Dare to Love the Guy Next Door by Ellie Hall
Griffin
Aman has to have priorities. In no particular order: surf, tacos, surf.
The first thing I did when I arrived at the cottage was to grab the old longboard on the heap of junk in the single-car garage that’s never stored a vehicle and ride the waves. The late summer is hit or miss up here, but the Atlantic is firing today and I caught a few gnurlies.
When I’m out on the waves, my thoughts drift away, leaving nothing but blank space, stretching endlessly. No thoughts form. No images flash behind my eyelids. No regrets about Brianna. It’s just water, sky, and speed.
As I step onto the damp sand, a rogue wave from the high tide splashes a woman up the beach. She shrieks and then runs toward the path between the cottages lined with tall grass and a rickety wooden fence.
I follow slowly, reluctant to leave the water’s edge. But exhausted from the late-night flight from Miami, I shower and then flop into the easy chair in the middle of the main room of the cottage. I doze, thinking about my busted relationship, the waves crashing on the shore, and this dilapidated house.
If there are dots to connect, I haven’t figured them out yet, but I’d like order to come, sense to be made, a future path to reveal itself.
Although I’m on a break from touring and competing, fall froth is right around the corner. Yet, for a minute at least, I want to be still. To be here. Forget about everything out there.
The truth is, I’m tired. Tired of performing, being “on,” and uprooted.
I tip my head back and stare at the water-stained ceiling.
The cottage was modest when I grew up—my father was a fisherman. My mom got sick when I was thirteen and my brother was eleven. She didn’t make it to see my fourteenth birthday.
Dad was gone a lot. He drank to cope after losing the woman he called his mermaid. He had a heart attack while out on a fishing run and passed at sea. It happened during my first surf trip to Hawaii.
The cottage has never been the same. Neither have I, but I haven’t stopped long enough to realize that. A hole exists inside me where my family once was.
Vestiges of Mom remain—the lacy curtains, the collection of seashells on the windowsill, the quilts on the beds. Dad too—his collection of baseball hats, the rustic charm, and disarray without Mom to keep things tidy.
I roll my eyes. “You know Mom wouldn’t appreciate how you let things go around here.”
How many times did I want to say that to him? To pick up the junk, toss out the trash. But from the moment she left this world, he never moved a single thing that her hand had touched. Maybe he worried if he did so, he’d lose what was left of her.
Though I suppose, they’re together again and have left this place to me (and Holden, but he has a McMansion on the Long Island Sound), meaning it’s my job to make things right around here. How Mom and Dad would’ve wanted them if they’d had the geets—that’s what Hogan Sanders called money. He was out at sea so often, he and the crew practically had their own language—same as us surfers.
Bobbing in and out of memories, I drift to sleep.
A buzzing sound in my dream jars me to waking as I realize it comes from my phone, wedged between the arm and cushion of the chair. My thoughts are fuzzy, split between the past and present.
Brianna Anna: Hi baby, I left some of my things at the apartment in Puerto Rico. Could you mail them to me?
Me: You have the wrong number.
I know, I know. It’s immature, but it’s not entirely a lie. If Brianna thinks I’m going to do anything for her, she definitely has the wrong number.
Brianna: Is this Griff? Are you messing with me?
Me: Whoever you’re trying to reach must’ve given you the wrong number. Sorry.
Brianna replies with several choice words which rhyme with gas and goal. It doesn’t even phase me. More importantly, my Jeep parked outside is practically out of gas and my goal is to figure out my future, which means I’m not going anywhere soon.
The week blurs by with me alternatingly surfing, sleeping at odd hours, surfing, and cleaning the cottage while I imagine what I could do to improve the place. Tacos feature prominently on the menu. Breakfast tacos with eggs, sausage, and a sprinkle of cilantro. Lunch tacos with carne asada and hot sauce I order special from a place in Smuggler’s Springs, Texas. Dinner consists of tacos with whatever I have left over from breakfast and lunch.
Yeah, it’s the only thing I know how to cook.
I haven’t stayed in one place since I left this seaside town and even though the cottage was built next to the water, I feel anchored, glad to be home for once.
While I clear out my childhood room, something crashes in the hall. I find the coat rack on the ground along with my father’s thick, plaid button-down before they were trendy—I got an endorsement for a brand that makes flannels like this that are almost identical and cost ten times as much. As I pick it up, I catch a whiff of sea air, cigarettes, and my father.
The closet door must’ve blown open and knocked the coatrack down. Behind the door is a shiny white and buff surfboard standing like a beacon. A Christmas bow hangs limply from it with a little note in my father’s writing.
Go shred. -Dad
He knew I liked surfing and must’ve gotten this for my birthday around when Mom passed away and forgot about it. I can’t believe Holden or I never found it. I won’t lie. I’m smiling like it’s Christmas morning.
I run my fingers over its smooth surface, imagining teenage me paddling out and riding a wave. I was practically born in the ocean, my mother having paced the beach during labor. Surfing came as natural to me as walking, but I was an awkward kid, a late bloomer, and goofy—that’s what Holden says, anyway.
But when a buddy of mine paddled out about six months ago and never came back, I changed. Grew up. Stopped partying. Started taking life more seriously. Invested money, saved some, and put the rest aside for retirement. Almost twelve years into adulthood, I finally grew up. Turned out Brianna didn’t like adult-Griff.
