Page 142 of Summer Love

“I didn’t call them about that. I called Mom… about my episode last night.”

My gaze catches on the dark circles under his eyes. They were already there earlier. This time, I really see them.

He hasn’t slept.

“My therapist’s going to be thrilled,” he breathes.

Maya brushes his arm. Kai says nothing.

A set starts to build behind us, hollower, faster. Kai and Maya go first, with a few perfect strokes. Harper gives Noah a push. He paddles without any grace… and misses the first wave.

Jace nods at the next one.

“That one’s yours.”

He puts a hand on the tail of my board. I lie down, hands on the rails. The wave comes, and I feel it pass under me, that slow, powerful lift.

Jace pushes at the right moment.

I take two strokes, the wave grabs me, and I’m up.

The balance is there. My feet planted right, my hips open—Jace’s corrections, from earlier, from the other day, from all the summers before. I stop thinking. The wave takes me.

I glide across the water. The world shrinks to the sound under the board and the wind on my face. No student loan. No house to sell. No video. No bet. No kiss outside my bungalow.

The wave crumbles into whitewater and I hop off the board. It tugs at my leash. I laugh. A real laugh, one I can’t control.

I paddle back toward the peak. Harper claps for me. Noah gives a thumbs-up from his board, out of breath, hair plastered to his forehead.

Jace looks at me and smiles—a smile from the summers before, back when nothing had broken between us yet.

Except it did break. And we both know it.

Still, I smile back at him.

CHAPTER 45

Summer

Irun the roller over the shutter, careful not to go past the edge. The navy blue goes on in an even strip. The second coat takes better than the first: the paint grips the wood, no drips, no streaks. I’ve got paint on my forearms, in the crook of my elbow, and a splatter on my right knee I haven’t bothered to wipe off.

Flip sleeps in the shade of the big cypress tree, muzzle resting on his paws.

Since this morning, I’ve sanded down the last traces of the first coat and started on the second. The sun has swung over the house.

I reload the roller, roll off the excess against the tray, and start the next strip. “Golden” by Harry Styles plays on a loop on my phone.

Footsteps crunch on the gravel. I look up.

The gate’s open. Jace just walked in. His hair still a little damp from the shower, he’s wearing long shorts and a T-shirt with a cracked orange wave across it. He must be done with his lessons. Flip wags his tail but doesn’t get up.

Jace stops a few steps away and looks at me.

I know I look like a disaster, in my stained shorts and old T-shirt, paint on my skin and sawdust in my hair. I set the roller down in the tray.

“Need a hand?” Jace asks.

“No, I’m done.”