Page 5 of The Summer House
“Why aren’t you close with your mom?” he asked gently, turning toward the sea, as if the gesture would make the heaviness of the conversation go away. The bright sunlight made the water shimmer like diamonds on the horizon. When he didn’t get a response, he turned to her. “You can tell me,” he said with a shrug. “I’m an outsider. What would it matter if I knew?”
The answers bubbled up in her mind. She took another drink of her rum and Coke. Her mom hadn’t really been there for her since her dad left when she was eight. Callie wanted to know if her mother wished she hadn’t been so distant with her after her father left; if she wondered why Callie couldn’t just turn off the hurt like her mother obviously could; if she missed her. She opened her mouth to say it, but then she clammed up, choking the answers back. “What doyouwant to do before you die?” she said, steering the subject away from herself.
“I’d like to have a family, kids,” he said with a smile. “Travel.”
She was surprised by his answers. Lots of people wanted those things, but here was a single guy with his whole life in front of him, and the first thing he’d said was family. Not to mention, kids were a huge investment—emotionally, financially, time-wise. In all the relationships she’d been in, not one of the men had mentioned children, and she’d never felt the need to press them on it. She didn’t take marriage and children lightly.
“Where would you travel?” she asked, sticking to the easier side of the conversation.
“Malta, maybe. Belize… Somewhere exotic.” He smiled at her.
“They’re both by the water,” she noted, comforted that he wasn’t trying to get anything more out of her. He was easy to talk to; it was as if he sensed when to pull back and push forward, and just as she felt uneasy, he made it all better.
“I could never live away from the water. I love it too much.”
“Me too. I used to look forward to my visits here as a kid. I couldn’t wait to feel the sting on my face from too much sun and the salt in my hair. It’s fantastic.”
“When I’ve been surfing all day, that night when I lie in bed and close my eyes, I feel like I’m still on the swells of the waves.”
Callie knew that sensation. She got it too.
He smiled and said, “My mother used to tell me that feeling was the ocean soaking into my soul.”
“Mmm, I love that,” she said, feeling the tension leaving her.
The bartender arrived with two plates, setting them in front of Luke and Callie. He grabbed a few paper napkins from behind him, folded the wad in half, and set them on the table between them.
Callie looked down at the massive burger.
“You were warned,” Luke said.
“I underestimated what you meant by ‘big’.”
“You get a T-shirt if you finish it.” He pointed to an array of pastel garments pinned to the slant in the ceiling above the bar, all readingI survived The Beach Bum Burger Bashwith a line drawing of the burger in front of her.
“Enticing,” she said, holding back her grin.
“You’re considered royalty if you have one of those shirts.”
“Do you have one?”
He looked at her as if her question were ridiculous. “Of course I have one! That’s my picture right there on the wall of fame.” He nodded toward a small bulletin board with five photos pinned to it. Luke was wearing the navy blue T-shirt over an Oxford button-up with the sleeves rolled, smiling an enormous smile.
“Quite an achievement,” she teased.
“Don’t make light of it. I’m one of five people on the Outer Banks who can eat the whole thing.”
“Now you’re just showing off.” She giggled. “It can’t be that hard.”
He flung her a challenging look. “I’ve only been able to do it once. But I’m throwing down the gauntlet: One of us is leaving with a T-shirt… And we know who that is.”
Callie rolled her eyes. Peering down at the small paper napkin she’d put in her lap, certain it was insufficient in this instance, she slid her thumbs under the enormous sandwich, barely able to stretch her fingers around it to lift it to her mouth. She had no utensils, or she’d have cut it into eighths. Assessing the task at hand, she attempted to devise a strategy to get a bite that had bread, meat, cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and onion without the condiments squirting all over Luke when she tried to eat it. With some effort, she managed to strategically squeeze the burger while widening her mouth to reach from top to bottom, and took a bite. Her mouth full, her cheeks like a chipmunk with its stash, she watched to see if Luke could be successful with his effort.
With entertainment clear on his face, he took a bite and chewed.
“It’s delicious,” she admitted, once she’d finally been able to swallow. She blotted her mouth with her napkin before washing the bite down with her drink. Then she turned to Luke and said, “I’ve so got this.”
His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “It’s bigger than you are. I think you’re bluffing to get me to eat all mine. I had an omelet this morning. I wasn’t prepared. You have to eat this on an empty stomach.”
