Fourteen #2
“I’ll give you the short version.” He straightened his stance.
“So this businessman is walking along the beach in a coastal village when he notices a fisherman sitting on the shoreline. The fisherman isn’t doing a thing, just staring at the water while his boat is tied to a dock nearby.
The businessman—always thinking about the future and how 134to gain more wealth—approaches the guy, asks why he’s not out fishing and trying to make a bigger catch.
So the fisherman says, ‘Because I already caught enough fish. I’m done.
Now I can enjoy the day.’ Well, the businessman doesn’t love this answer.
‘But if you go out again now,’ he explains, ‘work harder, work longer, then you can probably expand your business, buy another boat, and make even more money.’ And the fisherman asks, ‘And then what?’ To which the businessman replies, ‘And then you could finally be content, just sit on the beach, and do nothing except enjoy your life.’ The fisherman just laughed, looked at the guy, and said, ‘But isn’t that what I’m already doing right now? ’”
“That’s a nice story, Ray,” Grace had said. “But it’s just a story. It’s not real life or—”
“Why not? Why can’t it be?” He scooted back, pulled a local Realtor flyer from his pocket. “Look. There are apartments we can rent here for next to nothing. I can pick up a bartending gig in town. You can write and take on some odd jobs, and—”
“I’m moving to New York in a few weeks.” Grace pulled herself up, standing. “I have goals. I need to start meeting people in my industry, taking my work more seriously, and—”
“When are we going to stop playing this game and pretending this is just a silly summer romance?” Ray bolted up.
“I think about you constantly! For years, every night before I fall asleep, your face flashes through my mind!” He yanked off his hat, scraped his fingers through his hair.
“We’re both happy here. Why bother going to look for happiness someplace else? ”
“Because it’s a fantasy! And unrealistic!” Grace shouted. “You can’t just be a bartender forever.” Her voice cracked. “I’m not going to waste my degree working odd jobs and being a beach bum for the rest of my life.”
“Why not?”
“Because, Ray!” Grace exclaimed. “Life isn’t a clever parable!”
Ray walked to the far end of the dock. For a minute, Grace thought he was leaving.
“Here,” he said when he finally turned and headed back.
135“I bought this for you today. A birthday gift, since I won’t really get to see you on your actual birthday tomorrow, it being departure day and all.
” When he reached her, he held out his hand.
“It’s not fancy. But I thought you’d like it.
” He set a simple silver ring etched with a subtle wave motif in Grace’s palm.
“It’s from that shop you love, the one with all the shells and wind chimes, where Birdie bought your necklace way back when. ”
“Ray, I—”
“It’s not an engagement ring,” Ray quickly clarified.
“I’m well aware we’re nowhere near ready for that.
” He paused. They both looked at the ring.
“It’s a promise.” Time collapsed in on itself.
All the years they’d known each other compressed inside that single fleeting moment.
“If you’re willing to make this something real, then I am, too.
Because after tonight, there’s no guarantee we’ll see each other again. Not unless we really commit to it.”
“Hey!” a voice called out from the beach.
Meg. “Are you guys coming back? I’m going to walk to the market, grab more beer.
You guys want anything specific, or—” Meg cut herself off.
Like everyone, she knew about Ray and Grace’s summer courtship.
Even so, it was obvious she realized this was something private.
“We’re fine for now, Meg,” Ray said, not taking his sight off Grace. “We’ll be back soon, all right?” In the distance, Meg ran off. “Grace. Please say something to me.”
Every emotion she’d ever felt beat through her all at once. Love. Panic. Elation. Surprise. However, the one that came through the strongest was fear.
“I need to go,” Grace said through a gasp and took off down the pier. “I can’t do this. Not now. Not weeks before the whole next chapter of my life is about to begin.”
“Grace, wait!” Ray called out, chasing after her.
But she kept running—so hard and fast that she accidentally smacked right into Meg.
136
“Come on, Grace.” Ray was panting by the time he caught up with her. “I’m not a stranger! And this isn’t a fantasy! I’ve known you forever!”
That was when the truth of it finally hit Grace, as hard and fast as a tidal wave.
“But not really,” she said, looking back and forth between him and Meg, suddenly seeing them as strangers. “I’ve only ever known you for a few days every year.”
“Oh, come on, Grace!” Ray retorted as Meg took a few hesitant steps back. “That’s ridiculous, and you know it! Who cares how many days it’s been! I’ve known practically every version of you that’s ever set foot on this island! Isn’t that enough?”
Grace studied his face, cast in silver moonlight.
Ray. The boy she’d loved for so many years.
The one she thought about every night before she fell asleep, too.
She didn’t know the answer to his question.
Was it enough—him knowing these pieces of her past, the girl she used to be?
Enough for her to give up on the future she was finally getting ready to build?
“No,” she said, hating how much it hurt to say it.
Now, back in the present, Ray sits on the porch and looks at her, still waiting for answers.
“I read your book,” he says as Hooper wags her tail, happy just to be next to him.
“The first one,” he clarifies. “The Tides. A few summers ago, back when it was released.” He hesitates, then proceeds.
“I didn’t like the follow-up. What was it called?
The one about a woman falling in love in New York.
One Night in October, I think?” He winces at the title.
