Summer
Seven hours of cleaning, dust, pulled weeds, and boxes dragged down the hall.
My T-shirt’s gone beige, my jeans are wrecked, and I’ve got dirt under every nail.
But two rooms are more or less clean and sorted, the yard’s coming along, and the house looks a little less like a real-estate crime scene.
Next stop, the garage.
The room smells of motor oil and rubber. All the way at the back, I spot my beach cruiser, leaning against the wall between a rusted lawnmower and a box of old flowerpots.
The pink has faded, almost salmon now. The seat’s dusty, the handlebars are sticky, and the tires are flat. But the frame’s still solid. So is the front basket, even with its wicker coming a little loose.
I find a pump hanging on the wall, behind Grandpa’s tools. After a few minutes, the tires firm up again. The bike is ugly, dirty, pink—but it still rolls, and it’s mine.
I wipe the seat with my hand and pedal toward the lodge.
A couple minutes later, it appears at the end of the drive. The shade of the palm trees, the sound of the pool, the soft music… My fingers loosen on the handlebars. The day feels a little less heavy.
As I pass the front desk, I catch sight of a chalkboard hanging by the door. Someone’s written in chalk:
Lunch 11:30 a.m.–2 p.m.
I check my phone. 1:52 p.m.
Shit.
No time to shower, change, and come back. I need to get to the bar now and talk my way into ten more minutes.
I cross the lodge deck in long strides. The pool glitters under the afternoon sun. A few tourists read on lounge chairs. The smell of spiced food drifts through the air.
The bar is open, semicircular, with its blond-wood counter and tall stools. Behind it, the bottles lined up, the glasses hanging, the beer fridge… and a guy with pale pink hair, slim, not very tall, drying a glass with his back to me. Miles.
He turns around and our eyes meet. He stares at me, then his blue eyes go wide.
“No. No way!”
He sets the glass down, comes around the bar, and pulls me into a hug before I can step back. A tight, genuine hug, no hesitation.
“Miles, I’m covered in—”
“I don’t care. Summer Hayes. Holy shit.”
He holds me at arm’s length and we look at each other for a second. He’s got the same warm eyes he had as a teenager. The piercing in his left nostril, though—that’s new.
“You work here?” I ask, a little thrown.
“Looks like it,” he says, with the same smile as before.
“Miles, I’m sorry to just show up like this, but the lunch service ends in—”
“Five minutes. I know. Go shower, I’ll keep something warm for you.”
“You sure?”
“Summer. Go shower. You smell like an attic.”
I laugh—a real laugh, not the nervous one from these past few days—and head off to my bungalow.
The shower is short and scalding.
The dust runs off in gray rivulets. The musty smell that had clung to my skin and hair washes away under the soap. The hot water unknots my shoulders.
I pull on clean shorts and a fresh T-shirt, twist my wet hair into a bun, and go back to the bar.
Miles saved me a seat at the counter. Or rather, he tried.
A big tabby cat, square head, olive-green eyes, is sprawled across my stool. He looks at me with the regal calm of an animal that has never once moved for a human being. His ears are notched in places, like he settled two or three scores before retiring here.
“That’s Captain, king of the lodge,” Miles says from behind the counter. “You don’t move him, you go around him. I’ll grab you another stool.”
I settle onto the one he brings over. Captain gives me a look of complete indifference and goes back to contemplating the horizon.
In front of me, a plate covered with a metal dome worthy of a five-star restaurant.
“A dome? Seriously?”
“Sushi’s a criminal,” Miles announces.
I lift the dome. Captain sits up at once.
A tiny calico cat appears out of nowhere and jumps onto the counter. White, orange, black, pale blue eyes locked on my food.
“Sushi, no,” Miles sighs.
She’s already reaching a paw toward the plate. Miles intercepts her with his fingertips, grabs a little saucer from behind the counter, and sets it down farther away.
“Protection money.”
Sushi collects her tribute and bolts. Captain watches her go, unimpressed.
“That one’s her accomplice,” Miles says. “If you want to eat in peace, keep the dome within reach.”
I finally look at the plate. Rice, a thick golden sauce, tender pieces of chicken, finely cut vegetables.
“Japanese curry. Yumi made it,” Miles adds.
The first bite is hot, spiced just right, with that gentle sweetness Japanese curry always has.
“This is delicious!” I say.
