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Luckily, the beautiful women were all wives and girlfriends and so they left me alone. I could appreciate a beautiful woman, but after having been burned by a cheating fiancée, I had no interest in even encouraging a woman other than Ella to pay me any attention.
Whereas I might have welcomed some light flirting before, now that I was with Ella, I didn't want anything to happen that would either make me feel guilty or make me imagine the same thing happening to her. I was, at base, a monogamous guy.
My father had been monogamous, had always encouraged us to be honorable with women and treat them as equals, and he'd clearly been deeply in love with my mother. She was an amazing woman and accomplished for her generation with a degree in politics, and who did political consulting.
He never remarried after she died and focused instead of his large brood of sons. The brothers and I expected him to live a long time after she died, and for him to remarry, but unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
Theirs was the kind of relationship I wanted as well.
David sat beside me. "Soaking up the sun?" he said and pulled his sunglasses lower to glance at me. I was in trunks and had to admit I looked like a ghost compared to his tanned and tatted bare chest.
"Hey, do you know of any good rehab places? One that does the wholistic approach to getting someone sober and back into society?"
He frowned. "Sure," he said. "There are a few great places in the hills. A few people in the industry I know have gone to this one place called Cedars Second Chances. You have someone who needs rehab?"
"An old buddy's sister," I said. Then I told David about Grant's death.
"Oh, man, that's rough," he said and reach over to squeeze my arm. "If you want, I can get you the number. You gonna try to help her?"
"If she's ready for help."
He nodded. "You have to be ready or else it's a waste of time."
David got up and glanced around. "Well, I have to go back in. Record some more tracks. Are you okay out here by yourself?"
"I'm a big boy."
"Put some sunscreen on or you'll be a very burnt boy. You look like a ghost."
I laughed and took the sunscreen tube from him.
"Yes, little brother."
He cracked a smile and then left me by the pool.
An hour or so later, as I lay in the shade and drank a fresh coffee, David came back out of the house and flopped down on the lawn chair beside me.
"What's up?" I asked, putting down my paper. "You finished recording?"
"For the time being."
"What's on the rest of your rock star agenda for the day?"
"Mitch is a bit under the weather today with a cold. Wanna get the hell out of here?" David asked. "I feel like I've been holed up practicing for too long."
"Sure," I said. "I have today off, so whatever you feel like. What about surfing?"
"Yeah!" he said and sat up, looking excited. "I haven't been surfing for ages. I'll probably fall off the board and break my neck and there goes the EP, but what the hell. Terry will probably want to come, too. He's a really good surfer and the swells are really good this time of year."
I shook my head. "We don't have to, if you're not up to it. I can amuse myself if you think surfing is too dangerous for you."
"Oh, I'm up to it. I have to be safe about it though. I'm insured but I don't want to delay the EP in case anything happened."
"We could boogie board instead," I said with a laugh.
"We could at that," he chuckled. "Probably more my speed."
“Nah,” I said and we both laughed.
