Boys of Summer (4 page)

I roll my eyes and finish off the rest of my beer.

“Are you
drinking
?” she asks, scandalized.

She should talk.

“Yes, Mom. I'm drinking. I drink. I'm an eighteen-year-old alcoholic.”

She shoots me a disapproving look. “Don't take that tone with me, Ian.”

“This is the only tone I have, Mom.”

“Your grandparents are standing right over there,” she hisses. “I don't think they'd appreciate seeing you drink.”

I glance over at Nana and Papa, dressed in their matching khaki shorts and tropical-print shirts. They're sharing a plate of clams. Papa catches my eye and grins at me, toasting me with an empty clamshell.

I force a smile and avert my gaze. I can't look at him. I don't even see him anymore. All I see is my dad.
His
eyes,
his
nose,
his
crooked smile. The way
he
would look if he'd been able to grow old here, just like his parents. Just like he always wanted.

We've only been here a few days, and already the island is suffocating me.

A waiter walks by with a tray of drinks, and my mom trades her empty glass for a full one. I can't watch this. If she's had as many as I think she's had, things are about to get not pretty.

And she doesn't want my grandparents to see
me
drink?

I turn to walk away, but she grabs me by the wrist. For a woman who barely passes the five-foot-one mark, she's impressively strong. Being an army wife will do that to you. “Where are you going?”

“Home. Down the beach. To the lighthouse. I don't know. Anywhere but here.”

She releases me. “But the party just started. We haven't even roasted marshmallows yet!”

Marshmallows? Seriously?

This is her solution to recently being widowed? What's her solution to war? Reese's Peanut Butter Cups?

I dump my empty beer cup into the trash. “Roast two for me,” I tell her. “I'm going back to the house to get my guitar.”

“Ian,” she warns, keeping her voice low enough to not attract attention from the rest of the dancing shellfish. “Hiding in your room writing sappy ballads isn't going to help you get through this.”

“Actually, Mom,” I say, “that's about the
only
thing that's going to help me get through this.”

She sighs and places a gentle hand on my arm. “Your therapist says—”

“My therapist isn't here,” I reply tightly, feeling the end of my rope steadily slipping through my grasp. “And you are not his replacement.”

I shake her loose and stride off down the beach, not bothering to say good-bye to anyone. The only people I cared about saying good-bye to are already gone.

I can hear the laughter and music grow more and more distant with every step I take, and my body slowly starts to uncoil.

How many more of those things will I be expected to suffer through?

It's not like no one around here knows what happened. Winlock Harbor is as close-knit and gossip-infested as a church. Everyone knows everyone else's business, and they
love
to talk about it. Just not to your face.

The island has an interesting assortment of people. There are the locals—like Mike—who live here year-round and somehow manage not to go stir-crazy. Then there are the vacationers—like Grayson—who come during the summer months and fill the place with an air of smugness. And then there's me. I fall somewhere in between. We certainly aren't rich enough to own a summer house here like the Cartwrights. The measly death benefits we got from the military are barely enough to cover the rent on our two-bedroom apartment in Philly, let alone a vacation home.

My grandparents built here long before it became a hot spot for wealthy tourists. And despite the many offers they've received over the years, they refuse to sell. Their beachfront property is probably worth a fortune by now. All the developers are just dying for my grandparents to tear down the unpretentious beach bungalow and build something worth putting on the front of a brochure.

We've been coming here and staying with my dad's
parents since I was six years old. It used to be something I looked forward to. A breezy getaway from the hot and stuffy army base, a place where my mom wasn't so stressed out all the time. But now I can barely stand to look at the house.

When I reach the front steps a few minutes later, I bypass the door and scale the ivy-covered trellis running up the side of the house like a green virus that's been left unchecked for too long. I squeeze through my bedroom window that I left open and roll adeptly onto my bed.

Sure, the front door is logistically easier, but it requires walking through a minefield of other dangers. Hazards of the emotional variety. Framed photographs of my dad as a kid. Knitted afghans on the couch that we used to fall asleep under. A medal of honor that's supposed to make death feel less like death and more like a carnival game.

If it were up to me, I would have taken all that shit down the moment we got the phone call.

But very little is up to me these days.

I grab my guitar and sit on my bed, strumming a few bars of the new song I've been working on. But my hands fumble awkwardly over the strings, and my fat fingers can't seem to form a single chord. It's these walls. They're prison walls in a cell that gets smaller by the second. I haven't been able to get through a full song since we arrived.

Frustrated and claustrophobic, I stuff the guitar back into the case and strap it to my back. I throw a few items into an overnight bag and toss it over my shoulder. Then I wedge myself back out the window and shuffle carefully to the edge of the roof before crouching down, swinging my legs over the side, and climbing down the trellis.

As soon as my feet hit the sand, I start to move, putting as much distance between me and those walls as I can.
There's really only one place to go. A place where the furniture isn't infested with ghosts and the walls are too far apart to ever suffocate you.

