35. Jace
Jace
Flip follows me to the middle of the yard, then doubles back and dives into the tall grass.
I roll my eyes and whistle. Nothing. He paws at the dirt, digs something up, backs up, shakes his head... and starts running in circles with an old orange frisbee in his teeth.
The plastic’s faded, cracked along one edge, but I recognize it.
We used to play with it on the beach, the three of us—Noah, Summer, and me. Noah missed every other throw. Summer adjusted hers for him, lower, slower, and he never noticed she did it on purpose. I did.
Flip stretches out in the grass with his prize. He’s not budging.
Any other time, I’d pick him up and carry him off. But not with Summer right there. Not with my thigh pulling tight after half an hour on a ladder. I won’t limp in front of her.
So I wait.
Summer’s not looking at me. She’s looking at her fingers, covered in sky-blue paint. She’s got sawdust in her hair. Her T-shirt’s wrecked, her shorts stained with paint. She sighs, wipes her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a streak of grime across her temple.
Even like this, she’s beautiful. And it pisses me off.
She mutters that she’s going to rinse off and crosses the yard toward Grandpa and Grandma Hayes’s old beach shower—a warped wood floor, plank walls with gaps between the boards, a swinging door that never closed right.
Summer turns the faucet. The spray sputters, coughs, then the water runs steady.
I lean back against the house while Flip chews the frisbee.
Her T-shirt lands on the edge of the shower wall, then the denim shorts on top.
I can’t help watching Summer’s hands slide through her hair, the ties of her swimsuit knotted at her nape, water tracing the line of her shoulders.
I look away, toward the big cypress tree, the gate, the fence.
Or... I try to.
Summer tips her head back and rinses her long hair. The braided bracelet slides down her wrist.
The bracelet I left on my pillow for her to find when she woke up.
She didn’t want me. She blocked my number. She never came back. And yet she’s wearing that bracelet today.
Why?
I swallow, throat dry.
I’d forgotten how beautiful she was. Or I’d convinced myself otherwise—six years sure I’d exaggerated.
I’d been lying to myself.
The water shuts off. Now there’s nothing but Flip working at the frisbee. Summer grabs a beach towel off a rusty hook and wrings out her hair. The door creaks.
She steps out, hair wet, the towel wrapped around her. Her skin catches the light, golden. Water still runs down the back of her neck.
Her eyes meet mine.
“You’re still here,” she says, clipped.
I tip my chin at Flip, lying in the grass with the frisbee between his paws.
She doesn’t answer. Neither of us moves a muscle.
Flip gets up and trots over to me, frisbee in his mouth. He nudges my knee with his nose until I take it.
I throw it over the fence onto the beach. Flip takes off after it.
“Later,” I mutter and follow him.
I’m in deep shit.