34. Summer
Summer
The shutter won’t give. I work my fingers between the bottom edge and the wall and push. Hard, upward. The hinges are gummed up with paint and moisture. They’ve rusted and won’t budge.
I swear under my breath.
The ladder I found in the garage is old, aluminum, with one leg shorter than the other. It stays propped against the wall by some miracle.
I’ve got sawdust in my hair, paint on my forearms, and a gray T-shirt sticking to the small of my back. My denim shorts are smeared with blue paint.
I’m dirty, sweaty, and I’ve spent the last five hours sanding, painting, and cleaning without stopping. A simple, physical task that asks nothing of me but my arms and my patience.
I push again. The shutter creaks but doesn’t move.
Lying in the grass in the shade of the big cypress tree, Flip watches me work. It’s not the first time he’s crossed the surf school yard to come over here. He shows up mid-afternoon, settles in, and waits for someone to come get him. Nobody comes to get him.
I tighten my grip. My palms slip on the wood.
“Flip!”
The voice comes from the other side of the fence. Jace.
The dog lifts his head, ears pricked, then sets it back down on his paws.
“Flip?”
The tone is tenser now, almost worried.
I don’t look his way. I talk to the shutter, eyes fixed on the top hinge.
“Your dog switched sides.”
I hear footsteps in the grass—Jace, barefoot in the yard. He never wears shoes after his lessons. He stops.
“Fuck, Summer… You’re going to get yourself killed.”
Yesterday, the ocean. Today, a wobbly ladder.
I don’t turn around.
“I’ve got it.”
I don’t have it at all. The shutter’s heavier than I imagined. Solid wood from the sixties, probably oak. My arms start to shake.
I pull harder. I brace my foot on the next rung for more leverage. The ladder shifts.
All at once, the shutter lifts a fraction of an inch on its hinges, a sharp jolt that throws me off balance. My foot slips. I pitch backward.
For a second, there’s nothing holding me up.
My back hits a solid chest, warm through the thin fabric of my T-shirt.
Jace is behind me, on the third rung, his hand flat against my waist. I freeze.
He caught me.
His thumb barely moves, and I feel myself flush.
“You could just ask for help, you know,” he mutters.
My shoulders stiffen.
“I don’t need your help.”
I don’t move. His hand finally leaves my waist.
“Get down,” he says.
He climbs down off the ladder and steps aside. I do as I’m told, head down. My legs are a little less steady than I’d like.
Jace climbs the ladder, grabs the shutter, and slides it off the hinges. He holds it at arm’s length and brings it down like he’s carrying a surfboard.
Without a word, he sets it against the house.
I lost twenty minutes on that shutter.
Flip gets up, circles Jace, comes back to me, goes back to Jace. He looks thrilled that we’re both here.
Without asking, Jace moves the ladder, climbs, and lifts the second shutter. The same smooth motion, the same ease. The wood creaks, the panel comes off its hinges. Jace sets it beside the first.
I watch him handle the shutters that felt heavy as lead to me. He’s not showing off. He’s got the strength, the practice, the right technique.
And it bugs me.
He moves on to another shutter. I wipe my hands on my shorts; the blue paint has dried on my fingers. The shadow of the house is starting to stretch across the yard.
“The hundred-thousand-dollar offer… that was you, wasn’t it?” I say.
Jace lifts the shutter, brings it down, sets it on the ground.
“Yeah,” he says.
He moves to the next window. The ladder creaks.
“I couldn’t do better than that. And even then, I’m not sure I’ll get a loan.”
Ryan had made that clear at the agency. “Someone who knows the neighbors very well,” he’d said.
A hundred thousand dollars. It wasn’t a taunt. It’s all he can do.
Jace takes off another shutter.
“If a developer buys it,” he says, “they tear the house down and put up condos.”
He sets the shutter down and climbs back up the ladder.
He doesn’t need to say more. Condos mean neighbors filing complaints about the music, the kids shouting, the van, the boards on the beach. Then letters to the city. Then restrictions. Then taxes climbing, because the whole neighborhood goes up in value.
The school’s land—the plot his grandfather bought back when no one wanted to live here—gets too expensive to keep.
The surf school dies. Not all at once—by bureaucratic suffocation.
“I’ve got an offer for three hundred thousand,” I say.
Jace goes still on the ladder for a second. Then he brings the shutter down, sets it aside, and looks at me.
“You’re giving it away.”
“It’s not like I’ve got another option,” I shoot back.
I cross my arms. The dried paint pulls at my skin.
“I have to go back to New York.”
The reminder is as much for me as for him. New York, my rent, my student loan. The real world. Not the one with the waves, the warm sand, and the too-blue sky.
Jace moves the ladder.
“You could rent it out.”
I frown.
“What do you mean?”
“Six bedrooms. It’s a big house. Until a buyer makes a serious offer, you rent out each room separately.”
He lifts the next shutter, brings it down, sets it aside.
“And you rent it furnished. That way you don’t have to empty the house. The furniture stays, the tenants live with what’s there.”
I wouldn’t have to empty the house.
Grandma’s kitchen. The mismatched plates. The worn-out couch. The shelves. All the things I can’t keep and can’t throw away.
Jace sets the ladder under the second-to-last window and climbs up.
“You can keep one room and lock it. Leave your stuff in there, your own things. That way, when you come back, you’ve got somewhere to sleep.”
“I don’t plan on coming back to Coral Bay.”
Jace lifts the shutter, brings it down, sets it against the wall—harder than before. The same motions, but quicker, sharper.
Without a word, he moves to the last window. Flip is lying near the lined-up shutters, muzzle between his paws.
“I’d never find tenants anyway,” I murmur.
The shutter joins the others. Jace folds up the ladder and leans it against the wall, then turns to me.
“I’m pretty sure Kai and Maya would be interested. They live at the lodge, in a cabin with a shared bathroom—”
He’s thinking out loud, like he’s making a list.
“Noah, maybe. Miles? My mom and Avery—their place is tiny and on the other side of town. I can mention it to them, if you want.”
I shake my head.
“I don’t know, Jace. I don’t want to have to deal with it anymore.”
No more roof to check, no more shutters to wrestle off their hinges, no more yard to keep up, no more ghosts in the bedrooms. I want to sell, take the money, go back to New York, and pay off my loan.
Jace wipes his hands on his shorts.
“Kai and Maya are reliable,” he says. “My mom too. You wouldn’t have to do a thing.”
“I thought I knew reliable people too,” I shoot back.
Jace doesn’t answer. His face closes off.
My eyes slide to the shutters lined up side by side against the house. The paint’s flaking. The wood’s gray in places, where the salt has eaten into the surface. They need sanding, sealing, repainting. At least two days of work.
It took Jace half an hour to get them all off. Me? I’d have taken two days—or broken my neck trying.
“Thanks,” I murmur.
Jace shrugs.
“Now we’re even for last Sunday’s fundraiser.”
He knows.
He’s known all along. The posters, the logo, the new name, the turnout. He’s not thanking me. He’s settling a debt. Nothing more.
“Flip!” he calls.
The dog gets up, stretches, looks at me, looks at Jace. This time, he chooses his owner. They head back toward the gate.
I don’t watch them go. I bend down to pick up a rag that’s fallen near the ladder.