Page 43 of Summer Love

I sit up on the edge of the table. The towel slips down my thigh; I tug it back up on autopilot before my eyes can land on the scar. I don’t look at it. I haven’t looked at it in a long time.

I pull on my boardshorts and flip-flops. Steph writes her notes in my file.

“See you next week, Jace,” she calls. “Same time.”

“Tuesday night, seven,” I say, not returning her smile.

I pass the front desk of the medical center. The receptionist nods at me.

Under my shorts, the cream sticks to my skin. Eucalyptus and something greasy, medicinal. The smell of my Tuesdays.

I’m wiped, like after every session. All I want is to get back to the trailer, lie down, and think about nothing for eight hours.

I push the door open.

Outside, the air is cooler. On Main Street, the streetlights come on one by one.

The scar pulls a little more than usual—Steph focused on the upper part today, the one that’s waking up. It’s a dull tension, not real pain. I can ignore it if I keep walking, but not if I stop.

I freeze.

Ryan Caldwell’s gray Porsche is parked right across the street, in front of Salt Vine, top down. Ryan comes out of the bar. He’s wearing a white shirt and leather shoes. He holds the door like Salt Vine is some Manhattan restaurant.

Summer’s right behind him.

Light blue dress, heels, hair loose over her shoulders, makeup on. She doesn’t look like the girl in jeans and Converse who was on her knees pulling weeds in the yard this morning. She looks like what she really is—a New York girl, clean, polished, calibrated for a world that isn’t mine.

Ryan puts a hand at the small of Summer’s back to steer her toward his car. That way he touches a woman like she already belongs to him… I want to cross the street and break his fingers. Summer doesn’t pull away. Maybe she doesn’t even notice—or maybe she likes it.

She gets into the convertible. Ryan goes around, settles behind the wheel. The engine turns over with a low growl, completely out of place here.

I don’t move.

My fingers find my thigh through the shorts. The scar pulses under the fabric—the same spot Steph worked ten minutes ago, the same burn. Except this time, nobody’s pressing.

The convertible pulls away down Main Street. The engine noise blends into the sound of the waves, far off, behind the rooftops.

It doesn’t even surprise me.

Summer Hayes. At seventeen, she was already out of my league. Daughter of a college professor, a promising figure skater. She read on the beach while I screwed around in the waves. She talked about New York the way other people talk about their own neighborhood. She had a plan. She was aiming for the top schools. I had sand in my hair and pathetic grades.

I had a plan too. Surfing, the pro circuit. It was the only thing I was ever good at, and the ocean took it from me.

Today, Summer climbs into a Porsche in a long dress and heels. Me, I’m in flip-flops and shorts. I live in an old trailer on a beach. The school’s bank account only stays afloat because of my sixteen-year-old sister’s sponsorship deals.

Of course she got in that car.

Ryan Caldwell, with his agency, his plans for the town, and the smile of a man who’s never had to wonder whether he could cover the check. Who smells like aftershave, not PT cream. Who books tables at wine bars and knows what to say to a woman when there aren’t any waves to do the talking for him.

I start walking again—another fifteen minutes to the trailer. The scar pulls with every step. The evening air smells like fried food and jasmine.

Summer and me, it never made any sense when I was eighteen. It makes even less at twenty-four. We never belonged in the same world.

Back then, I was just dumb enough to believe it didn’t matter.

CHAPTER 16

Summer