Page 58 of Always a Roommate
My shoes weren’t exactly beach worthy, so I slipped them off and left them where the sand met grass near the small wooden steps down to the beach.
The sand was cool and wet underneath my feet, sending a chill through me.
When I reached Tanner, he was sitting with his jean-clad knees pulled in and his arms resting on them. His face was lifted to the horizon as if oblivious to the rain.
Dark, wet curls clung to his face.
I looked down at my jeans, the ones I’d saved to buy from a favorite designer. With a sigh, I sank down beside Tanner. “What are we looking at?”
He startled, as if he hadn’t noticed I was there. “Rae.”
“Yeah, it’s me.” Tanner and I had always understood each other. We had dreams to own our own businesses, to succeed on our own merits. And we had. But now… “Shop looks the same as it did days ago. Finley told me you’ve been here every day. I figured you’d have made some progress.”
He looked at me then, and I saw the red rimming his eyes, the scruff on his normally shaven face. Then, he looked away, and I wondered if I imagined it all.
“There’s no point.” He picked at the sand, refusing to meet my gaze again.
“Well, that’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one.”
“No, Rae, it’s not.” He blew drops of water from his lips. “I got the final notice today. A call to inform me my insurance claim has been denied.”
“What?” I screamed. “They can’t do that.”
“Actually, they can. It seems my tendency to screw up hasn’t gone away. I never sent in the final papers. I could have sworn I did. I was sure of it.”
“Then, it must be a mistake.”
He issued a humorless laugh. “I found the papers, Rae. In the desk at my apartment.”
“Oh.”
“Yep, there goes Tanner Kelly, screwing up the one good thing he has. I shouldn’t have put every last penny into this dump. I just thought… I wanted to be more than the guy hanging at the beach surfing.”
“You were more. You were a surf instructor, not just a surfer.”
There went that awful sad laugh again. “I had this idea for one moment that I could do something else with my life, that I could own something, build something. I should have known it does no one any good to wish for things.”
“But you did it. This place is proof.”
“And it’s gone.” There was a finality to the statement. “At least this piece of land will fetch a good price. I’ll have to talk to someone about selling it and—ow!” He rubbed his face where I’d slapped him.
“You deserve it for being an idiot.”
“I’m thinking all this through logically.”
I shook my head, refusing to believe that. “How much do you need?”
“I don’t know.”
“How. Much?” I demanded.
“Give a guy a minute to think, will ya?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “From my estimates, maybe eighty thousand. I’d need to hire some help and contract out roof repairs. Fix the window, the door, sanitize. Then, there’s replacing merchandise. A million other little things. There’s just no way.”
“What about a bank loan?”
“Sure, they’ll give money to a guy with nothing to his name except a business that can’t even be called a business right now.”
“Your parents would help.”
