What they sent back was better than I’d hoped.
The covenants were airtight. Old language, carefully written by people who had clearly anticipated exactly the kind of game a developer might attempt.
Whoever had drafted those documents back in the nineties knew what they were doing.
I made a mental note to send Gideon a very nice bottle of whiskey.
Judd’s lawyers were good. I knew that better than anyone because I’d used the same firm before.
Finding a workaround was going to take time and money and public scrutiny that was only going to get louder the longer this dragged out.
The video had done its work. My phone had been ringing steadily since noon.
The calls I did take were from investors.
Judd hadn’t called. I imagined him sitting in a war room plotting against me. It almost made me laugh to think of him on his treadmill, sweating and grunting through one Zoom meeting after another.
I was deep in a document my attorney had flagged when a notification popped up on the corner of my screen. Facebook messenger. I almost ignored it. Then I saw the name.
Bodhi Callahan.
That was unexpected. Or maybe he was going to try to run me out of town so he could have Summer all to himself. If he thought we were going to have a dick measuring contest, he was going to lose. And after my night with Summer, I knew she was mine.
I clicked the message, prepared for a biting reply.
Saw your thing today. Took some guts. Bonfire tonight down at the south end. Old spot. Show up if you want. Could use less assholes in the world and you might be working your way off that list. 9pm. Don’t be weird about it.
I leaned back in my chair and laughed. I wasn’t sure what kind of invitation was considered friendly.
But it was Bodhi. He’d annoyed the hell out of me over previous summers for reasons that had everything to do with the way he looked at Summer and nothing to do with any actual fault of his.
I wasn’t ever going to be his buddy, but it was an olive branch.
I typed back: I’ll be there.
I closed the laptop and picked up my phone. I was only going if she was. She answered slightly breathless, which told me she was either between lessons or about to start one.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.” Just hearing her voice had my cock stirring. “You busy?”
“I’ve got about four minutes before my next lesson starts. What’s up?”
“Bonfire tonight,” I said. “South end. Nine o’clock. You in?”
A pause. I heard the sound of the ocean behind her and the distant shout of a kid somewhere down the beach. “Whose bonfire?”
“Bodhi’s.”
Another pause. “Bodhi invited you.”
“He did.”
“Huh.” I could hear the smile in it even if she was trying to hide it. “Okay. Yeah. I’m in.”
“Great. Want me to pick you up?”
“It’s on the beach. Are you suggesting giving me a piggyback ride?”
I laughed. “I could do that.”
“I have to go,” she said. “I’ll just meet you there. Nine o’clock.”
Summer hung up.
“You’re smiling at your phone,” Cody said, sliding into one of the chairs at the table.
“I’m going to a bonfire tonight,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Bodhi Callahan invited me.”
Cody’s eyebrows went up. “Surfer guy? The one who was sniffing around Summer?”
“The same.”
He considered that. “So either he’s being genuine or he’s setting a trap.”
“He’s being genuine,” I said.
“You need help picking out an outfit? I know how long that process takes you.”
“I will end you.”
“Keep it simple.”
“I know how to dress myself,” I muttered. “What about you?”
“Poker game with a few of the guys that aren’t trying to run us out of town,” he said.
The south end of the beach was a different animal at night.
The fire was already going when I came down from the dune path.
They had a good-sized blaze throwing orange light across the sand and the faces gathered around it.
Someone had a speaker going. I immediately recognized the song as one from just about every bonfire on this beach, Banana Pancakes.
It was kind of a staple. There were maybe twenty people spread out in loose clusters.
Coolers. Folding chairs. A couple of dogs chasing each other at the edge of the firelight.
I stood there for a moment at the top of the path and told myself to stop scanning for her. She said she’d be here. She’d be here. And then I thought about Cody’s warning it could be a setup.
Summer would not set me up.
“Anderson.”
Bodhi materialized out of the dark to my left, two bottles in hand. He was wearing a hoodie and board shorts, his curls loose and wild. He looked me over, then extended one of the bottles toward me. I was so glad I had kept it simple with the khaki shorts and a tee. Overdressing was a real thing.
I took the beer. “Thanks for the invite.”
“Don’t mention it.” He tipped his own bottle toward the fire. He glanced at me sideways. “The video helped.”
“That was the idea.”
He nodded slowly, looking out at the water. I was waiting for him to say something about Summer. I was ready for it. Had a whole response prepared that conveyed absolutely nothing about the fact that I was completely and utterly gone for the woman.
