Chapter 17
Straddling his board and bobbing in the late afternoon chop, Evan watched a new wave grow about two hundred yards offshore.
With four-foot rollers breaking on the island’s west side, he’d expected a mob scene at his favorite surfing spot, but he had the place to himself.
Under normal circumstances, he didn’t surf alone.
But nothing about this day was normal, and he needed the mindless escape surfing always provided.
Evan paddled out a little farther, eyeing the cresting wave and moving into position. Grabbing a ride on a wave was all about timing. Balance and coordination played a role, too, but primarily it was about timing the collision of board and wave just right.
Growing up on the island, surfing had been one of Evan’s favorite things to do. Whenever he needed to clear his head, he’d grab his board and head for the west side. Surfing was also the one athletic pursuit he’d been better at than his brothers, and he never missed a chance to remind them of that.
As the wave started to peak, Evan paddled furiously, skimming along the top until the force of the water grabbed him and sent him hurtling forward.
Evan scrambled to his feet for the wild ride to shore, crouching into a turn that gave him another hundred yards of speed before he bailed out into shallow water.
“Awesome.” He climbed back on the board and took a minute to catch his breath, drifting in the smaller waves that broke closer to the shore. Other than his parents and family, he missed riding Gansett waves most of all when he was in Nashville.
When he lived here, Evan had surfed year-round, much to his mother’s dismay, but on this trip, one thing after another had kept him out of the water.
His sister’s wedding, the tropical storm that made the conditions too dangerous, the birth of his niece and helping to run the marina while his brother was busy with a new baby and his father was recovering from a head injury had left little time for surfing.
As he paddled out in search of the next wave, Evan’s mind raced a mile a minute.
He thought about his parents and their current struggles as well as his new niece, Hailey.
Thinking of his sister, Janey, he wondered if she and Joe were settling back into their home in Ohio for her second year of vet school.
He’d have to give them a call this week to see how things were going.
No matter where he was or what he was doing, Evan made a point to speak to each of his siblings every week. The phone calls kept the five of them connected, which was important to him—and to them.
Speaking of phone calls, he needed to return the call from his manager that he’d received while he was out last night with Grace—
“No!” His heart kicked into gear at the thought of her. “You’re not thinking about her. So don’t go there. It was one night. No big deal.” The whole point of surfing was to not think about her. He’d already spent enough time thinking about her. He was all done with that subject.
Facedown on the board, he paddled hard, the muscles in his arms burning from the effort.
Despite his iron will to think about anything other than her, the erotic interlude ran through his mind like one of those loop videos that played over and over again.
Every detail was burned indelibly into his memory, as vivid as it had been in the moment.
Every moan, every sigh, every stroke of her soft hands . . .
“Stop it!” he screamed at the surf. “That’s enough, goddamn it! Just stop! There’s nothing special about her! She’s a nice girl, and we had a good time. That’s the end of it!” He eyed a new wave with the potential to be bigger than the last and paddled into position to wait for it.
The closer the wave came, the bigger it got. Adrenaline cruised through Evan’s body, feeding the high he could only get from surfing. Nothing was quite like riding atop the perfect wave, except perhaps an exquisite night in the arms of the perfect woman.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he muttered, summoning all the concentration he needed to ride the monster that was barreling down on him. As the undertow sucked him out from the shore, Evan moved into position. He eyed the roller, measuring and calculating, waiting for the break that didn’t come.
“Shit,” he whispered as it peaked right under him, lifting the board and shooting it forward.
He’d timed it all wrong. Getting his balance, he stood for the ride, whipping over the surface of the water so fast that the shoreline blurred.
Realizing the wave was going to break very close to the beach, it occurred to Evan that being out here alone might not be the smartest thing he’d ever done.
The board flew out from under him, but the ripcord fastened to his ankle kept it attached to him.
The wave dragged him down and slammed him into the bottom.
He couldn’t get his hands down in time to keep his face from grinding into sand and shells and rocks.
Knowing better than to fight the currents, he gave in to the will of the water and eventually broke the surface, gasping for air.
“Holy shit,” he whispered, ducking beneath another wave as the ripcord pulled and tugged at his ankle.
Trying to catch his breath and unscramble his brain, Evan floated on his back, letting the board drag him along behind it.
The salt water burned his abraded face, and Evan wondered if he was bleeding, which led to thoughts of sharks.
