Always Summer (14 page)

A swell of nostalgia washes into the office,
taking Jace on an epic ride along a wave called memory lane. I need
to spend more time up here, taking in the little things. That first
day in the store, I was so excited to find that picture of Colby
and Shark in the midst of surf injuries and beach parties on the
wall. I want to go back to that moment, just to feel that way
again.

“We’ve gotta fix this mess,” Jace says,
pulling me away from the memory. “Can you talk to the other guys
about Logan’s idea? We need to get this surf lessons thing up and
going pretty quickly. We need some good publicity, and we
desperately need to drive some business in here.”

“I’ll handle it,” I assure him.

It’s only a few hours after lunch, but that
doesn’t mean anything to Miles Garrett. When I asked him and Emily
to tag along with Topher and me for the afternoon, I didn’t bother
to tell them about my hidden agenda – also known as ‘get the
Hooligans onboard with Logan’s idea to make Drenaline Surf look
good.’ All I had to say was ‘burritos’ and ‘hang out.’

Topher sits in my driver’s seat, with Miles
behind him and Emily behind me. Even though Emily and I were right
here at the drive-in last night, it didn’t stop her from wanting to
come back today. She only orders a grape slush this time, though.
Miles, on the other hand, orders four breakfast burritos (at three
o’clock in the afternoon), and Topher orders a cheeseburger. This
is why they can’t stand living with Colby Taylor.

“So, I need some surfer feedback,” I say,
angling toward Topher so he and Miles can both see me. “We’ve been
trying to come up with something that would bring in new business,
make Drenaline Surf look good, and get our surfers involved without
making you stand behind the cash register.”

Miles groans. “I’m just ready to be back in
the water,” he says.

“Exactly,” I agree, hoping I can lead him
into this. “What do you think about giving surf lessons?” I
ask.

Before they can answer, our food is
delivered. This will work to my advantage because they won’t be
talking. As soon as Topher pays and the car-hop disappears, I give
them the pitch I’ve been working on all day.

“Think about it. You get out of the store,
into the ocean, get to surf during business hours, and you get a
commission off any lessons you give,” I say. “And you can do it
once a week or whatever works with your schedule. Nothing is set in
stone.”

Topher tilts his head like a confused puppy,
but I know that far away look that’s in his eyes. He’s thinking
about it. He’s playing it out in his head. Right now, he’s out
there in those crystal blue waters of Crescent Cove.

“I’m in,” he says, far too easily.

“That was much simpler than I expected,” I
admit to him.

He smiles a classic Topher Brooks kind of
smile. “I was just thinking about what it was like when I was a
kid. Just a grom, frothing to get out there and catch my first
wave,” he says, still smiling. “Sometimes, when I get in the water,
I remember that first day with Shark, him telling me when to pop
up. It was the
best
feeling. He’d want me to do this.”

I glance over at Miles. He shrugs and says
something that sounds like ‘sure’ but it’s hard to tell when he’s
teeth-deep in a burrito. Topher starts telling us about the first
time he surfed in Horn Island, down by the pier, years before it
collapsed. It was the day of his first wipe out, and he laughs when
he says that he told Shark he was never surfing again
afterward.

He begins to say something else but stops
when he feels a shadow looming over him. I duck my head down near
my car’s radio to see the person who just walked up to my car. I
don’t recognize him. Apparently, neither does Topher.

My boyfriend cracks the window, just barely.
“Can we help you?” he asks.

“Are you Topher Brooks?” the guy asks. “The
guy who surfs for Drenaline Surf?”

A tight pain settles in my back, right along
my spine. It’s a familiar tension, the kind I feel every time
something goes down and I know it’s going to bite us later. I hate
that I can’t enjoy a single moment without worrying about the
repercussions of everything we do.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Topher says. “Do I know
you?”

The guy shakes his head. He can’t be much
older than us, if at all. He looks like a typical beach bum in
board shorts and a T-shirt. His hair is a bit of a mess, like maybe
he was in the ocean himself earlier today.

