Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tyler hadn’t worn the wetsuit in three weeks and it let him know.
He hopped on one foot in the parking lot, wrestling the neoprene past his knee while Luke leaned against the truck and watched with the patience of a man who’d been putting on wetsuits since he was twelve.
“Need help?” Luke asked.
“I’ve got it.”
“You’ve been fighting that zipper for two minutes.”
“The zipper’s fine. The zipper is not the problem. The problem is that I’ve been standing over a grill instead of stretching and my body has filed a complaint.”
“Your body filed that complaint years ago. You just started listening.”
Tyler got the suit on, grabbed his board from the truck bed—dusty, which was embarrassing—and followed Luke down the path.
The beach was empty. The water was the color of slate going silver, the last light catching the surface in long streaks.
Clean. No wind. The kind of evening session that used to be routine and had become something he had to be ambushed into.
They paddled out. The cold hit Tyler’s face and hands and the rest of him remembered. Arms pulling through water. The board under his chest. The horizon ahead, flat and patient.
“When was the last time?” Luke asked, sitting up on his board as they cleared the break.
“Three weeks. Maybe four.”
“Four weeks.” Luke shook his head. “That’s criminal.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“You’ve been poaching eggs.”
“Eggs are important.”
“Eggs are breakfast. This is church.”
A set came through. Luke caught the first wave—easy, clean, dropping in like he’d never left the water, which he probably hadn’t. Tyler watched him carve across the face and kick out and paddle back grinning.
“Decent,” Tyler said.
“That was excellent and you know it.”
The next wave was Tyler’s. He paddled, popped up, and immediately felt how long it had been—his balance a half-second behind, his legs protesting, the board feeling wider than he remembered.
But the wave held and he held and for four seconds everything else disappeared.
No grill. No eggs. No five-fifteen alarm.
Just water and momentum and the joy of doing something your body knows even when your brain has forgotten.
He wiped out on the end section. Came up sputtering. Luke was laughing from twenty yards out.
“Graceful,” Luke called.
“I meant to do that.”
“You meant to faceplant.”
“It was a controlled descent.”
They sat in the lineup between sets. The sky was going purple. Stella was a silhouette on the beach, camera raised. Tyler could see the tiny flash of her shooting them—two figures on surfboards against the dying light.
“She’s going to get a good one,” Luke said, nodding toward shore.
“She always gets a good one.”
“You taught her well.”
“I taught her to hold a camera. She taught herself the rest.”
The ocean moved underneath them, lifting and dropping in the slow rhythm that Tyler had missed without knowing he’d missed it.
“I’ve been seeing someone,” Tyler said.
Luke glanced at him. “Who?”
“Her name’s Lindsey. Guidance counselor at the school.”
“Lindsey.” Luke waited.
“She’s—good. She’s really good.” Tyler watched the horizon. “She’s like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like being out here. We can just sit there and not talk and it’s fine. Nobody’s trying to fill it.” He ran his hand through the water. “I don’t know. It just works. At least when I can show up.”
“You keep canceling on her.”
“Because of the Shack.”
“Don’t do that.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean actually don’t do that. Don’t cancel on someone good because you’re tired.”
“Noted.”
Another set. They caught separate waves. Tyler’s was better this time—steadier, his legs remembering, the wipeout replaced by an actual ride that ended with him standing. Progress. Luke paddled back and gave him a nod, which from Luke was high praise.
They sat in the lull again. The light was almost gone.
“How bad is it?” Luke asked. “At the Shack.”
Tyler looked at the water. “It’s fine.”
“Tyler.”
“The numbers are up. The breakfast is working. The dinner service is—” He stopped. “Anna’s exhausted. The girls are working shifts after school. Joey’s missing study group. I fell asleep in the school parking lot yesterday.”
“The parking lot.”
“Twenty minutes. Face against the window. Probably drooled.”
“Attractive.”
“Don’t tell Meg.”
Luke was quiet for a moment. The ocean lifted them and set them down.
“She’s going to figure it out,” Luke said.
“I know. But not from you. Not yet. Anna needs to work through this. If Meg comes in and takes over—”
“She’ll optimize everything and fix nothing. Yeah.” Luke lay back on his board, looking at the sky. “I won’t say anything. But Tyler—she’s Meg. She’s going to see it.”
“I know. Just—give us another week.”
“Another week.”
“Then it’s fair game.”
“Deal.” Luke sat back up. “One more wave?”
“One more.”
They caught the last ride together—a long, slow roller that carried them almost to the sand. Tyler stepped off the board in knee-deep water and stood there for a second, the ocean pulling at his ankles, the sky dark enough now that Stella had lowered her camera.
She met them at the waterline.
“Got some good ones,” she said, scrolling through her screen. “Luke, you look like an actual surfer. Dad, you look like someone who used to be an actual surfer.”
“Thank you, Stella.”
“The wipeout was especially photogenic.”
“Thanks for taking that for posterity, Stella.”
Luke peeled his wetsuit to the waist and tucked his board under his arm. Tyler did the same. They walked up the beach the way they’d walked up a hundred beaches—boards under arms, sand on their feet, not talking.
At the trucks, Tyler rinsed his board with the jug of water he kept in the bed. His arms ached. His legs were shaky. His hair was full of salt and his wetsuit smelled like it needed a wash three weeks ago.
He felt more human than he had in a month.
“Thanks,” he said.
“For what? The waves were free.”