“Didn’t feel as authentic. Lacked heart.
” He drinks his beer. “I’m just one reader, though, so what do I know.
Just felt like the storyline wasn’t as good. ”
Grace stands in the driveway, hardly able to move while Ray’s words—lacked heart—vibrate in her ears like a terrible song she wishes she could forget. It’s not the first time this phrase, the one that once appeared in multiple reviews of her sophomore novel, rattled her.
137
“What do they know?” Adam said when the first of them rolled in from a well-respected trade review a few weeks before One Night in October was published, the third negative critique she received for the book that month.
They were in the kitchen, where Grace had spent half the day crying and staring at her laptop screen in disbelief.
From the minute she wrote the first chapter—a young couple, a New York backdrop, a meet-cute in an elevator—she told Adam the novel was inspired by him.
By them. And it was. But when Grace finished the first draft, her editor felt it was missing something she couldn’t name.
There were three more drafts spread across many months before her team felt enthusiastic enough to push it to the next editorial stage.
Still, Grace had a hard time shaking the fact that the story—their story—had taken so much work.
“They’re all just a bunch of grumpy old book nerds,” Adam had continued, trying to sound sure of himself as his eyes skimmed the review yet again.
However, his voice and the specific way it dipped gave away an important fact: Even though he didn’t outright say it, like Grace, he’d been wondering if those reviews were somehow a critique of them, too.
Now, back on Surf Street, Grace’s heart won’t stop pounding inside her chest. “How’d you know about my book?” she asks, struggling to get the words out.
“Come on, Grace. It wasn’t all that hard to find.
” His brows draw closer, like he’s trying to determine if she’s playing with him.
“The cover was in the window of every bookstore in the country that season. All I had to do was flip to your author photo in the back.” He stops, but his lips stay parted.
“Plus, the protagonist’s name was sort of a dead giveaway. ”
Grace opens her mouth, but her voice has vanished into the evening air. She wants to ask, But did you go out looking for it?
“You published it under your married name,” he says, melancholy tracing his syllables. There’s no follow-up. No accusation. Just this single fact. “I’ll be honest. That part hurt.”
138
A noise at the end of the street interrupts them. The kids from earlier are back outside and running just for the fun of it. Hooper springs to attention, barking into the night.
“I should go,” he says, standing up. “I don’t want to keep you.”
He grabs a leash from next to him, clips it onto Hooper’s collar, then steps forward.
His feet crunch over the pea gravel driveway as he draws closer.
Ray stops just a few inches from her, close enough for her to smell him and to see every small detail on his face—a tiny scar above one brow, a faded sunspot beneath his left eye.
He waits, breathing, their eyes connected as if by magnets. When he swallows, Grace hears it.
“Before I do, though, I wanted to give you this.” He reaches into his pocket, still so close to her.
“You left it behind the last time I saw you.” Ray opens his hand, revealing the silver ring—an artifact from another era.
“I found it in the sand the next morning when I took a walk by myself before my family left.” Without asking, he uncurls her fingers, sets the ring into the dip of her palm.
“You must have dropped it that night when you were running away from me.”
Every muscle in her body freezes. From his touch. From his statements. With hurt. With regret. With sentiments she’s not sure she can even name.
The ring.
She always wondered what had happened to it.
If it’d stayed buried. If a child discovered it weeks later while building a sandcastle.
If it simply washed away with the tide. If someone stood looking at the horizon, saw its glint at just the right time and thought of it as a sign.
She hadn’t considered that Ray would have been the one to find it.
That he’d still be the person who has it now.
“I saw someone earlier,” he says, his hand still cupping hers. “A teenager. She looked like she could have been your younger self’s twin.”
“What do you mean?” Grace asks, uncertain if his comment is meant to be taken literally.
“Nothing.” He holds her gaze for another long second, then slowly pulls away, steps back, and begins to walk out into the dark street. He stops beneath a streetlight. “She just reminded me of you.”
139
Grace’s stomach sours—the mix of seafood, wine, and this conversation not sitting right.
“I’ll see you around,” Ray tells her, his way of saying goodbye. “Enjoy your birthday Wednesday,” he says, the sentiment sweet, even though it burns like an insect sting.
For a minute, Grace watches him, the person who once meant everything to her, walking away from her, just like she once walked—sprinted—away from him.
“Ray, wait!” Her mind flicks back to his comment at the market.
“How did you know you’d find me here?” she calls out before he makes it to the corner, now knowing Meg didn’t tell him.
“At this house. Or on this island at all. For all you knew, I could have rented someplace different.” She struggles to make sense of things.
“I haven’t come down here in ages. How did you even know I’d be back? ”
Ray stops. His head tilts like a globe on its axis. “Really?” He lifts his arm—fingers wrapped up in the leash—and points at Birdie’s Jeep. “I figured that part was obvious.”
Something about his gesture makes everything stop. The seconds stretch out like a sunset.
“What are you talking about?” A new, uneasy feeling rises in her as she senses that whatever answer he’s about to give won’t make any sense. “What did you figure was obvious?”
Ray meets her eyes. Something in his expression shifts. He looks at her a beat too long, like he’s deciding whether he should tell her the truth.
“The fact that your mother told me,” he says.