21. Jace
Jace
THURSDAY
The light filtering through the curtains wakes me.
Flip’s asleep against my leg. Sixty-five pounds of dog sprawled across the mattress, one paw on my knee, mouth hanging open. He takes up two-thirds of the bed.
I stay there a few minutes. The mattress is too thin, the sheet smells like the cheap detergent from the laundromat, and my left thigh makes itself known.
I massage the spot without looking at it. The scar tissue is thick under my fingers, denser where the nerves are reconnecting. Six years of mornings that start with this.
I shift. Flip lifts his head, yawns wide enough to unhinge his jaw, and sets his muzzle back on my leg. Like I’m going to stay.
I sit up. The trailer’s barely seven feet wide. The bed eats half the space. Across from it, a counter with the coffee maker, a stack of surf magazines, and a mug that’s been sitting there for at least two days.
My wetsuit hangs on a hook by the door, stiff with salt. The whole trailer smells like wax, cold coffee, and neoprene.
It’s home. It’s not much.
I get up, still naked. The morning air comes through the half-open window and raises goose bumps all over me.
I pull on a pair of surf briefs first. Then I adjust the neoprene sleeve on my left thigh without looking—thick, black, tight, keeping the scar tissue warm.
Steph says it protects the area, helps with mobility. I say it keeps the wetsuit from rubbing the wrong spot. Same result either way.
Then I work the wetsuit up to my waist. The top hangs down my back. I grab my leather bracelet off the windowsill and tie it around my wrist.
I push the door open.
The cool air smells like night and ocean.
Flip goes out ahead of me. He shakes his ears, takes three steps into the yard, and sits down facing his bowl, tongue lolling. I pour the kibble. He eats like it’s his last meal.
“Easy, big guy.”
I down a banana and a slice of white bread with peanut butter, standing in the trailer doorway. Breakfast of champions.
I stretch. My shoulders crack. The thigh pulls a little, like a cable going taut. Nothing to worry about.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The sound’s coming from the Hayes house. A hammer. Steady, careful, on the ground floor.
Six in the morning, and Summer’s hammering.
Of course.
Yesterday it was the shutters banging. I clench my jaw.
My eyes land on the pink beach cruiser leaning against the fence on the yard side, just behind the gate. The tires are a little flat, the paint’s flaking on the fender. A little girl’s bike, but Summer doesn’t care. She rides it with the seriousness of an Olympic champion.
The hammer keeps going.
I cross the yard. I open the gate, grab the beach cruiser by the handlebars, and push it behind the trailer, against the wall, where nobody will see it. No bike, and she’ll have to walk.
Or stay longer.
I shut the gate again and head down to the beach.
The water’s cold—the way it always is here.
I paddle out past the whitewash, to where the waves haven’t broken yet, and sit up on my board. The horizon’s huge, a washed-out gray. The waves roll in steady as a metronome—small, clean, perfect for a weekday morning.
Luke shows up ten minutes after me. I spot him by the white longboard, the brown curls, and the gold chain catching the light against his wetsuit.
“Still wearing that chain,” I grumble.
“So?”
“One of these days it’s gonna catch on something and rip your head off.”
“You’ve been saying that for years.”
“And you’ve been a dumbass for years.”
Evan comes up behind him, quiet, no wasted motion. We nod at each other. That’s all it takes between us.
We surf close to shore—for Luke. Evan and I box him in without a word, one eye on the waves, one on him. The rule we never say out loud.
Evan catches a clean right, wide open—an easy takeoff for a guy who grew up in the water. Luke paddles at the wrong moment, misses the wave, and swears in Italian.
Between sets, Luke turns to me.
“Saw Summer at the store yesterday.”
I don’t answer. I stare at the horizon.
“She asked me why you’re not on the circuit.”
My fingers tighten on the rail of my board.
“Bullshit. Of course she knows.”
Luke opens his mouth, hesitates. He tries to catch my eye.
“She didn’t seem to.”
She knows.
It ate up Noah’s money, pinned me here. All of Coral Bay knows. Everyone but her?
No.
A wave builds out past the break. I lie down on my board and paddle before Luke can say anything else.
The wave takes me. And for three seconds—the takeoff, the bottom turn, the glide—there’s nothing else.
No Summer.
When I paddle back to the lineup, Luke’s talking weather with Evan. He got it.
Farther out, near the outside peak, there’s Sierra. She’s sitting on her board, facing the open water. Her little braids fall loose around her face. I raise a hand. She smiles back, barely, and turns away again.
We surf another half hour. Nobody brings up Summer again.
I head back up toward the school, shaking the water out of my hair.
Flip’s not in the yard.
I stop. He’s always here. Lying against the trailer wall, or gnawing on a surf bootie he swiped from the rental gear. But the yard’s empty.
“Flip?”
Nothing.
“Big guy?”
