“You think it worked?” she asked.
She wanted me to tell her yes. But I didn’t want to lie.
“I hope so,” I said honestly. “I really do.”
I loaded my bags into the back of the truck. The morning was warming up fast. I had everything sorted and was just closing the tailgate when I heard footsteps behind me.
Bodhi was walking toward me with his deep tan and his tousled curls and that grin he’d been deploying since birth. He was wearing board shorts and no shirt. He had on a pair of flip flops. Bodhi, the picture of a SoCal surfer guy. He even had a green smoothie in hand.
“Hey, Banks.”
“Bodhi.”
He stopped a few feet away and looked me over with the same appreciation he always had, completely unbothered by the fact that I’d made it abundantly clear we were done. I wouldn’t say we ever really started but he didn’t need to know that. It would hurt his ego. Maybe. I wasn’t sure anything could ever hurt Bodhi’s ego.
“I saw you at the protest,” he said.
“Half the town was at the protest.”
“Yeah, but I sawyou.” He pointed at me with his smoothie cup. “You stood right in front of Anderson, blocking his path. All angry and riled up. I always did like seeing you like that.” He shook his head slowly with a big grin. “Sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. A little wildcat all ferocious. Rawr.”
I pulled my keys from my pocket. “Goodbye, Bodhi.”
“I’m serious,” he said, falling into step beside me as I moved toward the driver’s door. “You’re a fighter, Summer. I’ve always liked that about you.”
“Bodhi, you are so barking up the wrong tree here,” I told him. “We are so never going to happen.”
“Baby, we already happened.”
“And I have told you, we are not going to be together, ever. If you want to be friends, that’s fine. You have to respect that or we’re not even going to hang out.”
He laughed. “What do you mean? You’ll cold shoulder me at parties?”
“I will pretend you’re made of air and don’t exist. Yes.”
“Whoa, man, chill out,” he said. “We’re friends. Why are you freaking out?”
“I’m not freaking out. I’m just telling you to back off.”
“Fine, I won’t compliment you anymore.”
I rolled my eyes. I was pretty sure the sun had fried his brain.
“You know that’s not what I meant,” I said. “Repeat it back to me, sweetie, so I know you understand. What will you stop doing?”
“You wound me,” he said, hand over his bare chest.
“No, I didn’t.”
He laughed. “Fine, I will stop hitting on you.”
“Thank you. Now I need to get my groceries home. I’ll see you later.”
I drove along the road that ran parallel to the beach. I stopped at a red light and glanced over, my fingers tapping on the steering wheel. I had nothing on the agenda today. I did a few lessons this morning and now my day was clear. Normally, it wouldn’t be a question about what to do. There was always something to be done. But the air felt different. It felt like we were all holding our breath. Everyone.
I watched a couple kids playing in the sand with colorful buckets. Their mother was wearing a hat that looked like it could be mistaken for a UFO. Tourists. Definitely not locals. More people surfing. Trying to. The beach was dotted with women in bikinis stretched out on blankets. It was perfect. I lived in paradise.
And it might be gone very soon. I tried to imagine the beachfront, that was relatively empty now, littered with businesses. All those pop-up places that just killed a vibe. More people meant more noise. More smells. Was there nowhere else he could put his stupid little boating company?