I snort. Well, I still know how to have a good time. I wax up the old/new board, slather on some sunblock, and as usual, hit the waves. They forecast a big swell for the weekend and I already sense the energy in the water. The board rips and I fully intend to put it through its paces again tomorrow. After my session, I snap it up and tie the leash around the end then head back to the house because it’s taco time.
I dry off, not bothering to put on a shirt because I have to soak up the vitamin D while I can, but I do tie an apron around my neck as I man the grill, charring up some steak tips.
A seagull squawks, probably quibbling because another seagull stole a beachgoer’s snacks. It sounds again, louder and angrier, breaking up the otherwise peaceful afternoon. The screeching continues and if I didn’t know better, I’d think a human squawks back at it. This carries on while I grill and sit down at the picnic table on the back deck overlooking the water, ready to enjoy my lunch. Just as I angle my head to the side, ready for grilled perfection to enter my mouth, a figure races toward me, arms flailing and screaming, “It’s coming after me. It’s coming after me.”
A gray and white bird dive bombs and as a man who loves his tacos, I wrap my arm protectively around my plate and guard it with my life.
As if sliding into home plate, the woman disappears under my picnic table.
The bird and I make eye contact. Its glassy, beady gaze has designs on my food. I can tell.
“Don’t you dare,” I grind out.
It squawks as if in reply and wheels around, setting its target on me. I grab the tongs from the grill in one hand and the round charcoal grill lid in the other. Like a lobster warrior, I repeatedly pinch the air with the tongs and guard my treasure with the shield.
“Avast, ye beast. Away with ye,” I holler.
The bird hesitates a moment, swoops, and then makes a valiant attempt at making off with my food. But with a hearty “Arghhh,” I scare it off.
Setting my weapons down, I return to my meal. Then I remember I have a stowaway under the table.
“Coast is clear. You can come out now,” I say around a hard-earned bite.
There’s a whimpering sound.
“It’s fine. The bird is gone,” I say.
The woman replies, “That wasn’t a bird.”
“Uh, yeah. It was a seagull.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“I’m never more than five miles from the ocean and grew up here. I’m one-hundred and ten percent sure that was a seagull.”
She makes a nuh-uh sound.
“Are you an ornithologist?”
“No. I’m a lawyer.”
“I’m prepared to testify in the court of law that was a seagull.” I set the remaining half of my taco down, realizing it looks like I’m talking to myself. Bending over, I peer under the table.
A woman with dark brown hair faces away from me. Her legs are curled into her chest and she hugs them tightly.
I let out a breath. “I’d like to go back to enjoying my lunch and this nice view. If you haven’t noticed, we’re at the beach, where seagulls live. So if you’re convinced it wasn’t a seagull, what was it?”
“That was Thorndike, the Sharp-Toothed Terror.”
I tilt my head, but this time not because I’m about to take a bite of taco. “What did you say?” I ask as a vague memory floats into my mind.
She starts to turn but knocks her head into the underside of the table. “Ouch.”
“Are you okay? Here, let me help you out from under there.”
She rubs her head then starts to crawl out but abruptly draws back.
I wonder if she hit her head before now. I glance around the sky and dunes but don’t see any sign of the bird.
“The coast really is clear. The bird isn’t here. You can come out.”
She doesn’t move.
“Listen, I don’t know what happened between you and that bird, and I don’t want to be a jerk, but technically you’re trespassing. This is my property.”
“If that’s the case, may I suggest you don’t stick gum under your table? That’s really gross.”
Tucking my chin, I balk. “I didn’t stick gum under the table.”
“There’s a whole wad of it, sticky in this late summer heat wave, and my hair is stuck in it. I can’t move.”
My jaw loosens as a second memory plunks down. Yes, I did stick gum under there. Practically every day from the age of seven onward. I was a fiend for gum. Would spend all the coins I found on it in a quest to blow the biggest bubbles I could. When I came home for dinner, I’d inevitably forget to spit it out and would stick it under the table so I didn’t get scolded.
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t think it could possibly still be there. I imagined it would’ve been a solid brick by now. I guess what they said about not swallowing gum because it’ll remain in your intestines for a hundred years was probably true,” I say, repeating how some of the summer visitors would tease the younger and impressionable kids like me.
She’s dead quiet, probably trying to work her locks loose.
“I think I have a saw in the garage, I can cut away at the wood around where you are and then we can go from there,” I suggest.
“Um, no. Please no. That’s possibly the worst idea I’ve ever heard not to mention dangerous.” Her voice is small and strained. “I’ve almost got it.”
I extract myself from the picnic table bench at the same time she gets up and we both bump into the wooden structure. When I straighten, rubbing my knee, I meet a pair of familiar hazel eyes.
“No way,” I breathe.
“No.” She shakes her head rapidly and presses her hands to her front. “No, no, no.” She turns in a frantic circle, looking for the steps leading up to the deck. “No,” she repeats.
“Paisley?” she goes still, once more, with her back to me.
“Um...”
“I’m one-hundred and ten percent sure you’re Paisley Jones.” And how on earth we were both in Miami recently and now here is something I’m bound and determined to find out.