I circle the trailer. Nothing. Behind the van. Nothing. Not in the board shed either.
My stomach knots.
The last time Flip disappeared, he was stuck in the lodge’s trash room. Noah had locked him in by accident. I found him howling behind the door. When I opened it, he was shaking too hard to walk.
Flip can’t stand being shut in.
I found him as a puppy in a cardboard box, two and a half years ago, on my way out of Steph’s. A Lab-shepherd mix, I think.
Somebody had hit him—one eye swollen, one ear crooked. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t even whimpering anymore. I scooped him up and walked over to the Coral Bay Market to buy a can of puppy food and two bowls. Then I brought him back to the trailer.
That same night, he slept on my bed, pressed against me. Now he’s the size of a small calf and he still sleeps on my bed.
The first night, I closed the door. He cried for an hour. Not a yelp—a low, steady sound, like he was begging without believing it would work. I opened it again. He went quiet.
I left the door cracked. Eventually he learned to open it himself—a paw on the handle, a nudge of his nose, and he’s out.
But he always comes back.
I look under the trailer. Nothing. When I straighten up… there’s a Post-it stuck at eye level on the door frame. Round handwriting, black pen.
Flip prefers my company. Sorry.
I rip the paper off, read it a second time.
Very funny, Hayes.
Except it’s not funny at all. She took him and shut him inside the house.
The bike. Fuck. I forgot the bike.
I go around the trailer, grab the beach cruiser, and haul it back into the yard in three strides. The gate bangs shut behind me. I set the bike against the fence, in the exact spot it was this morning.
Then I head for the house. The front door’s ajar. I push it open.
The smell of fresh paint stings my nose. The living room’s a work in progress—drop cloths on the floor, a folding ladder, paint cans lined up by the window.
Summer’s standing at the back wall, a brush in her hand. She’s wearing an old stained T-shirt, cutoff denim shorts, and Converse, the white canvas gone light blue. The wall behind her is half-painted, pale blue.
Flip’s sitting next to her, tongue out, tail thumping the floor with every brushstroke. There’s a streak of blue paint in the fur along his side.
And he’s looking at her like she’s the most important person in the universe.
On a box, I spot an open bag of dog treats. The brand Luke sells at the Market.
Of course.
Treats, scratches—she’s run a whole operation.
Except Flip doesn’t follow anyone. He follows me, and tolerates everybody else. Or that’s what I thought.
I stay in the doorway. Summer hasn’t heard me. She’s talking to the dog.
“You know you picked the wrong side, right?”
Flip’s tail speeds up.
“Your owner’s impossible. Really.”
Flip cocks his head. Traitor.
Summer dips the brush in the can. She works the corners in slow, careful strokes. She’s not bad. She paints the way she does everything else—methodically.
“You know what’s in this house? Mice. I heard them this morning.”
Flip’s ears perk up. Summer doesn’t look at him. She keeps painting.
“If you were a cat, you’d be really useful. But no. You’re just a big slobbery teddy bear.”
Flip licks her free hand. The brush skids across the wall. Summer snorts a laugh.
That laugh… The same one from when she was seventeen and something caught her off guard.
Before.
“Fine… I love you anyway, you know?”
She pats his head. Flip leans in, shoves his muzzle into her palm, asking for more.
“I’m warning you, if you stick around, I’m gonna end up keeping you.”
Like hell.
I clear my throat. Summer spins around, brush in the air, eyes wide. She lifts her chin, presses her lips together, and the mask comes back up.
“I brought the bike back,” I say. “Give me my dog.”
She shrugs.
“He’s a big boy. He does what he wants.”
“Flip!”
The dog looks at me, looks at Summer, then back at me. He doesn’t move. His tail stops wagging; his ears drop.
“Flip. Let’s go.”
Nothing.
I sigh. I walk into the living room, step over a drop cloth, and crouch in front of him.
“Come on, big guy. You coming?”
Flip licks my chin, but he still doesn’t move.
I slide my arms under his belly and lift him—sixty-five pounds of boneless dog letting himself be carried like a sack. My arms hold. My thigh doesn’t. The pain starts at the scar and radiates through the whole muscle. I take three steps… and I limp.
The brush goes still against the wall. Summer meets my eyes, then her gaze drops to my thigh. A crease forms between her brows. She doesn’t ask.
She doesn’t care.
Or she doesn’t know.
No. She doesn’t care.
I settle Flip against my chest and cross the living room with my teeth clenched. The hallway’s long. I control every step, lean harder on my right leg. My gait’s stiff, but not lopsided. I shove the half-open front door wide with my foot and the sun blinds me.
Flip rests his head on my shoulder and sighs, like he’s the one who just went through something hard.
The last time I went through that door, I was eighteen. I was leaving to do something reckless that wrecked my life and my family’s.
I’d never made the connection before.
I swallow.
I cross the yard, set Flip down in the sand, and slam the gate behind me.