Page 17 of Summer Love

At the word Walker, my nails dig into my palm.

“Buyers love the idea of a house by the ocean,” he goes on. “Until they spend an hour there.”

Our burgers arrive. Ryan digs into his. I push a fry around with the tip of my fork.

“And let’s be honest...”

Ryan turns a photo toward me: a close-up of the front shutters—the paint hanging in strips, bare wood showing underneath, gray and eaten away by the salt.

“The house hasn’t been maintained in years.”

“I can fix it up.”

“Sure. But you don’t live here.”

“That’s why I’m here. I can clean it up, repaint, fix a few things, redo the⁠—”

“We got an offer,” he cuts in.

I look up.

“A hundred thousand dollars.”

The number kills what little appetite I had left. I knew the offer was low. The agency had called it “not serious, not worth bothering you with.” But hearing the actual number is something else.

“A hundred thousand? For a house listed at seven-eighty?”

“Someone who knows the place very well. Who knows that selling right next door to a surf school won’t be easy.”

Ryan’s eyes don’t leave mine.

“Someone who knows the neighbors very well.”

He doesn’t need to add the name. Of course I know.

“Jace.”

It’s not a question. It’s the second time today I’ve said his name out loud—and it still hits just as hard.

Ryan smiles. He picks up his glass, turns it between his fingers, sets it down. He doesn’t confirm it. He doesn’t need to.

“A couple from Santa Cruz almost made an offer,” he says. “Four hundred thousand. A second home. They were serious.”

More than my student debt. My freedom.

“They backed out because of the noise.”

Anger rises, aimed at a single point: Jace.

A hundred thousand dollars. That’s what my house is worth, to him. And he cost me a buyer at four hundred.

Ryan wipes his fingers on his napkin and closes the folder.

“And there’s my offer,” he says.

I frown. “Your offer?”

“Three hundred thousand dollars.”