Page 117 of Summer Love

“I was five. It was my first summer here. My grandmother had let me play in the yard, and I slipped away. I ran all the way to the beach.”

The creak of the wooden gate. The path through the dry grass. The beach, endless.

“And I saw two boys in the water. The younger one, four, on a foam board. More floating than surfing. The other, six, already on a real board. And their father watching, standing in the water up to his thighs.”

Chiara sets down her piece of banana bread and forgets to pick it back up.

“Jace and Noah,” Sierra murmurs.

I nod.

Jace had smiled at me. A kid’s grin, teeth a little too big for his face, hair soaked, nose peeling. He’d swum to the edge, grabbed a little foam board lying in the sand, and held it out to me.

“Their father, Tom, came over. He asked if I wanted to learn. I said yes.”

The cold water on my ankles. The fear. The joy behind the fear.

“My grandmother came running out. She’d lost me ten minutes earlier, and she’d searched the yard, the house, the garage.”

Ruby bursts out laughing.

“Tom knew my grandparents,” I say. “He told her, ‘She’s with me, Helen. I’ll bring her back after the lesson.’”

Grandma wasn’t reassured, but she said yes because she trusted Tom Walker.

“I was terrified of falling off the board. I kept saying I was going to sink. And Tom told me…”

I stop. It’s like I can hear his voice again.

“‘If you fall, we’ll get you. Nobody drowns here.’ He’d pointed at the boys. ‘And those two—they’re ready to dive in.’”

And Jace had raised his hand, like he was saying, ‘Yeah. I’ll dive in.’ And I believed him.

“It was the start of everything,” I say. “Coral Bay, surfing, the summers here.”

Jace.

“She used to train in front of the house,” Noah says.

I jump and turn around. I’d forgotten he was listening. He’s still kneeling in front of the sink, wrench in hand.

“On the porch or in the yard,” he goes on. “I filmed her. Her mom wanted proof. She didn’t mess around.”

Nobody says anything. Sierra watches Noah with an expression I can’t read.

Noah turns and meets my eyes. Does he remember me at fourteen, running drills in my grandparents’ yard? The phone in his hand? The videos he sent my mother so she could check I wasn’t wasting my vacation?

He came every day, sat on the porch steps, and filmed. I thought it was friendship. It was more than that.

“Your framing was terrible, Noah,” I say, moved despite myself.

“Never had a complaint.”

He gives a half-smile, then turns to the sink and gets back to work.

Ruby pulls a Tupperware out of her bag.

“Brownie, anyone?”