“Nah, but I’ve seen you surf before. Would
you sign something for me? I think you’ll be famous someday, so I
should grab the autograph now,” the guy says.

Any concern Topher had before now has flown
out the cracked window. He turns to me, asking if I have any of his
promo pictures with me – because, you know, PR reps should carry
those things in her personal belongings.

“Seriously? I’m out with my boyfriend, not
playing your manager at some event. I left your promo pics at home,
babe,” I tell him.

I hand him a pen from my purse, and Miles
folds a burrito wrapper into a pretty little square. He signs his
own name before letting Topher do the same.

A group of people huddle around my car,
asking Topher and Miles for autographs and pictures. One girl asks
someone else if they’re famous, and Emily sighs loudly because she
hates surf groupies. She stays in with me after Miles and Topher
get out of the car to fake being famous for a few minutes.

“This is what I hate about the surf world,”
Emily says, nodding out the window. “Miles wouldn’t get a second
glance from some of those girls if he weren’t a surfer, and you
know, sponsored by an actual company.”

She doesn’t seem worried about her
relationship status, though. I don’t think Miles would dare try to
date anyone else. Emily feeds him and cheers him on, the two most
important things in Miles Garrett’s book.

It’s a curious thing, though, to watch
Topher interact with these strangers. He has a charisma that I
imagine Shark had. He’s outgoing, the life of the party, but he’s
persuasive and intriguing. He makes you want to keep up with him,
to know what he’s doing. These girls may not be surf fans yet, but
I bet they’ll leave here searching for him on Twitter or
Instagram.

“You know there’s this stereotype, right?”
Emily asks from the backseat. “Surfers date supermodels. Look at
the world tour. Nearly every girlfriend on there is a model of some
sort. Bikini models. You’ll see guys like Miles dating girls like
you wouldn’t even believe.”

I push away the remarks that Colby made
before my weekend away with Topher. I refused to accept it, even if
I possibly believed it, but he’s right – Topher would be the one to
get wrapped up in the whirlwind of being a famous surfer. He wants
to be adored. He wants people to want to be his friend. When you’re
from a place like Horn Island and have the reputation of being
rough around the edges, who doesn’t want to overcome that and be a
rock star? He may have Hooligan blood, and I truly believe when
it’s all said and done, he’ll be back in Horn Island hanging with
his friends, but Topher may be the one who wants to branch out and
live the superstar life for a while. Move over, Colby Taylor.

“At least we’re breaking the stereotype,”
Emily says. It seems like she says it more for herself than for me,
but right now, I think I need to hear it as much as she does.

After dropping Emily and Miles off at
Emily’s car, Topher asks me to go back to the condo rather than
taking him to Colby’s house.

“Go change,” he says, as soon as I park my
car. “We’re going to the beach. No arguments.”

I can’t remember the last time I had a beach
day. I think my last trip to the beach was the night Topher ended
up in the hospital. For a moment, I hesitate changing into beach
attire, but it’s sort of like crashing a car or falling off a bike.
The best way to overcome it is to just try again.

After putting on my bikini, I pull a pair of
shorts and a Drenaline Surf T-shirt on over it. Topher lingers
outside of the condo’s guest house waiting for me.

“Which beach?” I ask. I drape two beach
towels over my arm.

“Here,” Topher says. “Behind your
house.”

As often as I trek through the sand and roam
along the shoreline behind the house, I think the last time I
really hung out back here on the beach was last summer. I sat on
this very sand talking to Vin about coming back this summer. I said
goodbye to Miles and Topher just off to my right. Kale programmed
his number into my phone over there.

Last summer seems as if it happened in
another lifetime, yet it’s so close right now that I can almost
feel it again. There was an energy floating over the water back
then, a magical aura that you can’t really put into words because
no words are worthy.

Topher takes the beach towels and stretches
them out on the sand. I take a seat next to him, watching the
colors of the sky swish together. It’s that time of the day when
the sunset is lazy, so the colors aren’t quite as bold. Soft pink
and sherbet orange linger around drifts of pastel blues, weaving
around each other like ballerinas of the sky, dancing to the sound
of the waves rather than Tchaikovsky.