He didn’t say anything about Summer. He just said, “Come on,” and led me toward the fire.
The reception was better than I deserved.
A few people I recognized from the protest. One I had spotted with a tomato that eventually ended up on my shirt.
There were handshakes. A few cautious nods.
One guy named Tyler who ran a paddleboard rental outfit gave me a knuckle bump.
That was about the equivalent of a warm hug.
I found myself standing between Bodhi and Tyler, half-listening to a debate about wave conditions, when I noticed the young woman standing just outside the inner ring of the fire’s warmth.
She was in her early twenties. Dark hair pulled back, a flannel shirt tied at the waist. Pretty in a quiet way.
She had a drink in her hand that she wasn’t touching, and every thirty seconds or so her eyes would drift to me and then look away quickly when I looked in her direction.
I filed it away without making much of it. Maybe she’d been at the protest. Or she didn’t like me. Didn’t trust me. I couldn’t blame her. There were probably a dozen people here tonight doing the same thing with more subtlety. I looked back at the fire and took a drink of my beer.
And then Summer was there.
She came down the path with Capri beside her, both of them laughing at something before they’d even reached the sand.
She was wearing a light-colored dress I hadn’t seen before, something that moved when she walked.
Her hair was loose with those beautiful beachy waves swishing around her shoulders.
She had sandals on that she stopped to take off the moment her feet hit the sand, dangling them from two fingers as she kept walking.
I was staring and I didn’t bother trying to hide it. I didn’t care who knew I wanted her. She was mine and I just needed everyone here, including her, to accept it.
She spotted me before Capri did. A smile broke across her face. She said something to Capri without looking away from me and then changed direction. Summer Banks walking across a beach toward me in the firelight was a core memory I would take to the grave with me.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
She tilted her head toward the cooler. “I need a drink.”
I got her one. She took it and stepped in beside me, close enough that her shoulder pressed against my arm. She stayed there. I wasn’t sure if she’d be hesitant to hang out with me. I sure as hell didn’t expect her to stick by me like she had already accepted she was mine.
Bodhi glanced over. I watched him clock the two of us standing together and I waited for him to have an opinion.
I was more than happy to show him his opinion was wrong.
He raised his bottle slightly, more at her than me, and turned back to his conversation.
I exhaled, glad I wasn’t going to have to resort to a fistfight.
The fire popped and sent up a spray of sparks. The conversation around us rose and fell. The music had shifted to a Kenny Chesney song. I listened to surfing stories. Close encounters with sharks. I listened but only half-paid attention. I was focused on her.
Summer leaned into me. I put my arm around her, hoping she wouldn’t shrug it off. She just leaned into me. Damn, she fit so perfectly against my body.
I couldn’t stop looking at her. Every time I thought I had it under control she’d tilt her head or push her hair back from her face or catch my eye and smile. I had it bad and I didn’t care even a little.
“New dress?” I asked her.
“Yep. Did a little shopping today.”
“I like it.” I leaned close to her ear. “But I’d like it better on my floor.”
She burst into laughter. “That is so cliche.”
“But true.”
“How’s the knees?”
“Usually that’s the question for the woman,” I joked.
She slapped at my chest. “Rude!”
“How’s the spine?”
“Sore, if you must know.”
“Well, my knees are bruised, but it’s the hamstring that kept me off the beach for my usual run.”
“Maybe you need a massage,” she said.
“You offering?”
“I might be.”
“You can massage me anytime, anywhere. Just name it. Hell, I’ll drop my pants right here.”
“You’re wearing shorts, plenty of access.”
“But what if I want to drop my pants?”
She laughed again. I got us another round of drinks and listened to a story about a lifeguard that got caught getting a blowjob in the tower.
I caught Bodhi watching me watch her at one point. He raised an eyebrow. I didn’t look away. He seemed to be figuring out this thing between us was far more than he knew. All these people were clueless about the history.
I spotted the dark-haired girl again across the circle.
She was still doing the same thing. Eyes on me, then away.
She looked less like someone who didn’t trust me and more like someone who was trying to work up the nerve to talk to me.
It didn’t look like it was going to be a friendly conversation.
“You good?” Summer asked.
“Yep. Want to take a walk?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I do.”
She told Capri she’d be back. Capri waved her off.
“You doing okay?” she asked.
“Better than I’ve been in a long time,” I said honestly.
She squeezed my hand. We walked away from the group and toward the dark shoreline.