“I know. Yumi refuses to give up the recipe. Even to me.”
I eat while Miles wipes away the last traces of the lunch service. Captain sleeps on his stool. Somewhere under the counter, Sushi waits.
“So,” Miles says, leaning on the bar. “Tell me everything.”
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Skating. Last time I saw you on TV, you’d just won gold at the Olympics.”
I spear a piece of chicken.
“Yeah. Team event.”
“That’s still huge.”
I don’t say anything. It’s not the medal I wanted. In the individual event, I was first after the short program. And in the free skate, I went for the triple axel. I didn’t need to. I could have played it safe, kept my lead. But no. I fell, and dropped to fourth.
Regrets? Every day.
“And after that?”
The bite of curry goes down a little less easily.
“A month later, at Worlds, a bad fracture in my foot. By the time it healed, it was too late to get back to that level. And I was still in pain. I’m still in pain.”
“Shit, Summer.”
“And besides… I couldn’t stand my coach anymore.”
“That was your mom, right?” Miles says gently. “I remember you used to say she was… tough.”
A short laugh slips out.
“You could say that. I was running on empty.”
I set my fork down.
“That’s how it is. Skating’s a sport where you get a window. If you miss it…”
I shrug, like it doesn’t matter. It always does.
“And… school?”
“Columbia.”
“Fancy,” Miles whistles.
“Less glamorous than it sounds. When I quit competing, the sponsors vanished, and the athletic funding went with them. I still had two years left to pay for.”
“Ouch.”
“End result: a massive student loan, an internship at a marketing firm that barely lets me pay it down, and a second job waitressing nights at a diner on the Lower East Side to cover rent.”
“Waitressing. Like me, bartending. We got degrees for this…”
Miles gives me a knowing smile.
“And your foot?” he goes on. “How’s that with waitressing?”
“Some nights it’s rough. After a full day in heels at the internship, the diner kills me. Some mornings I can’t put my foot on the floor for ten minutes.”
I’d never said that to anyone outside a doctor’s office.
“And you?” I ask.
“A bachelor’s in marine biology at Monterey Bay. A master’s too.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Five years of school. Coastal ecosystems, marine wildlife, scientific diving. The whole deal.”
“And?”
Miles fiddles with his bar towel, his expression distant.
“And nothing. I tried everywhere: labs, marine parks, research centers, nonprofits… the market’s saturated. Too many grads, not enough jobs.”
“So you came back here.”
“Wasn’t much choice.”
He says it without bitterness—almost. His smile freezes for a second.
“I keep sending out résumés,” he adds. “One day it’ll work out. Or not. In the meantime, I pour beers for tourists and feed cats.”
Sushi picks this moment to jump onto the counter. Miles scratches her behind the ear.
“You know how it works here,” he says. “We all leave… and we all end up coming back.”
My hand goes to my pendant. The little gold wave is warm.
“I’m not really coming back, Miles. I’m here to sell my grandparents’ house. Fix it up, sign, go back to New York.”
“So you’re selling the Hayes house?” he asks softly.
“I have to. I can’t afford to keep a second home in California.”
It’s not a choice. It’s survival.
Miles wipes the counter with slow, deliberate strokes.
“You seeing anyone?”
A flash hits before I can answer: Jace, his green eyes, his brown hair, his closed-off face on the beach. I shove the image away.
“No. You?”
Miles flashes me a crooked, mischievous smile that brings out a dimple.
“No girlfriend. But a few guys here and there.”
I’m not surprised. At seventeen, he never once looked at the girls in their swimsuits by the pool, and I always got the feeling his eyes wandered elsewhere—to Jace’s abs, or Evan’s.
“I kind of figured,” I admit.
“You’re not the first to tell me that. But I was the last one to figure it out.”
We laugh like six years never had the chance to come between us.
“It’s good to see you again, Miles.”
“Same, Summer. Even if you’re covered in dust.”
The shade of the palm trees stretches across the deck. A kid jumps into the pool with a yell. The music changes. A slow track I don’t recognize.
I finish my curry and stretch. Captain opens one eye, registers that there’s nothing left to eat, and goes back to sleep.
For the first time since I got here, I’m not counting down the hours until I leave. Which is dangerous. I came to sell a house, pay off a loan, and leave.
Coral Bay is a trap. A warm, salty, sunlit trap.
And I’ve already got one foot in it.