Dare to Love the Guy Next Door by Ellie Hall
Paisley
As a kid, I was an early bird. In college, a night owl. Now, I’m a reluctantly nocturnal seagull. I have to keep my enemies close.
I’ve got my eye on you, Thorndike! Don’t you dare mess with my neighbor.
I don’t have iron clad evidence other than Griffin’s account of the situation that the bird was involved in his near death experience, but the seagull definitely has it in for me and is probably trying to take out my allies.
However, as soon as my head hit the pillow last night, I was out like the one Christmas light in the string that darkens the rest.
The tacos at Griffin’s were delicious and it would be hard to say no to breakfast tacos but sleep trumps breakfast. Or at least it should. I’d like to say I’m able to sleep in but forgot to turn my phone off after sending Griffin that little goodnight note.
I don’t know what possessed me to text him or leave my phone on with the hope he’d reply. I blame the bird. From now on, all irrational behavior and crises are Thorndike the Sharp-Toothed Terror’s fault.
Ocean pollution? Thorndike.
Animal shelter overpopulation? Thorndike.
The last cinnamon roll sold to the customer in front of me in line at the bakery? Thorndike. That happened yesterday and I’m convinced that the elderly woman in front of me is in cahoots with that bird.
Anyway, my phone woke me up, exploding with calls, texts, and emails. This isn’t entirely unusual lately. I blame Thorndike!
Several were from Jason’s assistant which is nothing new. She’s had some questions about expenses on his account, such as the flight to Boston, car rental, and a few cartons of ice cream. Thorndike, that rascal!
I replied that Jason can sue me if he wants to take legal action. Why did I say something stupid like that, considering he could if he so desired? I’m a lawyer so I know how these things work so that was utterly stupid of me. Thorndike.
Then when I read the message from my office, my boss suggests I take some time off and consider a libel suit because of all the press I’ve been getting. Apparently, some of our clients are concerned about my well-being. The internet is cruel—especially when it comes to my penchant for shopping the snack aisle at the grocery store. But what’s worse is my boss’s suggestion of more time off, also known as a leave of absence, is just a polite way of her telling me my services will no longer be needed.
As in I no longer have a job.
As in I was fired.
I drop onto the couch and frown. I won’t cry. It’s not that bad. I have some savings. A place to live-ish.
Yes, it’s that bad.
But I’m not sure which is worse. Work or my good name—not that anyone knew it before Jason. I don’t want social media having an opinion about my now non-existent relationship with Cheater Cobb, but they won’t leave it alone. I suppose I could threaten to sue for defamation and we’d probably win. However, I just want it all to go away. I’m happy to go back to living my quiet life—work, dinners out a few times a week, movies, books, and visits with my friends from time to time.
Or I could just stay here and hope the gossip-sphere moves onto the next hot topic. I’m surprised they aren’t covering Jason and Devona’s relationship with as much fervor. They’re Hollywood royalty, shouldn’t they steal the spotlight? In a half-asleep daze, I text this to the Fab Five who’re already in a debate about whether eating a chocolate croissant for breakfast is like having dessert for breakfast. The answer is obvious. It doesn’t matter. Have two. Actually, I could really go for one of those big double chocolate chip cookies from the bakery. I interject with this comment, reminding the girls about why I’m still hiding in Seaspray Beach.
Blakely: The reason the bloggers and social media influencers haven’t forgotten about you is because you gave everyone hope that a regular gal could marry a guy like Jason Cobb.
Mila: You mean a lying, cheating, no good...
Me: Jerkson.
Mila: That is brilliant.
Me: Griffin made it up.
Mila: I like him already.
Cora: When, where, how? I want all the deets. Now.
I go into detail about what happened after I abruptly left our group text yesterday when I heard Griffin’s pleas for help.
However, I leave out the parts about how last night when we were eating dinner, for the first time in ages, I felt satisfied. Not just from the food, but something else. Companionship? Conversation? Connection? The things that really matter. Well, tacos do too, but the other stuff is a close second.
How, when we were talking, I felt listened to. Obviously, the girls listen to me, but Jason had that annoying habit of starting to speak before I was done and inevitably shifted the convo to himself.
Then there’s the way Griffin makes me feel seen but not self-conscious. There’s so much depth and meaning in those blue eyes of his and when he looks at me I get warm all over like I’ve been basking in the sun all day.
I also avoid mentioning how memories of my brother have been particularly rough. I haven’t quite pinpointed why exactly, other than the obvious part about losing someone I love. The pool of my intuition tells me that there’s more to it though. I almost feel like I’m being pushed or drawn to something—a memory of Lyric that I’ve forgotten, perhaps?
