Page 148 of Summer Love

Not casual at all.

Jace shakes his head.

“Wednesday’s better. Tuesday night, I’ve got PT. After that I’m wiped.”

“Okay. Wednesday, then.”

I force a smile. Jace steps in close and presses his lips to mine—a short kiss, soft. His overnight stubble scratches a little. I’m slow to kiss him back, too aware of the door behind him.

He’s leaving already.

He grabs his phone off the nightstand, crosses the room, and steps out of the bungalow. The door closes behind him.

Two days.

I can get a lot done in two days.

CHAPTER 47

Jace

TUESDAY

Avery catches her third wave. Her back foot adjusts in the bottom turn—a weight shift nobody sees but me. She goes right. The right call.

She climbs back to the lip, hits it clean, and sends up a fan of spray that flashes in the Santa Cruz sun. I clench my fist.

“She’s got it,” I murmur.

Next to me, Mom says nothing. Her arms are crossed, chin up, eyes narrowed. Twenty years of competitive surfing—first hers, then ours—and out of superstition, she never comments on a heat in progress. She waits for the horn.

The horn sounds.

The scores come up and Mom rests her hand on my arm for a second. Her way of saying: she won.

Avery runs out of the water, board under her arm, breathless, glowing. I run to her. She drops her board in the sand, unstraps her leash, and throws herself into my arms. I lift her, spin her around, her wet hair whipping my face. My thigh pulls, but I don’t care.

I set her down and grab her shoulders.

“You surfed like a queen, Avy. You owned it start to finish.”

She laughs. Her green eyes shine—the same as mine and Dad’s. She’s got sand stuck to her cheek, her lip split from biting it during the heat, and she’s the most beautiful kid on this beach.

“That snap on the last one… you stuck it.”

“I know,” she says, picking up her board. “You’re the one who taught me.”

Mom comes up behind us and kisses Avery on the forehead.

“You should be proud of yourself. Really,” she says, in that Australian accent she never lost despite twenty-five years in California—the vowels drawl, the r’s vanish.

We stay for the next heat. Arms crossed, feet in the sand, I watch Dylan, entered in the Under 20 division. I know right away it’s going to go bad.

He goes for the first wave that shows up. Bad call. Too soft, nothing to surf. He forces a cutback that doesn’t land and paddles back to reposition.

“He’s not thinking,” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“He’ll pull it together,” Mom says without taking her eyes off the water.