Grayson Cartwright's house is one of the largest on the island. It's about a ten-minute walk down the beach. I make it in seven, my guitar case and overnight bag banging uncomfortably against my hip the whole way.

The lights are out. Grayson is most likely still on his boat with the pop tart from the clambake, undoubtedly doing what Grayson does best. But I know my way to one of the spare bedrooms that's always empty. It used to belong to Grayson's little sister, Whitney, but she stopped coming to the island a few years ago, after she realized that Winlock Harbor didn't have a Barneys.

This is probably the only moment in my entire life when I actually
envy
the infamously shallow and materialistic Whitney Cartwright.

At least she gets to
choose
where she spends her summers.

Whitney's bedroom is on the first floor. I'm grateful for that, since I already scuffed up my palms and knees in my last wall-scaling escapade.

I try the window. It lifts easily. Hardly anyone ever locks anything on Winlock Harbor. What's the point? Unless you have a private boat, there's only one way on or off this island, and that's by ferry. Chances are, someone will catch you before you make it out with a flat-screen television.

I push the window all the way open and hoist myself onto the sill. With one more boost, I'm able to shove my way into the pitch-dark room, and tumble onto the unforgiving hardwood floor.

And then someone screams bloody murder.

GRAYSON

B
y the time the footsteps retreat down the dock, I'm already imagining the rumors the girl will spread.

Grayson Cartwright can't get it up.

Grayson Cartwright is gay.

Grayson Cartwright broke more than just his throwing arm in that car accident.

Regardless of which lie she chooses, it
will
reach the other end of the island by daybreak. That's inevitable. Winlock Harbor is too small a place, and the tourists are too desperate for gossip.

It certainly won't be the biggest scandal of the summer, but it will be the first. And that counts for something.

I want to care. I really do. The old Grayson Cartwright would care big-time.

But ironically, I just can't get it up.

I collapse onto my back and stare at the ceiling. The air-conditioning on the boat hums to life, trying desperately to compete with the humidity outside. My arm is killing me and the frigid air on my bare chest makes me shiver, but I can't muster the energy to sit up and find my shirt. So I simply grab a handful of comforter and yank it across my body.

I can hear my phone ringing somewhere on the floor, but I make no move to reach for it. I don't want to take the risk that it might be my mother calling again. Trying to apologize for ruining my life. Trying to relieve her own guilty conscience.

I haven't answered since she left.

She doesn't get to do that. She doesn't get to just walk out on us, send my entire existence into a tailspin, and then call and make nice.

I turn over and punch the mattress.
Hard.
I keep punching and punching until my arm is throbbing and I cry out in agony. Tears stream down my face.

If only my teammates could see me now. If only the head coach at Vanderbilt could see me now. Crying like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

I bury my face in the pillow. The scent of Nicole's hair is still heavy on the fabric. Coconuts mixed with something. Mint? Cream?

Who the hell cares?

The point is, I tried. I tried to be the guy that everyone on this island expects me to be. I tried to show them all that I'm fine. That people leave and cars crash and arms break, but
I
—Grayson Cartwright—am
fine
.

Nicole was exactly what I needed. Cute. Sexy. Eager. She was cut and pasted from every other summer I've spent here. An exact replica of every other girl I've brought back to this boat. Even the smell of her hair was an echo. As if the island only sells one brand of shampoo.

Which means the problem isn't her.

It's me.

Any other summer this night would have turned out differently.

Any other summer she wouldn't have left here with her
shoes in her hands and a colorful variety of curse words on her lips.

But it's not any other summer.

It's
this
summer.

And I'm no longer the guy who left Winlock Harbor nine months ago with a bagged future and a cocky smile. I'm someone else. Someone I barely recognize. Someone I'm desperate to get away from.

Which is why I eventually shove off the comforter, slide my feet into my shoes, step onto the dock, and start running. I bow my head to hide my face, and cradle my throbbing arm in my hand.

As I pass the familiar landmarks, the memories of a thousand summers come racing back to me. The Coral Bay Beach Club, where my friends and I first met when we were six years old and I (semi-purposefully) trampled through a sand castle that Mike and Ian had spent hours constructing. Ian's grandparents' house, where Ian's dad used to play army base with us when we were kids. The small Winlock Harbor Inn, where Mike lifeguarded last summer and used to sneak beers for us from the bar. The garden shed where I had my first kiss. The small marshland where Cherry Tree Creek empties into the sea and where my mom and I found the nest of baby birds and nursed them until they were old enough to fly. The rental cottages that have housed a hundred girls who walk and talk and smell just like Nicole.

I probably could run forever. I could circle this island five times before daybreak and not even feel winded.

But I don't.

I barely even make it a full lap around.

Because somewhere just past the lighthouse, I trip over Harper Jennings.

MIKE

T
he moon always looks bigger when you're floating in the middle of the ocean. As though you're closer to the stars out here.