Just as he was about to swim for shore, a strong arm encircled his chest.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Owen said, breathing hard. “Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
“That was one hell of a wipeout. Scared the freaking shit out of me.”
“Where’d you come from?”
“I was on the stairs coming down when I saw you misread that one, big-time.”
He’d been misreading everything lately. “I’m okay,” he said when his feet connected with sand.
Owen released him but stayed close. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” Picking up his board, Evan walked on wobbly legs and dropped down in the sand.
Owen landed next to him and handed him a towel. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”
Evan pressed the towel to his face and winced from the sting of terrycloth meeting raw skin.
“That’s gonna be nasty looking.”
“It’s not that bad.” Evan withdrew the towel and was stunned by how much blood there was. “Is it?”
“It’s pretty bad. You’re gonna want to get that cleaned up so it doesn’t scab over when it’s all sandy.”
Returning the towel to his face, Evan reclined on the sand and looked up at the blue sky. “And this day goes from bad to worse.”
“I take it things didn’t go well with Grace last night?”
Owen’s question struck him in the sensitive area just above his rib cage, leaving an ache that demanded his full attention.
“Ev?”
“It was okay.”
“Just okay?”
Evan wished he could share his thoughts on the matter with Owen, but since he couldn’t explain his unusual reaction to Grace to himself, how would he explain it to someone else?
“What’s with you? It’s like pulling teeth to get a word out of you.”
“It was probably the best date I’ve ever been on.”
Evan could tell that he’d shocked the shit out of his friend. “Is that right? Wow. So what now?”
Evan shrugged. “Nothing. We had a good time. What else is there to say?”
“So let me get this straight—it was the best date of your life, but you’re not going to see her again?”
Why did it sound so awful when Owen put it that way? “That’s about right.”
“You’re screwed up, man.”
“There’s a news flash.”
“I don’t get why you’re so anti-relationship. You grew up with two parents who wrote the blueprint for successful marriage. So how does the son of Big Mac and Linda McCarthy run from anything that might, someday, down the road, in the distant future, lead to marriage?”
Because he had no answer to Owen’s very good question, Evan went on the offensive. “How am I any different from you?”
“My parents were nothing like yours.”
Since Owen rarely talked about his family or his upbringing, Evan was intrigued by the rare insight. “How were they different?”
Owen hesitated for a long moment, as if deciding how much he wanted to share. “My dad, the general, was kind of a dick. Everything was his way or the highway, you know? We all breathed easier when he was deployed, including my mom.”
“He didn’t, you know . . .”
“Knock us around? Sometimes. Mostly we went out of our way to avoid him. I went out of my way to keep him away from my younger brothers and sisters.”
Having never heard any of this before, Evan marveled at how he’d known Owen most of his life but didn’t know him as well as he’d thought. He’d come to the island every summer to see his grandparents, but he’d never talked much about what went on the rest of the year. “So you bore the brunt.”
Owen stared straight ahead at the ocean. “Something like that.”
“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“It was a long time ago.” Owen flashed the grin that was far more his speed than the somber expression. “He wouldn’t dare look at me cross-eyed now.”
Evan smiled. “I bet sometimes you wish he would.”
“I’m not above that level of pettiness, but I don’t live my life looking backward. No point in that.”
“So you don’t ever see yourself with a wife and kids?”
“I never said that.”
Evan studied his old friend. “Why are you acting all smug, as if you’ve got a big secret or something?”
“No secrets.”
“What’s up with you and Laura?”
“Nothing.”
“Why do I not believe you?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. We’re friends. I like her. I think she likes me. We have some laughs. Nothing more to it than that.”
“Who’re you trying to convince? Me or you?”
“You’re really not going to see Grace again?”
Evan had to give Owen credit for successfully deflecting the conversation. “What’s the point, O? She lives in Connecticut. I’m going back to Nashville soon. I don’t want to get into something I can’t handle right now. I’ve got enough to deal with.”
“I suppose that makes sense. I’m sure she’ll understand—as long as you didn’t sleep with her or anything.”
As the comment scored a direct hit, Evan continued to stare up at the sky.
“Aw, jeez, man. You didn’t sleep with her, did you?”
Evan let his silence speak for him.
“Shit,” Owen said. “That changes everything.”
Wasn’t that the truth?