Aftershocks (8 page)

“Do you like him or something?” Nicky asked, changing the subject back to Connor.

“It’s not like that,” I said. “We’re friends. We’ve just hung out a few times.”

“Define a few,” she said, knowing I was holding back.

“Every day this week,” I mumbled, taking a long drink of my latte.

“She is gonna be pissed when you steal her boyfriend,” Nicky said, shaking her head as I refused to dignify her statement with a response.

***

“Welcome to South Shore,” Luke said, looking up from the magazine he was reading at the counter.

“Hey Luke,” I said, as I walked into work Thursday after school.

My arrival was accompanied by the front door chime the owner Larry, a perpetual beach bum, had instaled. He wasn’t a fan of the traditional
ding!
that most stores had, so he’d instaled one that was more his style.

“Oh, hey Abby,” Luke said, somewhat disappointed.

“It’s lovely to see you too, Luke,” I said, as I stashed my bag behind the counter and put on my name badge.

South Shore didn’t have a dress code, per say, but Larry asked that we al dress ‘beachy’ and wear our names on miniature surfboards around our necks, so the customers knew who they could ask for help. That day my ‘beachy’ look was jeans, a yelow boyfriend tank and brown leather flip-flops. It was more of a loose term since Larry couldn’t have been more laid back.

Besides, he was rarely in the shop anyway. He lived twenty minutes away on the beach and usualy hit the waves during the day, in between shaping boards for his own line of surfboards. So far he just sold them in the shop but was hoping to branch out across New England.

“Sorry,” Luke said. “I’ve been here for an hour and no one’s been in. I was hoping you were a hot girl who I could help pick out a bikini.”

“Charming,” I said, taking a seat on a stool beside him as he continued to flip through his magazine that I realized was actualy a colege brochure.

I noticed he had a stack of them spread out on the counter next to him. I picked up the one closest to me for the University of Connecticut and started flipping through the pages of students in UConn sweatshirts walking across campus, working in labs, and studying under trees.

“It’s just been sort of boring here now that school’s back in session and the weather’s turning,” Luke complained, as he stopped to read about a graphic design program at Northeastern. From our long hours behind the counter together, I knew he aspired to be a graphic designer. He’d actualy created a line screen-printed t-shirts that Larry let him sel in the store. He was talented.

I shrugged. “It’s fal, in New England. I’m not sure we should be surprised that a surf shop doesn’t do much business in the winter months. It’l pick up soon, what with the expansion and al.”

South Shore had its busy months from Spring Break to Labor Day where we were steady from open to close. After that we pretty much relied on sales from clothing to stay afloat. Larry had expanded the year before to seling skateboards and their accessories, but the sales hadn’t been enough. This summer, he’d finaly decided to take a leap and branch out into winter sports. When the hobby shop next door had gone out of business, he’d secured the location and started construction on the expansion.

We’d al had to endure a summer of banging and noise from jackhammers as the construction was underway. We were about two months away from being open for business in the ski and snowboard industries. They just had to tear down the adjoining wal, which was happening in a few weeks and paint. Then we’d get to unpack the boxes upon boxes that were stacked in the backroom and set up the store.

Luke complained now, but in a while I knew we’d be busy. We’d open just in time ski season. It would bring in a lot of business, which would make Larry happy, and hopefuly give us something to do during our shifts.

Luke, who’d been promoted to Assistant Manager over the summer, would also be charged with hiring some extra associates in time for the grand opening. He’d already told me I’d be helping him with that.

“This is true. I guess we’l be busier then,” he said, stil sounding bored.

Surf’s Up!

Luke and I both looked up as the door to the shop opened. “Welcome to South Shore,” we both said in unison as Sophia Weiss walked in.

She was one of those girls that grabbed attention wherever she went. She was petite with long dark brown hair, brown eyes and olive skin. She was usualy a quiet girl until you put a few drinks in her, and then her wild side came out. She was friends with Alexis and the footbal jerks, and we’d had a few classes together, but we didn’t know each other al that wel.

