Chapter 22
Pulling out the phone, I curse. “Shit. We have to book it home. I have a meeting at school before Lucas gets out.” I push the cart faster toward my car.
“Parent teacher conference?” Caroline takes the cart form me so I can unzip my bag and dig out my key.
“Yeah,” I lie.
It’s another meeting with Margot. Just a follow up , she had said on her voicemail. Secretly, I’m hoping she’s going to tell me Lucas is great. He’s cured. He’s handling his grief.
They call that wishful thinking.
“Do we need this many patties? How many people are coming tomorrow?” Caroline huffs, tossing the bag of burgers into my trunk.
I pull the door closed. “We won’t use all of them tomorrow. I want to start doing the cookouts weekly again like we do every summer.”
After returning the cart to the stand, I follow Caroline and get into my car, lowering the windows while the air conditioning gets going.
“Hot as hell today.”
I mumble in agreement, making sure the vents are fully open before I check my mirrors and reverse. By the time I make it to the exit, Caroline’s stare beams into me.
“What?”
Caroline adjusts her seatbelt. “Did you cool off at my pool again this morning?”
“No.”
Riley and I were at the beach today so it’s an honest answer. I was thankful for the break from the pool because the beach allowed for less privacy, which meant I was more mindful of not doing something stupid.
Like kissing Riley.
“No. Not at the pool.”
Caroline is an attorney. Something tells me she could make me say something incriminating even though I didn’t do anything wrong.
I didn’t do anything wrong because nothing happened at Caroline’s pool that day between me and her brother. But if I’m setting the bar for nothing equaling kissing, I’m lying to myself. Because all of the things—my legs around Riley’s waist, the way he touched my back and looked into my eyes—were a lot of something leading up to nothing.
“According to Mrs. Conrad, you did yesterday. And the day before. With my brother.”
I reach down, turning the air on full blast. Caroline is right here, because Riley and I did use her pool to practice most of the week. But I’ve been good. Unlike the first day, any time I landed in water, I swam away from Riley instead of toward him.
Even though it feels unnatural, I do it. Because the closeness I experienced the other day felt too natural, and it confuses me.
I think back to the days before Nate died, when Riley’s presence bothered me constantly, when I’d be happy to walk out of a room after he entered it without giving it a second thought.
And now? It takes a lot of thinking and effort to leave his side. Every part of me screams when I force myself to leave the beach instead of hanging around for just a few more minutes. I grip the banister tightly as I go upstairs every night, leaving him at the dining room table to work.
“Don’t you know?” I joke. “I’m a surfer now.”
“Here I am thinking surfers surf at the beach and not in a pool,” she quips.
I shrug. “We’re entering a competition. We need some practice”—I pause—“ a lot of practice and we can only do it between my classes and when Lucas is in school.”
Caroline hums, but I can tell just by the sound she doesn’t quite believe me.
“It’s a tandem surfing competition. You’re in pairs on one board—”
“I know what tandem surfing is,” Caroline interjects. “What I don’t get is why you and Riley are doing it together.”
I press my lips together. “He just…it’s for Lucas.”
We stop at a light and Caroline raises her eyebrows. “For Lucas?”
“Do you know he’s afraid of the water?” Caroline’s face immediately softens. “Nate promised this year he’d teach him to surf. But he died .”
Maybe my tone is too harsh, but I continue, feeling defensive I have to justify anything to anyone, especially Caroline, after all I went through.
But in my gut, I know I’m feeling defensive because part of me believes I’m doing something wrong.
“I want to be the one to teach him. And I want him to see Riley had a part in that too because Riley is family. I want to go through with the competition even though we’ll come in last place because I want him to see that as scary as the water can be, it can be just as exciting and fun. That’s why we’re doing it. And you know something? It would be nice for him to see Riley and me working on something together. It would be nice to show Lucas he doesn’t just have a mother…” I trail off. Riley will never replace Nate as Lucas's father. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t belong with us .
“He has a family too. That’s why I want to get back to doing cookouts. I want you and Finn there, Claire, Riley . I want Lucas to know he still has a family even if it looks different now.”
My chest rises and falls quickly and Caroline reaches out to take my hand from my lap. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I swear. I was only teasing. I know there’s nothing going on with you and Riley.”
My stomach knots.
“And I know,” Caroline continues, “That Riley loves Lucas. I know he’s doing all this stuff to get Tides back just for him.”
Caroline’s tone changes. I hear the worrying.
“And you really don’t think it’s too much?”
“Too much?” Caroline asks, tilting her head to the side. “Or too hard?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. Just…I know he struggled. And he is a lawyer, I’m not doubting that. But he’s never—“I pause, trying to think of the right words—"lawyered before.”
“It’s good for him to have this. I get sad sometimes. I don’t want you to think I don’t get sad thinking about you . Or Lucas. But I feel bad, because Riley also lost his person, you know? So it’s just…good he has something else to focus on.”
I nod gently. “He lost his person but still has his people though,” I whisper, squeezing her hand. “We all do.”