18. Summer
Summer
When I get off the beach cruiser in front of the lodge, I already know I’m not going back to the house this afternoon.
I thought I’d make it to the evening. But a stiffness settled between my shoulder blades around midmorning and it’s only gotten worse.
Three days of scraping, scrubbing, lifting, ripping, peeling, hauling.
My body knows how to work. But not like this—not hunched under a sink, not with my arms over my head taking down curtains nobody’s touched in ten years.
One good stretching session and it’ll pass. I still know my body well enough for that.
The shower in Bungalow 17 is tiny—my elbows hit the walls when I wash my hair—but the hot water does its job.
I pull on navy running shorts and an I Love NY tank top I’ve had since college—the red heart cracked from too many washes. I tie up my hair, grab Stroke of Desire off the nightstand—I need to finish it before book club tomorrow night—and head back up to the bar.
Miles waves at me from the counter. He disappears for a second and comes back with a steaming bowl.
“I saved you the special,” he says, setting it down in front of me.
A bowl of udon. The broth smells like ginger and soy sauce. The noodles are thick, there’s pulled pork, green onions, a soft-boiled egg cut in half.
“How does Yumi make everything taste this good?” I ask between bites.
“Beats me. I tried to watch her cook once. She chased me out with a wooden spoon.”
Sushi is settled on the counter, paws tucked under her.
Every time Miles walks by, he scratches the top of her head.
Near the pool, a white cat I’ve never seen before sleeps in full sun, sprawled on his side, belly exposed.
His coat is a little yellowed in places, smudged with dirt—an outdoor cat, not a picture-perfect one.
“Who’s that one?” I ask, nodding toward him.
“Pickles. He showed up three months ago. He doesn’t do anything. He sleeps, he eats, he sleeps some more.”
“A philosopher.”
“A freeloader,” Miles corrects, fondly.
I finish the bowl—I could’ve eaten two—and, book in hand, head for the nearest lounge chair.
The water’s calm. Two kids with floaties splash around in the shallow end.
The sun beats down on the tiles; the air smells like chlorine and sunscreen.
I open an umbrella and stretch out full-length in the shade it casts.
I pick up Stroke of Desire where I left off last night. The swimmer’s just reunited with his physical therapist after three months apart, and things are heating up.
If Sierra asks what I think tomorrow, I’ll have a hard time answering without blushing.
“Summer!” a man’s voice calls.
I jump. The book slips out of my hands and lands on my nose.
I sit up like I’ve been caught at something. The swimmer just pinned the girl against the locker room wall, and I wasn’t anywhere near the lodge pool anymore.
Evan crosses the deck, a gym bag over his shoulder and aviators on. He’s wearing basketball shorts and the gray Coral Bay PD T-shirt.
“House coming along?” he says, stopping next to my lounge chair.
“It’s a disaster zone. I spent the morning ripping off wallpaper and fighting with an ancient curtain rod.”
“Sounds thrilling,” he says with a smile.
“You have no idea.”
“I’m headed to the gym,” he says.
“The covered patio out back? I used to go when I was fifteen. There was a pull-up bar and two lonely dumbbells.”
“It’s changed a bit since then…”
A few steps away, Miles is serving a guy I’ve never seen before—in his thirties, tanned, a surfboard propped against the bar.
Miles makes him a smoothie while they chat.
His smile stretches a little too wide. His eyes travel over the guy’s biceps, packed into a tight Lycra tee that doesn’t leave much to the imagination.
Real subtle, Miles.
The guy says something I don’t catch. Miles laughs, tilts his head, and slides the glass across the counter. His fingers linger near the customer’s hand. The guy grabs his smoothie and his board, then heads back toward the beach.
“He’s not interested, Miles,” Evan says.
“You don’t know that.”
“He’s wearing a wedding ring.”
Miles pretends to pout for two seconds, then his eyes light up.
“If you’re interested, I’m free tonight…”
Evan rolls his eyes.
“Still no, Miles.”
“Because you’re scared of falling in love?”
“No. Because you’re my friend.”
“Same excuse, every time,” Miles sighs.
“Mind filling this up for me?” Evan says, holding out his water bottle.
Miles does, then watches Evan go with a resigned smile. I raise an eyebrow.
“No. Because you’re my friend.”
Not because you’re a guy.
Huh. Evan Carter. The boy who dated two or three girls every summer.
Miles, I’d already wondered about. Evan, never.
“You coming?” he calls from the other end of the deck.
I close the book, get up, and catch up with him.
“My back’s been killing me since this morning,” I say, walking beside him.
“You should stretch.”
“Yeah. Core work, too. Everything I should’ve been doing since Monday.”
The gym is just behind the main building. A covered patio, open on three sides, black rubber flooring, wooden beams, a sheet-metal roof. No mirrors, no AC, no music—the wind in the palm fronds, the ocean in the distance.
It’s changed, all right.
Now there’s a kettlebell rack, battle ropes, a squat rack, an adjustable bench, Olympic bars, a cable machine…
“Yumi invested,” I say.
“Two years ago, yeah. The surf school guys were training with three dumbbells and a rope tied to a tree. She decided to do something nice.”
That’s very Yumi.
Evan drops his bag, pulls on a pair of gloves, and starts warming up. I settle into a corner with a mat and a foam roller. I slide it under my shoulder blades, press down, breathe. My back cracks, eases a little.
Side planks. Hip stretches. The routine I used to do twice a day back when I was on the ice, between sessions at the rink. My muscles protest, but they know the way.
I move to the kettlebells and run through swings, goblet squats, and Turkish get-ups. The workout loosens everything the past three days have locked up. A clean kind of tired, contained, with rules I know. No crumbling house here, no decision to make.
“Move it, Captain.”
I turn my head. Noah’s kneeling in front of a machine, a rag in one hand, a bottle of cleaning spray in the other. He’s got an unlit cigarette behind his ear and grease-black hands. Captain, the big tabby, is sitting right between his arms, like he picked the best possible spot to be in the way.
Noah pushes him away. Captain comes right back and sits down again.
“That cat hates me,” Noah grumbles.
“Looks like he adores you, if anything,” I say, laughing.
“This morning he shit in the laundry room, right on a stack of clean towels. Had to wash all of it again! Damn cats.”
He sounds like a man who’s given up the fight.
“You still like them, though,” I say.
“No.”
Captain rubs against his thigh. Noah looks down at him and doesn’t push him away.
I set down my kettlebell and stretch my shoulders.
“You ever train in here?”
Noah gestures vaguely at himself.
“Does it look like it?”
“You could. It’s a nice setup.”
“Yeah. I’ll think about it.”
He goes back to scrubbing the machine. Captain starts to purr against him, eyes half-closed. Noah doesn’t say anything else.
I get back to my exercises. Evan lifts weights at the other end of the patio. The roof’s shadow stretches across the rubber. The only sounds are a bar being set down, the wind in the leaves, the low rumble of Captain’s purr.
The quiet doesn’t last. Voices reach me, mixed with laughter and flip-flops slapping against the gravel. A group’s headed this way.
Jace shows up first. Shirtless, in boardshorts that hang below his knees—longer than the ones the local surfers wear. He’s got them riding too low on his hips. The muscles low on his stomach cut a sharp V above the waistband.
Of course. Because apparently everyone needs a look.
Five or six students trail after him—eighteen, nineteen, gym bags over their shoulders. Jace calls back instructions about sets and rest times. They scatter toward the machines.
Jace’s eyes meet mine and harden. His jaw tightens.
Ah. He found the seaweed and the crab.