I’d actualy learned more about her from Luke who’d dated her for a year before they abruptly broke up in January. It had been messy, and I was pretty sure she’d cheated on him. He’d cursed her up and down for months and avoided her like the plague whenever she came into the shop. Then he’d proceed to talk about her for several hours after she left. He said he hated her, but I knew better. He wasn’t over her.

“Hey Abby,” Sophia said, as she glanced in our direction. I noticed she didn’t acknowledge Luke, and I felt sort of bad for him.

I smiled at her and said helo, making an effort to be friendly. “Are you looking for anything in particular today?” I asked, getting up from my stool and walking over to her. “We’ve got some great bathing suits for half-off.”

“I’m actualy looking for a skateboard,” she said, “for my brother. It’s his birthday this weekend.”

“Wel, we’ve got a whole line of —”

“Abby?” Luke said from behind me, interrupting my sales pitch.

I turned around to see what was so important and raised my eyebrows at him.

“There’s actualy a new shipment of hoodies that came in this morning. Larry wanted to make sure they got out today. Can you grab them from the back?” he asked, gesturing with his head toward the backroom.

“Um, I’m kind of helping a customer now, Luke,” I said, confused by his request since for the past few months whenever Sophia came into the shop he had bolted for the backroom and made me help her. “I can do it when I’m done, though.”

“I’l be happy to help,” he said then, jumping off of his stool and striding over to me and Sophia. He looked confident, but I could tel he was nervous. “You were looking for a skateboard, right Sophia?”

She nodded, but I saw a look pass over her face that said she wasn’t sure why he was talking to her either. “Yes, for Jared.”

“Okay, right this way,” Luke said, taking her over to our selection as he left me standing there dumbfounded. He looked back over his shoulder. “Abby, can you take care of those hoodies?”

I raised my eyebrows at him again. I could not believe he’d been an assistant manager for a month and he just assumed he could pul rank on me. It wasn’t until he gave me a pleading look, putting his hands together, prayer style and mouthed ‘please’ that I realized he wanted some alone time to talk to Sophia.

“Sure, no problem, boss,” I said loud enough for Sophia to hear.

Luke gave me a winning smile before turning back to Sophia and the skateboards. I smiled to myself as I left them alone hoping a war wouldn’t break out while I was off the floor. As I reached the stock room, my cel phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Connor.

“Hey dude!”

“Dude?” he asked incredulously.

I shrugged. “I’m at work. The surfer girl in me comes out when I’m here. What can I do for you?”

“Not much. I just wanted to see how it was going.”

“Boring,” I said, as I looked around the stockroom wondering if there realy was a hoodie shipment that needed to be stocked. “We’ve only had one customer since I got here, and Luke pounced on her, so I am now laying low in the stockroom pretending to work.”

He laughed out loud. “Let me guess, Sophia, right.”

It was a smal world. When Connor had come to visit me at work on Tuesday night, I learned he was friends with Luke. They’d met at the beach over the summer and had become surf buddies. It was the first time that I’d started to think that al aspects of my life in one way or another seemed to lead to Connor Richmond. It was sort of freaky, but in a good way since I was enjoying having him as a friend.

“Yeah, how’d you know,” I said, leaning back against the shelf that housed the women’s flip-flops.

“He’s been talking about her for a few weeks. I think he wants to get back together with her. I’m shocked that he actualy talked to her, though,” he said, echoing my thoughts.

“I know, right!”

We continued speculating about Luke and Sophia for another few minutes before Connor said, “You get off at eight?”

“Yup, sure do. Which means, I have just under five hours of boredom left, but I’m sure four and a half of those hours wil be spent with Luke obsessing about whether he should take another chance with Sophia.”

“True,” Connor said, “but, at least it wil pass the time.”

“You know it.”

“How about I meet you guys at eight and we grab dinner?” he asked then. “I’ve got this massive craving for tacos, and I hear there’s a realy good place just two doors down from your store.”

“I do like tacos,” I said, picking up a pair of white flip flops that were on the verge of faling off the shelf.

“Okay, then it’s a date. I’l see you at eight.”

