The sleeves ended around his elbows, brushing the edge of one of his tattoos—a line of turtles swimming around his arm.
“Got that one in Sydney,” he said as we started walking slowly across the sand. “Little shop near Bondi. Nearly killed me not going in the water while it healed, but it was worth it. Although, that was also when I tried taking up skateboarding and shredded my knee falling off trying to grind along a railing.”
“Weren’t you wearing knee pads?”
“I did afterwards,” he said with a carefree smile. “Learnt my lesson.”
“The only scar I’ve got with a vaguely interesting story is my ear.” I pointed at my right lobe and the puckered scar in the middle of it. “Milo tried to pierce it when we were thirteen and it got infected. Alfie always says he’d known it was a bad idea and we should’ve listened to him, but Milo says it’s fine because I didn’t lose my ear.”
“Damn, even I know that’s a bad idea and I’ve done my fair share of stupid shit,” he said, chuckling. “But hey, you got a cool story and you’re all still friends. That’s a win to me.”
I smiled as I looked over at him, trying to let his relaxed aura wash over me. I loved the way he seemed to be able to turn every negative into a positive, every disaster into something he could learn and move on from. We were so opposite in that regard, where I worried and stewed over everything until I’d turned myself inside out, even if you couldn’t always tell from the outside.
But Owen seemed to roll with everything life threw at him, riding the waves until he landed in calmer waters.
Maybe, if I was lucky, it was something he’d be able to teach me to do over the summer.
After all, with the school holidays kicking off, we’d be busier than ever and I needed to keep my stress levels down, unless I wanted another lecture from the nurse about my blood pressure. If anyone needed to learn how to roll with the punches, it was me.
And if it meant I got to spend a little more time with Owen, I wouldn’t complain.
Chapter Two
Owen
“Do you know what you want?”I asked Darcy as we reached the little coffee hut at the other end of the front, the smell of freshly ground beans and warm milk spilling out from the hatch at the front. Truly Wendy was a saint, because who else would open their coffee hut so early every morning?
“A latte would be great,” he said, then quickly added. “But you don’t have to pay. I can get them.”
“Nah man, it’s fine. I’ve got it.” I waved my hand to brush his worries away, shooting him a smile in the vague hope he might relax slightly. If angels were real, I imagined they’d be something like Darcy: stunningly beautiful but wound so tightly with stress they’d explode if you looked at them slightly funny.
“Mornin’, Owen,” Wendy said, smiling at me from the other side of the counter, her grey-streaked hair pulled into a ponytail. She always reminded me of Rogue from X-Men, which was pretty wicked. “How are you, love?”
“All the better for seeing you,” I said with a grin as I leant on the counter. “I was just thinking what a saint you are to open up so early, so me and poor Darcy don’t freeze.”
“Yeah well, if you will insist on going swimming at bloody stupid o’clock in the mornin’ you deserve to.”
I laughed. “Ah well, I’ve still got all my toes. And everything else.”
Wendy chuckled and rolled her eyes fondly. “You’re trouble, you are,” she said, looking at Darcy. “Is he like this with all your customers?”
“No,” Darcy said with a wry smile. “But mostly because I keep him in the kitchen. All I have to put up with is his Dolly Parton sing-a-longs.”
“And you love them, ’cos they’re amazing.” I was very fond of Dolly. In my opinion, nobody in the world did it like her or ever would. She was iconic for a reason.
“I want a video of that,” Wendy said. “What can I get you? You havin’ a black coffee, Owen?”
“Please. And Darcy would like a latte. Both large please.”
“That’ll be five-ninety then love.”
I dug my wallet out of my bag and held up my card against the card terminal, hoping it went through. Like a lot of my possessions, my bank card was a little battered thanks to my travels. I probably needed to order a new one while I was back in the UK.
It was hard to think of Heather Bay as home, even if it was where I’d grown up. My dad still lived in the same house he’d bought in the eighties, and the door was always open to me whenever I needed a place to stay. But I’d spent so much of my life wandering the world that I wasn’t sure if I’d really call anywhere home.
Not in the sense most people did.
The only reason I was back for the summer was because Dad had needed a hip replacement, and someone had to keep an eye on him to make sure he didn’t throw himself back into work as soon as he could get out of bed. Since my brother had my two awesome little niblings to keep him busy, I’d volunteered to come back and make sure dad didn’t end up back in hospital.
