Page 100 of Summer Love

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It’s humiliating enough as it is.”

“No, Summer, you don’t underst⁠—”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it. Any. More.”

A wall. The same one I built at seventeen in my father’s car, between the Now leaving Coral Bay sign and the San Francisco airport.

Noah stares at me. I hold out my hand to help him up.

He takes it, gets to his feet, then opens his mouth again.

“Race you?” I cut in.

I don’t wait for an answer. I take off down the trail, toward the beach.

My strides stretch out. The wind slaps my face, my feet pound the ground, and I hold the pace.

Behind me, I hear Noah—his ragged breath, his heavy strides, a curse when he trips on a root.

I speed up, just enough.

The slope eases, the sand comes back, the pier takes shape in the morning light. Noah coughs behind me, then stops. I don’t look back.

I run all the way to the lodge, along the boardwalk, between the palm trees and the sleeping cabins. The door of Bungalow 17 closes behind me. I lean back against it and close my eyes.

My breathing is calm. There’s a slight pull in my right foot. My hands aren’t shaking.

Six years. Six years I haven’t told a soul.

CHAPTER 33

Jace

The sea is calm. Small, clean waves roll in steady sets, no wind to break them up, no chop on the surface. One of those mornings when you paddle, you stand, and the board takes off almost on its own.

Summer should’ve picked a morning like this one. Not yesterday.

I shake my head and paddle for the next wave.

Kai sits on his board a few yards from me, hair loose over his shoulders. He watches the horizon like he can read what the waves will do half an hour from now. With him, that’s possible. Evan’s between us, sitting straight on his board. Even in the water, he doesn’t waste a motion.

An easy wave comes through. I stand… and I fall.

Not a wipeout—a slip. Back foot sliding, body pitching forward, board shooting out from under me.

I come up spitting water.

“You’re not focused,” Kai says.

He hasn’t even turned his head.

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t compete anymore. My sister’s the only one in the family who still does.”

“How’d it go last Friday?”

“She won,” I say, smiling.

I watched her heat on a video call with Mom. The screen shook—she was filming from the beach, cheering. Avery came out of the water with her fist in the air. Sixteen, and she surfs better than I did at her age.