“What’s the one thing you wish you had in
your life right now that’s missing?” Topher asks, like it’s a
normal, easy question.

Where do I even begin with that? I wish I
had less drama, more stability, an idea of what I was doing with my
life, or just a day of peace where I don’t have to wait for the
other shoe to drop.

“I want that feeling back that I had last
summer,” I say, because it sums up everything I’m feeling. “That
invincible feeling. That feeling that no matter what happens,
there’s something big ahead of me. Last summer was exciting and
hopeful, and I couldn’t wait to get back here and live it all out.
But it’s like ever since I came back, everything has been a one
disaster after the next.”

Topher nods but doesn’t say anything. I hope
he knows what I mean. I don’t want to rewind and undo us. I don’t
want to take away his sponsorship or reverse to the easy days. I
just want that forever-chasing feeling back. I want to feel like
there’s something more, something better, ahead of me. I want to
know this is all worth it.

“I wish I could walk down to the shoreline
and let the waves wash it all away, just carry all of the drama
back out to sea,” I say.

It’d be so easy to just leave it with the
seahorses and mermaids, the sharks and shipwrecks. All of the
tabloid articles and mug shots could just hang out in a treasure
chest, so far away from land that no one would think of it ever
again.

Topher jumps up from his towel and reaches a
hand down for me.

“C’mon. Get up. You’re coming with me,” he
says. He pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it onto the
sand.

“Where are we going?” I ask. I grasp his
hand and let him pull me to my feet.

“To wash it all away,” he says.

I follow suit and leave my outer clothing on
the beach towel. Topher tugs me closer to him and starts toward the
water.

“I’ll tell you like I always told my
brother,” he says. “The ocean isn’t going to work for you if you
stay on the shoreline. Besides, the last time I got you in the
water with me, I was unconscious. I’d like to have at least one
memory of us in the water that doesn’t involve anyone
drowning.”

He wastes no time rushing into the oncoming
waves, letting them throw him off balance. He falls back into the
water, waves rushing over his skin and washing away any worries
that he may have had two minutes ago.

“You can’t think about it,” he calls out,
drifting further into the ocean. He pulls his arm back and slings
water in my direction. “Get in!”

I shut off the part of my brain that feels
silly and just go with it. This time, I’m not racing into the water
to find him among the blackness of the night. I’m not fighting
Mother Nature to let him live. There are no surfboards to hold on
to or leashes to detach. No one has to call Theo or an ambulance.
No one is trapped on crutches unable to help. No one cries on the
shoreline.

It feels like summer, but here, it’s always
summer.

I return the favor and splash water back in
Topher’s general direction. He laughs but paddles toward me. His
arms wrap around me, pulling me into him, letting us drift with the
waves.

The looming sunset reflects on the water,
glowing around us in hues of bright, bold colors. The water
glistens, like a rainbow of stained glass floating on the
surface.

Topher presses his forehead against mine.
“This is why I surf,” he says, his voice low. “There’s nothing that
makes the world better than the ocean…except this.”

And he presses his lips to mine.

Sleeping in on your day off isn’t possible
when you work for Drenaline Surf. My phone buzzes against the
nightstand, but I refuse to open my eyes. I want to linger in
yesterday’s sunset just a little longer. I want to stay in the
ocean, under the colors that remind me of seahorses and paper
stars. I want to stay lost in the blues of Topher’s eyes.

Buzzzzz.

Damn it. I push myself off of the mattress,
open my eyes against my will, and grab my cell phone.

Eight new messages.

I open the most recent one, the one that
forced me to face reality instead of live in yesterday’s fantasy.
Damn you, Alston Wright.

Are you ever going to wake up? Turn on
SurfTube. Drama. All the drama.

There’s no way I’m dragging myself over to
the condo to watch the TV right now. Instead, I pull up my SurfTube
app and start the stream from the beginning. At least I can watch
our company go up in flames from the comfort of my own bed.