The group chat continued in my brief lost-in-thought absence. The girls now debate whether it’s acceptable to eat lunch for breakfast—like salads and sandwiches in the morning.
Another incoming text pulls me away from the group chat.
Griffin: Meet me out front in five. Wear a bikini.
Me: How do you know I own a bikini?
Griffin: It’s hard not to notice.
I reply with the embarrassed emoji head. Up until this week, I’d been sunning myself on the back deck—I’d found a really good book series and couldn’t put it down.
Griffin: No need to be embarrassed. If you recall, I’ve also seen you in your best performance art attire.
That wins him a sideways laughing emoji. I wonder if it was Thorndike that took my clothes. Or maybe he had a Miami seagull do his dirty work.
I won’t put on a bathing suit until I find out what Griffin has planned. I prefer pools to fresh or salt water, and even that stretches me far beyond my comfort zone. Even walking on the beach has been a big step.
It’s then I realize what set me off on missing my brother and has only built since. The first day I got here, a rogue wave splashed me. Lyric was always the first one in the water and would splash me until I got in too. But those same waves are the reason he’s no longer here.
The sun slowly lightens the sky from early morning gray to blue. From the safety of the living room, I watch the waves roll in and roll out. A few surfers already dot the horizon. The sea birds swoop and dive, calling out above the crash of the water.
Considering Thorndike is on the loose, I should probably stand strong with his most recent victim.
I tell the girls I’m heading out and urge them to try chocolate for breakfast. It does a girl good. I venture outside because looking at the man candy next door also does a girl good.
Griffin waves from the path between our cottages, distracting me from my melancholy.
He hasn’t shaved, probably because of his injured wrist. Wearing board shorts and a T-shirt—what I now recognize as his uniform so he can jump in the water at will—he has a longer surfboard than the one he usually rides leaning against the fence.
From a distance, I call, “You mentioned breakfast, but that looks like a surfboard to me.”
Griffin waggles his eyebrows.
I try to come up with reasons I have to stay in today. I can’t blame the weather, work, or housework. I can’t tell him I have a sick llama, got stuck in the blood pressure cuff at the drug store, or took the wrong train and ended up in New Jersey. Unfortunately, I’ve already used those excuses when I was still employed.
Not going to think about that.
“Thorndike!” I shout in a panic, citing the bird as an answer to the question Griffin hasn’t yet asked.
“Good morning?” he says quizzically when I get close enough for us to speak at a normal volume.
“Thorndike is the reason I can’t go in the water.”
Griffin’s eyebrows crimp together. “Thorndike, really?” His voice is gentle as if he understands there’s more to it than that and maybe he appreciates that I’m a bit quirky. At least I hope so. “Who said anything about going in the water? I thought we’d start by looking at it.”
“The surfboard was a clue. But who said anything about me being scared?”
He tosses me a I don’t buy it for a second look.
I cross my arms in front of my chest. “Fine. I’m terrified.”
“We can’t let that bird win, Paisley. If we do, he’ll tell all his cronies, and then we’ll have a legion of angry seabirds on our hands, trying to steal our food, knocking us off ladders, and terrorizing us until he’s the king of this beach.”
My lips twist as I consider the subtext. Griffin does have a point.
“How’s your wrist?”
He lifts it, encased in a soft brace. “Been better. Could’ve been worse. It’ll heal in no time. I’m like Wolverine,” he says, referencing the character from the movies.
A light, flirty giggle escapes.
His gaze is soft when he says, “I’ve noticed you don’t go in the water, even on these humid, muggy days. I thought we could start shallow. On top of this thing, you’d hardly even get wet.” He pats the board.
I wrinkle my nose. “No, thanks. What about breakfast? You tricked me into getting out here early with the promise of food.”
He chuckles. “Tacos taste better after surfing. It’s a fact.”
“Is that so? They tasted pretty good to me last night, and I definitely didn’t go surfing.”
“But I’d surfed earlier and if only you’d been able to experience the meal like I did.”
The depth in his tone makes my skin heat.
“How about we take a walk?” Like a gentleman, he extends the arm attached to his good wrist and pitches his chin toward the water.
No sooner do I link my arm in his than a seagull screeches overhead.
“I had a word with Thorndike earlier.” Griffin leans in like this conversation is private. I inhale his sunblock, salty, summery scent. It might be the first deep breath I’ve taken in a while.
“Is that so?” I ask, around a laugh, which takes me off guard because only moments ago, I felt stiff with trepidation.
To my surprise, when I’m with Griffin, I feel more at ease, anchored, and safe. It might be his size—big and muscly. His comfort around the water—something I don’t possess. His confident stride, his deep voice...
