Page 52 of Summer Love

Miles, I’d already wondered about. Evan, never.

“You coming?” he calls from the other end of the deck.

I close the book, get up, and catch up with him.

“My back’s been killing me since this morning,” I say, walking beside him.

“You should stretch.”

“Yeah. Core work, too. Everything I should’ve been doing since Monday.”

The gym is just behind the main building. A covered patio, open on three sides, black rubber flooring, wooden beams, a sheet-metal roof. No mirrors, no AC, no music—the wind in the palm fronds, the ocean in the distance.

It’s changed, all right.

Now there’s a kettlebell rack, battle ropes, a squat rack, an adjustable bench, Olympic bars, a cable machine…

“Yumi invested,” I say.

“Two years ago, yeah. The surf school guys were training with three dumbbells and a rope tied to a tree. She decided to do something nice.”

That’s very Yumi.

Evan drops his bag, pulls on a pair of gloves, and starts warming up. I settle into a corner with a mat and a foam roller. I slide it under my shoulder blades, press down, breathe. My back cracks, eases a little.

Side planks. Hip stretches. The routine I used to do twice a day back when I was on the ice, between sessions at the rink. My muscles protest, but they know the way.

I move to the kettlebells and run through swings, goblet squats, and Turkish get-ups. The workout loosens everything the past three days have locked up. A clean kind of tired, contained, with rules I know. No crumbling house here, no decision to make.

“Move it, Captain.”

I turn my head. Noah’s kneeling in front of a machine, a rag in one hand, a bottle of cleaning spray in the other. He’s got an unlit cigarette behind his ear and grease-black hands. Captain, the big tabby, is sitting right between his arms, like he picked the best possible spot to be in the way.

Noah pushes him away. Captain comes right back and sits down again.

“That cat hates me,” Noah grumbles.

“Looks like he adores you, if anything,” I say, laughing.

“This morning he shit in the laundry room, right on a stack of clean towels. Had to wash all of it again! Damn cats.”

He sounds like a man who’s given up the fight.

“You still like them, though,” I say.

“No.”

Captain rubs against his thigh. Noah looks down at him and doesn’t push him away.

I set down my kettlebell and stretch my shoulders.

“You ever train in here?”

Noah gestures vaguely at himself.

“Does it look like it?”

“You could. It’s a nice setup.”