Page 74 of Summer Love

The sun’s already pounding. So is the music—reggae, blending with the sound of the waves.

There are more people than I imagined. Which is stupid, because I’m the one who worked on the Instagram posts, the flyers we handed out at the lodge and the Market, the targeted storytelling for families on vacation around here. I know how many shares there were. I know the stats.

But stats are numbers on a screen. This is families, kids running barefoot, couples in flip-flops lined up at a stand. It smells like sunscreen and hot food. The Walker Surf School flag snaps in the wind at the top of a wooden pole—a scrap of white bedsheet Yumi found for me, with the logo I drew in marker at three in the morning on Saturday, on the lodge deck, a cold coffee in my hand.

Jace doesn’t know.

That’s the deal. I made Maya, Kai, and Miles promise not to say anything. Maya protested, “Pero, why?” Because I don’t want Jace to know. Because I didn’t do it for him. They didn’t get it, but they went along with it.

I walk into the surf school yard, hands in the pockets of my denim shorts, hair loose in the wind. I’ve got my gold sandals on, my red tank top, and I didn’t bring a bag. Just my wallet, tucked in my back pocket. Playing it cool.

Playing it cool lasts six seconds.

“What?” I say when I catch Jace’s eye. “You going to keep me out? I’m here to spend my money.”

He’s ten feet away, deep in conversation with some guy holding a cooler. He shrugs.

“Long as you pay.”

He starts to turn back to his conversation, then adds:

“You see our new posters? Not bad, huh?”

I don’t bat an eye. Maya warned me: Jace knows full well neither she nor Kai has a laptop, and the school computer is too slow to open a file without crashing.

“Maya did a good job,” I say.

He raises an eyebrow but doesn’t push it. He watches me a moment, then turns back to the guy with the cooler. I keep walking.

You won’t get me, Walker.

The school’s yard has been transformed. The board racks have been pushed off to the side, the wetsuits stowed out of sight. In their place, stands have been set up. Strings of colorful pennants flutter between the posts. Someone’s hung balloons on the sign—it’s lopsided, a little crooked, and it’s perfect.

Down on the beach, Maya and Kai are in the water with a group of beginners. A cardboard sign stuck in the sand reads:

Beginner surf lesson—$5

Maya’s waist-deep, her hands on the shoulders of a little girl wobbling on a foam board. Kai is in the water a little farther out, calm, arms crossed, watching two teenagers paddle on their stomachs. Maya looks up and spots me. She waves. I give a small wave back.

I head over to Evan’s stand.

Who can beat Officer Carter?—$5

Evan stands a few yards from a pyramid of tin cans—three on the bottom, two in the middle, one on top. He picks up the air rifle, settles it against his shoulder. Three shots, six cans down. The motion is slow, precise, almost boringly easy. He sets the rifle down and rebuilds the pyramid.

In front of him, a guy around nineteen—the one from the lodge gym, who laughed when Jace threw chalk in my face—shoulders the rifle with way too much confidence. Dylan, I think. He aims, fires, and misses. Fires again, misses. Fires a third time. The top can wobbles and falls.

“Not bad,” Evan says.

“Wait, wait, I’m not done!”

“Yeah, you are. That’s five bucks.”

Dylan digs through his pockets, muttering. Evan doesn’t smile, but the corners of his eyes crease.

Nobody’s beaten him. Nobody will.

Miles’s stand—Mölkky—is the loudest. He’s set the pins up on a flattened strip of sand, and he calls every throw like it’s the Super Bowl.