47. Jace
Jace
TUESDAY
Avery catches her third wave. Her back foot adjusts in the bottom turn—a weight shift nobody sees but me. She goes right. The right call.
She climbs back to the lip, hits it clean, and sends up a fan of spray that flashes in the Santa Cruz sun. I clench my fist.
“She’s got it,” I murmur.
Next to me, Mom says nothing. Her arms are crossed, chin up, eyes narrowed. Twenty years of competitive surfing—first hers, then ours—and out of superstition, she never comments on a heat in progress. She waits for the horn.
The horn sounds.
The scores come up and Mom rests her hand on my arm for a second. Her way of saying: she won.
Avery runs out of the water, board under her arm, breathless, glowing. I run to her. She drops her board in the sand, unstraps her leash, and throws herself into my arms. I lift her, spin her around, her wet hair whipping my face. My thigh pulls, but I don’t care.
I set her down and grab her shoulders.
“You surfed like a queen, Avy. You owned it start to finish.”
She laughs. Her green eyes shine—the same as mine and Dad’s. She’s got sand stuck to her cheek, her lip split from biting it during the heat, and she’s the most beautiful kid on this beach.
“That snap on the last one… you stuck it.”
“I know,” she says, picking up her board. “You’re the one who taught me.”
Mom comes up behind us and kisses Avery on the forehead.
“You should be proud of yourself. Really,” she says, in that Australian accent she never lost despite twenty-five years in California—the vowels drawl, the r’s vanish.
We stay for the next heat. Arms crossed, feet in the sand, I watch Dylan, entered in the Under 20 division. I know right away it’s going to go bad.
He goes for the first wave that shows up. Bad call. Too soft, nothing to surf. He forces a cutback that doesn’t land and paddles back to reposition.
“He’s not thinking,” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“He’ll pull it together,” Mom says without taking her eyes off the water.
But Dylan goes again on the next one, too early, too far inside. He gets swallowed by the whitewater and loses ten seconds climbing back on his board. The clock’s running. The good waves go by.
He comes out with a mediocre score and the look of a guy who knows he blew it.
I put a hand on his shoulder.
“Your surfing’s good, Dylan. It’s your head that’s screwing up. You pick your waves like you’re scared there won’t be any left.”
He nods, deflated.
Another one of my students, Tess, goes in the next heat—fifteen, quiet, focused. She does better. No win, but a solid finish. She waited, picked her waves, surfed with her head. The complete opposite of Dylan.
Five hours standing in the sand, and my thigh starts to throb. It doesn’t like me staying still that long. I shift my weight to the other foot and watch Avery pose for a selfie with a ten-year-old who holds out a marker for her to sign her board.
My sister’s sixteen. She wins competitions. She travels. She does what I was supposed to do—what I always wanted to do.
I’m so proud of her.
But watching the way she reads the waves, the sureness of her stance, the ease of her aerials, a thought crosses my mind: what if I tried.
Not the pro circuit—that’s done. But an amateur contest. Just one. There are contests all up and down the coast. I know the format, I know the waves. I know what my leg can still take, and what it can’t anymore.
My phone buzzes in my shorts pocket. I pull it out too fast.
It’s not Summer. It’s Maya.
Flip threw up next to the bar. He chased Captain again. This time he almost got him.
I grunt. Flip’s not the news I’m waiting on.
What about Summer?
The reply comes in ten seconds.
You’ve got her number.
Got it. Maya’s not going to play go-between. She’s right, and it pisses me off.
I put my phone away.
“Who was that?” Avery asks, reappearing beside me, a towel over her shoulders.
“Maya.”
“You made a weird face.”
“I didn’t.”
She stares at me with a smile I don’t like at all.
“Does it have something to do with Summer Hayes?” she presses.
“Not at all.”
“You’re a really bad liar, Jace.”
“And you’re a nosy little weasel, Avy.”
She bursts out laughing. Mom shakes her head.
“Be careful, love. You know she lives in New York.”
Her voice is soft, no reproach. She’s talked to me like this since the accident.
“I’m fine, Mom.”
