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Blake had an answer for his son, but he didn’t feel like it was his to give. He looked across the beach and back to his son. “You’ll have to ask her that.”
“You guys are still friends,” Tommy said. “Ryan says it’s kind of weird. His aunt and uncle got divorced, and he says they have huge screaming matches at family parties.”
Blake blinked and then laughed. “I don’t think that’s normal either, bud.” Nothing could really be counted as “normal,” could it? “People have different relationships. Me and your mom are friends, because I really want you in my life. She wants you to be happy. We both do, so we work together to make sure that happens.”
He nodded and grabbed onto Blake. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Yeah, of course.” He had no idea where this emotion had come from. Tommy sometimes seemed so much like a child, and then other times, he surprised Blake with his maturity. “If you don’t want Lauren to come, that’s fine. There will be other times she can join us.”
Tommy pulled away and picked up his boogie board again. “She can come. It’s fine, Dad. See if she’ll stop and get us sodas from On the Rocks.” He ran off then, his long stride almost athletic. If Blake hadn’t been in the hospital with him twice last year, he might even mistake Tommy for someone who ran the beaches every morning.
Then he stumbled, and there was the kid Blake knew. He grinned, sank into his chair, and started texting Lauren.We’re on the east side, near Library Downs Plantation. Beach four, straight to your left.
None of those directions make sense to me, she answered.You can’t just put in beach four and have it take you there, can you?
Blake chuckled, this new feeling of being alive—truly alive—vibrating in his chest.I’m sending you my pin right now. Just tap on that, and you’ll come right to me.
Half an hour later, Lauren dropped a folding beach chair. “This is all Harrison has. It works for his beach.”
Blake jumped to his feet. “Why didn’t you call me like you said you would?” He took the two white paper bags from her, the scent of something savory and creamy mixing with something sugary sweet.
“I saw you right here,” she said. She put down her beach bag and bent to unfold her chair. She’d be sitting almost on the ground, and Blake would be above her. He grabbed the blanket they always brought to the beach and nudged his chair out of the way so he could spread it on the sand.
He sat on that while she sat in her chair and started pulling food out of the bag. She wore a white, blue, and green tropical print dress, and it hiked up her leg almost all the way to her hip, where he caught a peek of a dark blue swimming suit.
His face heated, and he pulled his eyes away from the length of her leg as she handed him a foil-wrapped sandwich with the words, “Ham and cheese melt.” She eyed it and then him. “That actually smells really good.”
“I told you it was. You switched out the Swiss for muenster?”
“Sure did.” She looked out toward the water. “Is he going to come in and eat?”
“When he’s ready,” Blake said. “We have no schedule at the beach, sweetheart. He plays and comes in, goes out, finds someone to throw a Frisbee with, whatever.”
She shaded her eyes. “Where is he?”
Blake had just seen him right before Lauren arrived, and he quickly scanned the area to his left where Tommy had been. Sure enough, he spotted him several yards out. “He’s over to the left,” he said, pointing. “See the kid with half his torso out? That’s him.”
“He’s so tall.” She looked at him as she unwrapped her sandwich. It wasn’t grilled, which meant she hadn’t gotten the hot ham and cheese the way he’d suggested. “Where’d he get that height from?”
“I’m almost six feet tall,” he said.
“Are you?”
“Yes.” He shook his head. “Tommy’s over that now. I don’t know. Jacinda’s barely five-four.”
“And that’s your ex-wife.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Why did you two get divorced?” She took a bite of her sandwich, a moan coming from her mouth. “Oh my word.” She reached for a napkin and wiped her lips. “I asked the guy at Heaven’s Hoagie what to get, and he recommended this. It’s incredible. Try it.”
She handed him her sandwich, and he looked at the variety of ingredients between the two pieces of wheat bread. He must’ve made a face, because she started to laugh. “Never mind.” She tried to take her sandwich back, but Blake jerked it away from her. “You can’t have any. Not with that look on your face.”
He met her eye, his smile spreading. “What look?”
“You look like that tomato is going to stab you as it goes down your throat.”
“I don’t really like tomatoes,” he said.