“You are such a dork,” I said, wondering when it was that he made time to see his girlfriend when he always seemed to be hanging out with everyone but her. Maybe they weren’t that serious.

As I hung up the phone, I located a new shipment that was probably the hoodies that Luke had been referring to. I grabbed the box and headed back out to the sales floor where Luke was showing Sophia some decorative stickers to go with the board she was buying. I shook my head, smiling to myself, as I started to unpack the box.

Chapter
7

The next day I was walking out to the parking lot after school feeling relieved that the weekend had finaly arrived. I was looking forward to sleeping in. The first week of school had been a smack in the face after having three months off, and I was stil trying to get back into a good groove of balancing studying with everything else – which pretty much meant work, Wyatt via phone and Connor.

As soon as I hit the edge of the parking lot, I heard my name being caled. I turned around to see Connor striding toward me with his backpack slung over his left shoulder. I stopped to wait for him and stepped into stride beside him when he reached me.

He put his arm around my shoulder in a friendly sort of way and said, “So, I was thinking that today, we should start your education.”

I had no idea what he was talking about and shot him a questioning look in return.

“Footbal,” he said, like it was the most logical thing to say.

“Footbal?”

“I’m going to teach you about the game. It is so sad that you don’t know anything about it. Did you grow up under a rock?”

After the first day of school and my scoffing at our lunch conversation, Connor had asked if I liked footbal when we were grabbing coffee on Wednesday. I’d shaken my head, taking a sip of my latte, hoping he wasn’t going to start talking about teams and sports. Our conversations had mostly been about pop culture – music, movies, books – and I wasn’t prepared to add sports to the list.

My knowledge in that arena was just this side of limited. My father and Aaron watched and talked about sports year-round, and I had gone to countless footbal games when Wyatt had played, so I’d been around the game but didn’t have an extensive knowledge to pul from.

I looked at him in mock disbelief. “I did not grow up under a rock,” I said, copping a fake attitude and crossing my arms. He puled me closer.

I knew enough about footbal. They played it with a bal and the goal was to score touchdowns. Everything in the middle was somewhat unclear. I usualy just cheered when everyone else cheered. Okay, so maybe I didn’t know very much about the game.

“So, tel me how it is that you have never learned the finer points of the greatest game played in America?”

“Um, in my house, that game would be basketbal,” I said, knowing my father and Aaron would be proud of me for defending their sport. My dad had also played basketbal in colege.

“Basketbal?”

“Yeah, my brother plays for South Carolina,” I said, proudly.

“He does?” Connor asked, and I realized that in the week we’d been hanging out, we hadn’t realy gotten into anything personal. We just stuck to neutral topics that we could laugh about. It made me think that I didn’t know Connor as wel as I’d thought I did, and he obviously didn’t know me. He hadn’t met my family, and I hadn’t met his. I didn’t know what his parents did for a living. I just assumed they had busy jobs since they were never able to pick Jordan up from footbal practice in the afternoons.

“Yeah. His name is Aaron. We’re actualy realy close. Have I not told you about him?”

Connor shook his head. “Aside from the fact that he’s mean to you, no you sure haven’t,” he said, referencing one of our first conversations, and sounding just a little offended.

I roled my eyes. “He’s not mean to me. I train with him because I want to help. I just don’t realy like it.”

Connor raised his eyebrow at him, so I smacked him lightly on his chest.

“Okay, new rule,” I said, looking up at him. His arm was stil around my shoulders. I felt a twinge in my stomach when I realized how close he was. “Every day that we see each other, we have to reveal one thing about ourselves.”

Connor pondered that for a moment and then shrugged. “Okay, sounds harmless. You go first.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking of what I wanted to share with him. I decided to go for something that wouldn’t be too deep. “In my family, al of our names start with the letter ‘A’.”

Connor raised his eyebrow. “Realy?”

I nodded. “Yeah, me and Aaron, and my parents are Adam and Anna. It’s al very adorable,” I said, emphasizing the ‘a’ in adorable.

Connor laughed at me, puling me into a headlock as we walked. “You’re a dork,” he said.