She doesn’t answer. She never pushes. That’s worse.
Between heats, while Avery goes to grab an acaí bowl from the stand by the entrance, I pull out my phone and text Summer.
Avery won her heat. Heading back soon.
I hit send before I can chicken out.
The reply comes in under a minute.
Congrats, Avery!
The house is coming along. Drive safe, see you tomorrow
I stare at the red heart at the end of the message. It’s just an emoji. No reason to stand here like an idiot.
I read the message again. I read it one more time.
I don’t reply with a heart—I’m not that guy. But the corner of my mouth lifts.
“Okay,” Avery says, planting herself next to me, bowl in hand. “Who is it?”
“Nobody.”
“You’re smiling at your phone, Jace. That’s a first.”
I slide the phone into my pocket.
“Let’s go. Gotta load the boards.”
Mom drives the VW bus on the way home. I’m in the passenger seat; Avery’s wedged between us on the bench seat, bare feet on the dashboard. She falls asleep within five minutes, head on my shoulder.
In the back, Dylan and Tess are asleep too.
The boards are strapped to the roof, and the van smells like wax and the coconut oil Avery worked into her hair after the contest. Highway 1 unspools, winding between the cliffs and the ocean. The windows are down. Warm wind gusts in and rattles the straps.
Mom drives without a word. On the wheel, her hands are tanned, a little dry, nails cut short. Surfer’s hands. Mother’s hands.
I watch the ocean through the window. I think about Summer.
The red heart. See you tomorrow. It means she wants to see me.
Avery shifts in her sleep, settles her cheek against my biceps. Her breathing is steady.
I’m not supposed to be happy. Not over an emoji.
Coral Bay appears at the end of the road a little after five. Mom parks in front of the surf school. Dylan and Tess climb out, grab their stuff. I unload the boards while my sister stretches, arms up, back arched, with that cat-yawn she’s always done.
I kiss Mom and Avery, then head to PT. Like every Tuesday for six years.
The medical center on Main Street is quiet. The receptionist nods at me as I pass the front desk. I know the way by heart. Narrow hallway, door at the end.
Steph’s waiting, the treatment table already set up, a white towel folded at the end.
“You’re tense today,” she says after two minutes of working on my thigh.
“I spent the whole day standing in the sand,” I mutter.
“I wasn’t only talking about your leg…”
Her fingers move up the scar tissue. There are dead patches, patches coming back, and one exact spot, mid-thigh, that makes me clench my jaw. Steph presses. I close my eyes. My fingers grip the edge of the table.
“Sorry, but that’s a good sign. It’s responding better than before.”
“I know.”
She keeps going. I breathe in. The pain recedes, comes back, recedes. That rhythm, I know it. It’s the rhythm of my Tuesdays.
Steph doesn’t talk much during sessions. She never tries to fill the silences. She knows I prefer it that way.
“Someone asked me to show it to them,” I say, without thinking.
“And?” Steph answers without stopping her work.
“I said no.”
“It’s a scar, Jace. It says you’re still here.”
I don’t answer. Her hands work in silence.
“You can get dressed,” she says, lowering my leg. “And… you know, you could let her look.”
I sit up on the edge of the table. My thigh throbs.
“I’ll think about it,” I grumble. “And I didn’t say it was a girl.”
“Don’t need to.” She smiles. “See you next week, Jace.”
Outside, the air’s cooler. The streetlights on Main Street are starting to come on. The eucalyptus cream still clings to my skin under my shorts.
I walk toward Crescent Beach. Headed for the trailer. Sleep, see no one. My Tuesday-night routine.
Shit.
I should’ve asked Summer to dinner. She offered to see me tonight. Why did I say no? I said I’d be wiped after PT, and it’s true, I’m wiped. But now, with that red heart in my pocket, the empty trailer doesn’t sound so great anymore.
I turn toward the lodge.
I climb the deck steps. The smell of ramen—broth, ginger, soy sauce—makes my mouth water. Four big bowls sit on the long wooden table; steam rises in the glow of the string lights.
