Page 143 of Summer Love

“Come on. I want to show you something.”

He holds out his hand. I hesitate a second, then take it. His palm is warm, a little calloused. Flip gets up, stretches, and follows.

We head toward the surf school.

We walk along the small single-story building, its salt-worn wood siding, its sheet-metal roof jutting out over the boards lined up against the front wall. Jace takes me around back, where the students don’t go: the storage corner, between racks of broken gear, torn wetsuits, cracked boards. The shade is cool. The sound of the waves comes through muffled.

My heart speeds up. I know it’s ridiculous. But Jace is holding my hand, he’s brought me somewhere out of the way—I can’t help imagining he has something else in mind.

At the very back, Jace stops in front of a rack and nods toward a board. Sky blue, with a black stripe running the full length. The nose is intact, but near the tail, the rail is gouged by a wide, rounded bite.

I freeze.

“You kept it?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

He shrugs.

“No idea.”

The bite mark is wider than both my open hands. The fiberglass has yellowed around the break, like a healed wound. Six years this board has sat out behind the building.

Jace watches me closely. One corner of his mouth lifts.

“You thought I brought you back here for something else.”

It’s not a question. Heat climbs to my cheeks.

“Maybe.”

He leans toward me, brushes the back of my neck with his free hand… and he kisses me.

It’s soft, slow, different from last night’s kiss outside my bungalow—that one was edgy, loaded with too much.

I put my hand on his chest. Under my palm, his heart beats faster than his mouth lets on.

He moves in closer. I step back, laughing.

“Jace… I’m covered in sawdust.”

“If it bothers you, I’ve got a shower…”

I look down at my arms, my legs, the navy paint, the wood dust, the dried sweat.

“At this point, I’d need a pressure washer.”

He laughs and pulls me toward his trailer.

Inside, he hands me a towel, a T-shirt, and a pair of boxers. The T-shirt is old: faded gray cotton, Walker Surf School printed across it in white letters worn almost off—it dates back to his father’s time.

Jace steps out; the door shuts. I stand in the middle of the room for a moment. I know this place—I came here yesterday, under circumstances I’d rather forget. But today, the light is different. The late-afternoon sun comes through the window over the sink, slides across the cleared counter and the two mugs turned upside down by the coffee maker.

I take off my shorts, my T-shirt, my swimsuit. The shower is narrow. The water takes a while to heat up, then runs lukewarm, and the sawdust rinses away in brown streaks across the shower floor. The paint is more stubborn—I scrub my forearms, my knee, and the navy fades before it disappears.

I wrap the towel around myself, pick up the T-shirt… and bring it to my face.