“Thorndike promised not to bother us today.”
“What did you have to do to buy him off?”
“It’s surprising what a little birdseed can do.”
“What’s his problem, anyway?” I ask.
“Oh, it goes way back. Remember when we were kids and we didn’t share our cheese curls with him? I defended your snack shack and he bit me.”
The memory returns of us building forts out of driftwood and dry seagrass.
“He went to the dark side. But I think we could win him back.”
Halfway to the waterline, the old fear of the wild landscape tugs at me, but I let Griffin’s steady presence soothe my worries.
“I take it until recently you hadn’t been here.”
“I haven’t intentionally touched the ocean since—” I can’t say it.
“Lyric.”
I nod because the words are trapped inside. I haven’t spoken his name out loud in that amount of time either.
Griffin steps in about ankle deep. I’m standing at an awkward distance for us to still be arm in arm.
“Feels good,” he says, intentionally stretching farther away from me but keeping his eyes locked on mine.
If I don’t want to let go of my human anchor, I’ll have to step onto the compacted sand where the water ebbs and flows. My breath turns shallow. I imagine Lyric teasing me, splashing me. The ocean was the focal point of our summers until the accident.
I can practically hear my brother’s voice in the shushing of the water. Come on, Paise. Don’t be a chicken. Then he’d flap his arms and make clucking noises.
“I can do this,” I whisper.
“You can. Lyric would want you to get in here and have fun again.”
Griffin is right, but all the worst-case scenarios play in my mind. A pair of seagulls banter on the soft sand. Families and kids splash in the shallows. Surfers catch waves farther out. I weigh risks and rewards.
“I didn’t know your brother as well as you, but I have a feeling, that somewhere overhead he’s taunting you, teasing you, and beckoning you to remember him—not the loss, but who he was. A guy always up for a good time. He’d want the same for you. That’s how I try to remember my parents, anyway. My dad in particular. He died when he was out fishing. It was a heart attack. Devastating.”
“I’m so sorry.” I step closer and squeeze Griffin’s hand. I’ve never felt so understood in my life. Also, Griffin’s comment about my brother wanting me to remember who he was and to have fun, silenced all the scary scenarios my mind was creating.
“That’s life. The important thing to remember about the ocean is that it’s a force of nature. As humans, we like to think we’re at the top, but in reality, we’re subject to whatever this earth wants to toss at us. It’s important to be smart and stay safe when necessary, but to hide and hole up is a mistake.”
“My brother once said, ‘When it’s my turn to go, I want to make sure I wrung out every drop of water from this life.’” I choke up as I recall the day he said that. He was smiling and wringing water out of a towel on the deck off the cottage.
As we’ve been talking, the tide has crept up, reaching my ankles now. I’m still a little wobbly and nervous, but don’t step back onto shore.
“Lyric was larger than life,” Griffin says as though having a memory of his own.
“He was the guy who created the fun. The life of the party. Often, stupidly daring but willing to take risks—he once saved a toddler from getting run over, rescued a dog from a burning building, and gave an older man the Heimlich when he was choking in a restaurant. This was all before he turned twenty-four.”
“I wish I’d known him better.” Griffin gazes toward the horizon.
My eyes water. “But there wasn’t anyone there to save him when—”
Griffin holds steadily to my hand as a bigger wave surges in. Without realizing what it’s going to do, it comes up to my calves before I have a chance to back away. I close my eyes. Instead of bone chilling fear, the water is like taking a much-needed drink, invigorating me from the bottom up.
I glance down in awe. Then, by my neon yellow painted toenails, something glints in the water. Griffin sees it too. He plucks up a blue piece of sea glass before the waves wash it away.
“Blue. That’s the rarest kind to find and is good luck,” he says, handing it to me.
I hold it up and it sparkles in the sunlight. Our gazes meet.
“It’s the exact color of your eyes.”
“As I said, it’s good luck.” He winks.
With a smile, I tuck the sea-polished treasure in my pocket. “I can use some of that.”
We walk up the beach as the tangerine sun lights up the water. It laps over my feet, laying claim to our footprints.
“It’s washed away so much,” I mutter.
“Seems like the second you let yourself experience a bit of lightness, you dive right back into despair. I bet Lyric would tell you that it’s okay to smile and laugh. Wouldn’t he want you to be happy?”
The moment is too heavy and I worry I might sink under the weight of it.
Griffin must register this because he nudges my shoulder. The press of his skin against mine chases all my fearful thoughts away.
“And he’d want you to eat a breakfast taco.”
I can’t help smile because maybe the breakfast club isn’t such a bad idea after all.