Summer’s sitting with Maya, Kai, and Miles. They’re eating, talking, chopsticks clicking against the porcelain. Maya’s telling a story with her hands, and Kai shakes his head without looking up from his bowl. Miles spins a soft-boiled egg on his spoon like it’s a magic trick.
And Summer laughs.
I’d missed that sound.
“?Jefe?” Maya calls out. “What are you doing here?”
“I… uh… was passing by.”
“Nice try,” she laughs.
Ladle in hand, Yumi stands behind the bar, next to a big cast-iron pot on the counter. Without asking, she takes a bowl from the shelf, fills it with broth and noodles, adds shredded pork and green onions. She crosses the deck and sets it down in front of an empty chair—the one next to Summer.
She heads back behind the bar. I sit down.
Summer gives me a questioning look. Her smile is small, a little held back—and it’s for me.
“You’re early,” she murmurs.
“By a few hours, yeah…”
The conversation picks back up around us. Kai’s talking about a swell coming in Thursday—northwest, six feet, fourteen seconds. Good, clean, should fill in early.
“I ran into the hot Norwegian at the Market this morning,” Miles says, picking up a piece of pork with his chopsticks. “He touched my hair.”
“S?ren? ?Ay!” Maya says.
“He told me the color’s holding up well. And that I should stop by the salon, that he’d love to do something with it. What do you think?”
“I think it’s a sales pitch,” Kai answers.
Maya rolls her eyes.
“Te juro, Kai, you’ve got the instincts of a rock. Obviously he was flirting.”
“We don’t know that,” I say.
“You’re not exactly an expert on signals either… Carino,” she says to Miles, “you make the appointment, you go to the salon, and you tell us everything.”
Miles smiles, not quite daring to believe it.
The broth is scalding, rich, delicious. Under the table, I reach for Summer’s hand. It’s there, resting on her thigh. When my fingers slide between hers, she closes them around mine, without changing her expression.
What are we, the two of us? She’s not my ex, not my girlfriend.
But she’s here, her warm hand in mine.
“I missed you,” I murmur, low enough that no one else hears.
Summer doesn’t turn her head, but her fingers tighten.
“I missed you too,” she breathes.
Noah bursts onto the deck in coveralls, an unlit cigarette behind his ear, a stepladder under one arm and two light bulbs in his free hand. Captain trails after him, tail high, like he’s running an inspection.
Noah still looks like hell, but his eyes are less dead than before.
Yumi lifts the ladle from behind the bar.
“Noah? Ramen?”
“No… but thanks.”
He raises an eyebrow when he sees me next to Summer, then heads off toward the front desk.
Five minutes later, Summer rests her chopsticks on the edge of her empty bowl.
“I’m going to get some air,” she says to no one in particular.
She stands; I do the same right away. Maya watches me go with a smile that says too much.
The voices fade behind us. We take the path to the trailer without talking about it. Our shoulders brush; the sand crunches under our feet.
“Jace… what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you. Couldn’t wait until tomorrow.”
“You’re supposed to be wiped after PT.”
“I am.”
Summer doesn’t answer, but she moves closer and her arm touches mine.
We stop near the trailer. Flip must be asleep inside—I hear a steady snore through the thin wall.
Summer puts a hand on my chest. Her palm is warm through the fabric. My heart pounds underneath.
The moonlight traces one half of her face; the other’s in shadow. She’s beautiful.
I lean in and kiss her. Her hands rise to my neck, my fingers slide into her hair.
But my thigh throbs, and Steph’s cream is sticky under my shorts. The eucalyptus smell rises between us.
I’m not ready. And I’m scared as hell she’ll notice.
I pull back, rest my forehead against hers.
“I’m going to take a shower.”
I push open the trailer door. Stretched out on the bed, Flip lifts his head, wags his tail. The air inside is warm, stale. My stuff’s where I left it Sunday morning.
Flip jumps down, slips between us, and bolts for the yard.
Summer’s on the threshold, leaning against the door frame. She doesn’t come in, doesn’t leave either.
She can stay. She can go. I’m not going to choose for her.