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“Oh, come on, MacFrowny. I’ve got shit to do. Move it.”
Luke crossed his arms over his Sand Spot T-shirt and continued to frown, though now with a bit of exasperation for his mule-headed sister. “Why don’t you take Kyle up on his offer to move Skyler over here from the club while you’re on maternity leave?”
Mary glowered at the screen in front of her, clearly not pleased with whatever application she was looking at because she quickly clicked over to another one. Then another. “Luke,” she said as she continued clicking through documents, “what part of ‘manager prospect with an ounce of intelligence’ did you not understand?”
“Ski’s intelligent.”
“She spells her nickname with ani. Somehow I doubt it.”
Click, click, click.
“Does this have anything to do with the fact that she and Kyle hooked up once upon a time?”
Mary’s gaze never wavered from the screen, her face a blank mask of indifference. “Do I look like someone who cares if Kyle banged one of his waitresses?”
Nope. Guess not.
Clicking through more applications, Mary’s bored expression suddenly lifted, and her eyes — which were the same shade of sometimes-brown-sometimes-green hazel as his own — came alive with interest. “Well, well, well,” she murmured, “Andalise Rhodes, who are you?”
“Andalise?” Luke mused. “What the hell kind of name is that?”
“One I’m not in danger of confusing with a popular wintertime sport.” Mary hit the print icon on her computer, and the small ink-jet under the counter whirred to life. “Also probably one that belongs to a person with a vagina. Which will be a nice change of pace from my last ten interviews. I’m calling her.”
“God, you’re stubborn.”
Holding her phone to her ear, Mary stared at him pointedly. “And you’re still in my cashwrap.”
Luke snorted and strode back tohishalf of the shop. Inside, he donned his work mask and another Chargers cap flipped backward since Dylan was kicking up foam particulate like sawdust.
With his thick hair — still damp from that morning’s dawn patrol session — pulled up in a messy top knot, a pair of wireless earbuds stuffed in his ears, and his own mask on, Dylan was bent over the foam blank Luke had machined the night before, tweaking the shape of it with a hand planer.
Their most recent order was for a hybrid board, something sized in between a shortboard and a longboard for a client who wanted the feel of a shorter board with just a bit more volume since Joe was a heavier dude. Joe had also requested flames in the design because he was a huge fan of the ’50s hot rod scene.
Luke could handle flames. Both he and Dylan were skilled artists, but Dylan tended to excel at images of people while Luke was better with natural elements and more abstract stuff. Sitting down at a drafting table, Luke grabbed a pad and pencil and began sketching some fiery-looking waves he thought Joe might dig.
Minutes into the task, Luke found himself doodling images of little birds.
His thoughts wandered to the neatly folded towel that had been sitting on his dryer since Sunday. He probably should have chucked it. Why he’d held on to the thing was a mystery. He certainly didn’t plan on using it at the beach anytime soon. Not because his balls were too big for a flippin’ Tweety Bird towel, but because he simply had no desire to deviate from his usual shtick of swiping shit from Kyle’s bag. It was just how things worked between them.
They were family, and it was all good.
Glancing up from his sketchpad, Luke smiled at the picture hanging above the table. It had been taken four years ago during the grand opening of the Sand Spot. In it, he, Kyle, and Dylan were crouched together on a whale of a longboard, all of them grinning and throwing up shakas.
Behind them stood the rest of their family. Kyle’s parents and siblings were beaming proudly in the photo like the gang of rich-ass beautiful people they were. Next to the Taylor-Vaughns, Dylan’s old man Lio Kahele wore his salt-and-pepper hair in a scraggly ponytail, a small smile lifting his weathered brown cheeks. And finally, next to him, Mary had an arm looped through Lio’s as she rested her head against his shoulder. Her broad smile was tempered by a hint of sadness in the hazel eyes she and Luke had inherited from their mother.
Their mother who should have been standing in that photo as well.
Their mother who’d survived multiple attacks from their father only to have her own body attack itself years later.
She’d passed away a few months before the Sand Spot opened.
Luke’s gaze shifted to the other framed picture on the wall. In that one, his mom was thigh-deep in the Pacific, pushing Mary around on a boogie board. Luke’s sister was maybe four or five in the shot while he was just a baby, only the top of his head and long, chubby legs visible where they poked out of the sling his mother wore over her swimsuit.
Francesca MacCallum had been a knockout in her twenties, all slender curves and toned muscles. Her long, auburn hair flying about as the wind caught it.
Years later, all that radiant red hair had fallen out with the chemo. But to Luke, his mother had still looked beautiful when she passed away.
Blinking against the sudden pressure behind his eyes, Luke started a new drawing. This one something like fire, but also a little birdlike, as though his brain subconsciously wanted to marry the two. Minutes passed as he sketched, erased, and sketched some more. Until finally, the piece was done, and he felt a presence behind him.
