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“Sure.” Tommy started swiping. “Do you want me to read them to you?”
“Yep.”
“She’s only texted a few times, and she first asked me the name of that game I was playing with Ryan. I told her it was SquareSpaces, and she acknowledged that. Then she asked for the name of Ryan’s uncle’s chocolate shop, and I had to text him to get it, and then I sent that to her. Then nothing for a little bit. I sent her a meme about making the drive into Charleston when you told me she started her job there.”
Blake looked over to his son, surprised he’d done that. It wasn’t only Lauren making the connection between them, and he really liked that.
“Then she told me that she’d bought a new house, and it was ‘so cute’ and she sent me a picture of it.” He turned his phone toward Blake, but he couldn’t look at it for long, as the light turned green in front of him, and he had to drive.
“I can invite her,” Tommy said, pitching up the last word into a question.
“Sure.” Blake swallowed. “Tell her we’re at least two hours away. We have to drive home, take everything inside, and then get packed up.”
“Yep,” Tommy said, and he sounded just like Blake. His thumbs flew across the screen, and he looked up only a few seconds later. It didn’t take Lauren long to respond, and he read, “She said, Just let me know where, and I’ll meet you.”
“We can just go pick her up,” Blake said. “We could go to Harrison’s private beach.” He looked over to Tommy, who clearly didn’t like that idea by the sour look on his face. “Or not. I guess Kathy won’t be there.”
Tommy rolled his eyes, and Blake chuckled. “Tell her we’ll text her where when we decide. You like Library Downs the most, but it’s Saturday and it’ll be packed. We’d be better to go to Lighthouse Point or just somewhere along the highway.”
“I hate the highway beaches,” Tommy complained. “It’s noisy, and the waves aren’t good for body surfing.”
“All right,” Blake said. “Pick one then. I don’t care.”
“There’s three of us,” he said, his fingers tapping away on his phone. “We’ll be able to find a place at Library Downs. It’s a huge beach.”
Blake repressed his sigh, because his son was right and he didn’t truly care where they went to hang out for the afternoon. He was just glad Tommy would be out of the house, off the video games until tonight. He was getting better at body surfing, but by the number of texts he received and sent, he was inviting more than Lauren to stop by the beach.
Blake told himself that was fine. He wanted his son to have friends, and he’d rather know who they were than be kept in the dark. His mind wandered to Lauren and what her swimming suit would look like today. She’d once told him that she owned several, though she never really got any of them wet.
She liked hot tubs, not lakes, the ocean, or pools, and of course, a suit was the lightest, coolest garment to wear at the beach—according to her. Blake smiled just thinking about her, and he couldn’t wait to ask her how the job search was going, and how she’d fared for the first full week in Harrison’s house alone now that Joy had returned to Sweet Water Falls.
20
Lauren couldn’t stop herself from driving through On The Rocks and getting drinks for herself, Blake, and Tommy. Then she stopped at a Lowcountry store and dashed inside to grab some candy. She simply couldn’t go to the beach without licorice, sour gummy worms, or chips. Or apparently, all three.
Tommy’s favorite candy was a caramel Twix bar, and she got a king sized one. Blake would have a cooler, and she could put it in there until the teenager came in from his boogie boarding. She saw a Frisbee by the checkout counter, and she grabbed it while she waited for the person in front of her to finish up.
She bought everything and headed to Library Downs, which was where Blake and Tommy seemed to always end up. This time, Blake had said he’d text her when they had a spot, because it was really crowded today.
Lauren saw what he meant, as she couldn’t find a parking spot in the public pay lot. She started driving up and down the residential streets, but they all had “no beach parking” signs posted. Frustration tickled the back of her throat, and she made the circle again.
This time, a small sedan was leaving the pay lot, and Lauren put her blinker on and waited. And waited. And waited. The man seemed to simply be texting on his phone, and the stubbornness inside Lauren refused to leave. She stared at the man and his wife sitting in the passenger seat like they had nowhere else in the world to be, like there weren’t at least a dozen cars trolling this lot looking for a spot.
He finally pulled out, and Lauren took the space. She wasn’t sure which beach Blake had ended up on, but she’d learned they weren’t that far apart. She could walk for a couple hundred yards and go from beach four to beach five, so she simply started putting all of her purchases into her beach bag. She’d shoulder that, carry the chair over her forearm, and then support the drinks with her other hand.
Beach three, Blake finally said.It’s insane here. I tried to get Tommy to go somewhere else, but I think he invited that girl he was holding hands with last time, so that was a no-go.
Lauren was actually close to beach three, and she responded with a quick affirmative, and got out of the car. She soon learned that it wouldn’t be as easy to spot them as it had been last time. The sheer number of people made her want to turn around and go right back to the car. She had a private beach off the steps of the house where she lived. She’d been out there sipping her morning coffee a few hours ago, and she hadn’t seen a single soul.
On this last Saturday before school started here on the island, it sure seemed like every man, woman, and child felt the need to get one more day of sun, sand, and surf. She didn’t get that. They lived here. They could literally come next weekend too. It wasn’t like it would be cold or the kids would have school.
It was probably thirty yards from ocean to the grasses that grew at the back of the sandy beach, and Lauren couldn’t possibly wander around, searching under every umbrella for Blake and Tommy. She dialed him and put down her beach chair, resting it against her thigh, as the phone rang.
“Howdy, sweetheart,” he drawled, and Lauren’s chest caved in. She craved his touch when she felt hollow like this. She hadn’t seen him enough this week, and she wasn’t even sure why.
She told herself that wasn’t true—she knew why. She’d disappeared inside herself again, because Joy had left the island. Lauren lived in that huge house alone now, and she couldn’t wait to move into her new, smaller house.
“I’m on beach three,” she said. “But it’s going to be impossible for me to find you.”
