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“No, I guess he’s not.” The bell above the front door rang as another customer entered. “I’ll be right back with your coffee, hon.” She shuffled off to help a young man wearing a wetsuit.
The young man reminded me of Bridger a little. He chatted with Beverly as if he didn’t have a care in the world, laughing loudly as she filled up a to-go coffee for him. I wondered if he was about to hit up the surf or if he was already finished. I hadn’t been able to surf since the last time Bridger and I went out together. Before he got too sick. It was the most heartbreaking session of my life. One that made me never want to go into the ocean again, once a friend and now a foe.
Levi
Drew stumbled in late last night, leaving me with a zombie-like hangover from lack of sleep. Drew gets super chatty when he drinks and he would not shut up about the meeting that would propel him to the next level in his health business. I was all for his future success, but not at three in the morning. I downed a copious amount of coffee as soon as I woke up and was now pacing manically in front of the Airstream.
“Dude, how much caffeine did you ingest?” Drew sat in his lounge chair, nursing his own cup of coffee.
“I blame my jitters on you.” I stopped in front of him and glared.
“Was I really that bad?”
“You talked for two hours, Drew. I could barely understand you after the first ten minutes. I thought for sure you would pass out, but you just kept going.” I started pacing again.
“Sorry. I was pretty fired up. Trent wants to invest in my organic food delivery business. And he loved my idea of buying a piece of organic farming land and producing our own stuff.”
I stopped again. “You want to butcher your own animals?” I was slightly horrified.
He burst out laughing. “No, dude. That’s sick. I just meant growing the veggies and stuff. I couldn’t live on a farm that killed the animals I hung out with every day.”
“Live?” I was thrown off a bit. He hadn’t mentioned settling on a farm before, and we had talked about traveling for a couple of years. “When were you envisioning all of this going down?”
He leaned forward with renewed excitement. “Trent called his real estate agent, and within an hour, she had found several farms across the country that are for sale. He wants us to go look at them as soon as possible.”
I tried to feign excitement for him, but I was bitter. “What the hell, man? That’s cool and all, but I left my family because you promised a life-changing experience. It’s been less than a month.” I threw up my hands, frustrated as hell.
Drew flew up out of his chair, spilling some of his coffee on the sand. “What the hell is wrong with you? I feel bad that all of this happened right now, but this is what I told you I wanted. Yeah, so it’s sooner than I imagined, but when shit comes knocking you don’t turn your back on it. You just don’t. Why don’t you go take a walk and cool off or take a nap since, apparently, I kept you up all night. I can’t be around you right now.” He went into the Airstream, slamming the door shut.
“Dammit!” Red-hot rage surged through my veins, forcing my hands into tight fists.
“I would say good morning, but it looks like maybe just morning is appropriate,” Charlee said sheepishly.
Flinching when I heard her voice, I spun around slowly to face her. “Just guy stuff.”
She nodded once. “Okay, then.”
I grimaced. I was definitely the asshole in this scenario. “Sorry if you heard some of that.”
“Oh, I heardallof it, and I’m pretty sure everyone else did, too.”
I followed her eyes around the beach and across the row of trailers, people turning away immediately.
“Shit,” I whispered under my breath. When I looked up, again, I noticed Charlee was carrying a trash bag and her dog was leashed by her side.
“Where are you headed?”
She lifted the bag. “To work.” She smiled.
“Want company?” I was practically begging.
“It looks like youneed it.” She started walking and looked back to see if I was following. I caught up and stayed close to her side while Midnight pranced along happily on her other side.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked politely.
I shrugged. “Not really.”
She didn’t ask again.
