Page 15 of The Summer I First Saw You
And now I’m remembering, and it isn’t a trick. There aren’t enough hours to do all the things I want to do.
I want to don a clean bikini and bask in the morning sun on Harrison’s deck, where the glass surrounding it will shield me from the cool breeze. I want to sip a soda and read a filthyromance and let my skin sizzle. I don’t care, today, that the sun causes cancer, that soda causes diabetes, that I should probably be reading some book that won a Pulitzer Prize.
I spent months and months last winter longing to be absent from the world, thinking there was nothing left to relish, but these things make me feel alive. They make mewantagain. This tiny trickle of joy in my chest? It’s the start of something infinite. Something hungry andhappy. It’s worth any cost.
Of course, Harrison has far more to do with that trickle of joy than he should.
That’s why I need you out of my house, he said.
It wasn’t meant for my ears. Fortunately for one of us, I have excellent hearing.
He finally admitted—albeit unwillingly—that he knows I’m female. He’s looking, and he’s bothered by what he sees, and even if nothing in the world has worked in my favor in the past year, that righted the balance a bit.
Sure, I should probably be more worried about the bet we just made—one that could theoretically see me out on my ass Saturday—but we really didn’t define the terms anyway: do I simply need to be good enough to surf at the Horseshoe or do I need to be better at surfing thanhim? Only one of those is a possibility, but I’m not sure why he thinks a girl who’s willing to blackmail him would honor a bet she loses in the first place.
Blackmail alone won’t pay all my bills, however, so once I’m dressed, I drive downtown to fill out job applications. I park by the wharf and glance toward the beach as I climb out of the car. The tourists practice pop-ups under a stormy sky and the ocean is so placid it’s practically a lake. I still can’t believe Harrison suggested I surf here. For all his sexy “that’s why I need you out of my house” grumbling, he continues to believe I’m a kid.
“There’s way better surfing at Steamer’s or the Horseshoe,” says a guy tying his board on the car beside mine.
I stifle my eye roll as I turn toward him. For every five male surfers who are super-cool, there’s always one who assumes you need his guidance simply because you’re a girl. “Then why areyousurfing here?” I ask. It comes out bitchier than I’d intended. I force a polite smile to soften it.
“It’s close to the office,” he says with a grin, using his thumb to point at a restaurant just off the wharf. “Shift starts soon, and there wasn’t time to surf somewhere else.”
I glance from the restaurant to him. I could spend the whole day turning in applications when I’ve got no experience, but it would be a lot easier to meet someone who has the inside track. “Are you guys hiring, by chance?”
He hitches a shoulder. “I don’t know, but the manager’s chill. Walk over with me and I’ll introduce you.”
He tells me his name is Alex. He’s already graduated from college and is just in Santa Cruz “figuring things out,” which is something I bet a lot of the guys here say.
We cross the street together to Wharf Seafood, one of those old places that should have been renovated decades ago, but instead tries to hide its age under accumulated junk: fisherman’s netting, funny signs, origami parrots, and a mannequin dressed as a pirate.
Alex nods at a guy behind the bar. “Hey, Mike, this is Daisy. She’s looking for a summer job. Daisy, this is Mike, our manager.”
Mike tips his chin toward me. He looks young but old at the same time—a lot of guys who grew up on the water do. His skin is a little leathery and there are laugh lines around his eyes. “You waited tables before?”
Well, this is off to an excellent start.“Um, I was a hostess for a while?”
In other words, no, I have never waited tables.
He glances at me, though he’s mostly looking below my neck, and shrugs. “You’ll figure it out.”
In other words, I have things that matter more to him than experience. Two things.
Perhaps it should bother me that this is what I’ve been reduced to, but I’m simply relieved we’re on the same page. I’m not certain I bring anything other than D cups to the table and neither is he. At least he’s being honest about it.
He tells me to come back Monday—weekends are too busy to have me underfoot—and I walk outside.
Two months ago, I’d have sworn I’d lost everything, but here I am, employed, living in an oceanfront mansion, surfing again, and getting brief glimpses of Harrison’s lovely, brooding face.
It’s been a year full of endings, but suddenly, it’s as if something is beginning instead.
By the time I reach my car, the clouds have completely disappeared.
11
HARRISON
I’m a grown man, yet my first impulse when I see Liam on Main Street is to dive into the nearest store like a kid who’s about to get caught cutting school.
