Page 58 of Summer Love

CHAPTER 21

Jace

THURSDAY

The light filtering through the curtains wakes me.

Flip’s asleep against my leg. Sixty-five pounds of dog sprawled across the mattress, one paw on my knee, mouth hanging open. He takes up two-thirds of the bed.

I stay there a few minutes. The mattress is too thin, the sheet smells like the cheap detergent from the laundromat, and my left thigh makes itself known.

I massage the spot without looking at it. The scar tissue is thick under my fingers, denser where the nerves are reconnecting. Six years of mornings that start with this.

I shift. Flip lifts his head, yawns wide enough to unhinge his jaw, and sets his muzzle back on my leg. Like I’m going to stay.

I sit up. The trailer’s barely seven feet wide. The bed eats half the space. Across from it, a counter with the coffee maker, a stack of surf magazines, and a mug that’s been sitting there for at least two days.

My wetsuit hangs on a hook by the door, stiff with salt. The whole trailer smells like wax, cold coffee, and neoprene.

It’s home. It’s not much.

I get up, still naked. The morning air comes through the half-open window and raises goose bumps all over me.

I pull on a pair of surf briefs first. Then I adjust the neoprene sleeve on my left thigh without looking—thick, black, tight, keeping the scar tissue warm.

Steph says it protects the area, helps with mobility. I say it keeps the wetsuit from rubbing the wrong spot. Same result either way.

Then I work the wetsuit up to my waist. The top hangs down my back. I grab my leather bracelet off the windowsill and tie it around my wrist.

I push the door open.

The cool air smells like night and ocean.

Flip goes out ahead of me. He shakes his ears, takes three steps into the yard, and sits down facing his bowl, tongue lolling. I pour the kibble. He eats like it’s his last meal.

“Easy, big guy.”

I down a banana and a slice of white bread with peanut butter, standing in the trailer doorway. Breakfast of champions.

I stretch. My shoulders crack. The thigh pulls a little, like a cable going taut. Nothing to worry about.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The sound’s coming from the Hayes house. A hammer. Steady, careful, on the ground floor.

Six in the morning, and Summer’s hammering.

Of course.

Yesterday it was the shutters banging. I clench my jaw.

My eyes land on the pink beach cruiser leaning against the fence on the yard side, just behind the gate. The tires are a little flat, the paint’s flaking on the fender. A little girl’s bike, but Summer doesn’t care. She rides it with the seriousness of an Olympic champion.

The hammer keeps going.

I cross the yard. I open the gate, grab the beach cruiser by the handlebars, and push it behind the trailer, against the wall, where nobody will see it. No bike, and she’ll have to walk.

Or stay longer.