He took another bite, slurping the milk like he’d been doing since we were kids. “You broke her heart.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I mean, we weren’t serious. We only saw each other a couple of months out of the year. It’s not like we were a real couple. I think that’s what she wanted. She’s a free spirit.”
“No, that’s what you wanted her to be,” he said. “You came back here every year knowing you could pick right up where you left off. No leg work. No effort. You blew into town and she was there waiting. You treated her like an extended layover.”
“Fuck off. It was never like that.”
“Does she know that?”
“Yes. We both understood what it was. We weren’t making promises.”
“And yet, you avoided this place for four years. You didn’t come back that one summer for good reason, but we both know you could have come back before now. You were afraid to because you knew you screwed up.”
He wasn’t right, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. I finished half the beer, thinking about that first summer I chose not to come back. I imagined her waiting and then being disappointed. At least that’s what I wanted to believe, but another part of me knew she was young. Early twenties living in an area that welcomed summer tourists every year. There would always be another guy like me looking for summer love before going back to his real life.
The second summer I stayed away, I told myself I couldn’t handle coming back and seeing her with another man. She had no reason to wait for me. I never promised her I’d see her again. I just never came back.
“I’m going to shower,” I said. “We’ve got shit to do in the morning.”
“Shit seems like an appropriate word,” he said with a laugh. “Think they found some cows? Maybe horses. Oh God, I hope it’s not chickenshit. That stuff makes my eyes water.”
“Let’s hope not,” I said, leaving the beer bottle on the counter.
“We should have brought our boots,” he called out as I climbed the stairs.
I knew I needed to focus on smoothing all the ruffled feathers in Surfside, but all I could think about was the girl next door. I wanted to soothe her wounded heart.
CHAPTER 11
SUMMER
Ihad spent the last three days not thinking about Colt Anderson. More like I told myself not to think about him and then of course I thought about him. It was so much easier when he was out of sight and far from my mind. But he was next door. Every time I looked over there, I wondered what he was doing. Was he swimming in their pool? Maybe soaking in the hot tub. I thought about all the things we did in that house and blushed.
But I wasn’t thinking about the sea-green-eyed Texan who had shown back up in Surfside like a rogue wave I hadn’t seen coming. Nope. Not doing that at all. I had lessons to teach and actual lives in my hands. I couldn’t be distracted.
“Keanu, weight back! You’re not trying to headbutt the nose of your board!”
Keanu, fifteen and roughly six feet of pure optimistic chaos, made a correction that nearly plunged him face first into the water. He wasn’t my first Keanu. Parents hoping to give their kids some cool, surfer name loved the actor’s vibe and clearly hoped their offspring would somehow just develop it based on their name.
I had yet to meet anyone that came close to Keanu’s vibe.
We were two hours into the afternoon session and I was so ready to be done. I loved my job but the sleepless nights were catching up with me. That was Colt’s fault. He was under my skin and I couldn’t get rid of him. I even used the white noise machine I got for Christmas a couple of years ago. I lived on the beach. I didn’t need a machine to produce the sound of the ocean. Even the magical properties of the machine were no match for my overactive imagination. The number of erotic dreams I had was embarrassing. I could only hope he was suffering from the same affliction.
I had eight teenagers in the water, all of them at the stage where they could get up reliably and were now learning that getting up was actually the easy part. Reading a wave and finding the pocket was the actual surfing. Getting to your feet was just the beginning of the whole process.
Lana was working the left side of the group, her dark hair pulled back, moving between the students and correcting their stances. She’d always had the eye. The innate ability to see exactly what a surfer was doing wrong and explain it in a way they could understand.
She caught my eye from twenty feet away and held up four fingers. Four kids ready to try a longer run.
I nodded and whistled to get the group’s attention. “Okay, we’re going to send four of you out for a full ride in. Do not look down at your feet. The board knows where your feet are. You don’t need to check on them.”
It was the same thing I always said. Unfortunately, they always looked at their feet and it always threw off their balance. Always.
They paddled out. Lana and I called out corrections over the break. One of the youngest in the teenage beginner class nailed it. She was up, balanced, and skating across the water with a triumphant smile on her face.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” I hollered.
“I did it!”