Page 5 of Sea La Vie
I decide to keep back a safe enough distance, only because I’ve listened to a true crime podcast once or twice. I know how the story can go. Finally, he seems to notice me and looks up from his hands. Relief washes all over his admittedly handsome face. He’s clean shaven—and has the jaw line to pull it off—with deep set brown eyes, as dark as chocolate fudge, and neatly trimmed hair to match. He almost looks familiar.
“Finally!” He cries and jumps to his feet. And that’s when my stomach bottoms out. Itcan’tbe.
I do the only thing I can think of, and plant my hands on my hips. “If you come any closer, I’ll waylay your rear end right here and leave you as roadkill.”
His eyes meet mine and that’s when I see he’s registered it too. Only instead of looking concerned for his well being, he’s smiling. He remembers me.
Darn it.
3
Tate
“Don’t come any closer!” She warns. She’s acting like she doesn’t know who I am. “I mean it. I’ll sic my dog on you.” A plump, short dog pokes its head out of the window, its tongue lolling lazily out of the side of its mouth and stump of a tail wagging furiously. I’m not convinced this dog has attacked anything more than its food bowl, but stranger things have happened.
“I need help,” I say. “I'm stuck in the ditch.”
She slowly begins to walk toward me, her dirty blonde waves swaying behind her in a messy ponytail. She’s barefoot, and the loose gravel on the road doesn’t seem to bother her, like she’s used to it. The left strap on her overall shorts is loose, dangling along her back and revealing a tank top underneath. She looks almost wild—at ease among these dense pines and twisty sandy roads—but her features are dainty and there’s an air of innocence about her. She looks like she stepped out of a Billabong catalog, her hair sun-bleached, freckles smattering her deeply tanned skin.
She’s not the first person I expected to see, but at least we’re getting this over with.
“Can I help you?” She asks at the same time I say, “Lainey?”
A look of recognition flashes across her eyes but she cocks her head and squints instead. “Do I know you?”
I feel the corners of my mouth turn up into a smile. She hasn’t changed a bit. Brash. Straight to the point. A real ball-buster.
“It’s me, Lainey…Tate.” Gosh, I’ve missed her. I flash back to the last time we talked, and my heart sinks, remembering the words that spewed out of her mouth in frustration. The words that halted the friendship of twelve years.
The corner of her mouth jerks down and she looks past me to my car, not willing to meet my eyes. “Oh, yeah. Long time no see, I guess. What happened?” She nods toward the car then walks over to it.
I don’t know what I expected her to say when I reintroduced myself but I didn’t expect this—for her to pretend that our friendship didn’t exist. Memories of us as kids swirl around my mind, running along the beaches and wreaking havoc on the town. I had thought of Lainey several times over the years, even going as far as trying to look her up online, but never had any luck.
I had found myself speculating on why she was unreachable online. Did she have a family of her own that she didn’t want to share with the rest of the world? Did she somehow block me, unwilling to ever speak to me again? Or did she simply not buy into the hype of social media, preferring to live in the moment instead? Realistically, I knew the latter fit Lainey to a T.
I gesture toward the rear end of the car. “I have a flat,” I tell her. She walks over to where I’m standing and kneels on her long, tan legs, then presses herself flat to the ground. I’m in awe of how much she’s changed in ten years, yet is somehow still the same.
“You do, but your control arm is broken too,” she mutters from underneath the car. “You’re going to have to call Sid, but I bet he’s already six beers deep at the diner by this point.” She shimmies out from underneath the car then pushes herself up and dusts herself off.
“Sid’s still at the garage? Wow,” I muse. “I always thought he was so old when we were kids.”
Lainey frowns. “Yeah he’s still at the garage. What did you expect? That he left?”
I stiffen at her harsh tone. Clearly, she’s not as thrilled to see me as I was to see her. When I don’t answer she says, “You could probably limp it into town if we go ahead and change your tire. You want me to block traffic for you while you do it? There shouldn’t be too many cars this late in the evening but I’ll direct them around you, just in case.”
“You want me to change my tire?” I ask.She stares at me, blinking hard.
“That’s what I said. You know where your spare is, right?”
“Of course I do,” I say defensively. “It’s just that…my head… I should probably head to the hospital to have this looked at first. Do you think it needs stitches?”
Lainey squints before licking her thumb and rubbing it on my forehead. Before I have time to respond with how disgusting that was, she says, “It’s just a scrape. You hardly broke the skin but I bet I have a bandaid in my truck if you want one. It’s got Care Bears on it though.”
“You do?” I ask. “That would be great, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure, I’ll go grab it,” she says with an eye roll. “It’s right beside my freshly ground espresso from the local Starbucks.”
“You all got a Starbucks?” I ask, not bothering to hide the surprise in my voice. “I never saw that coming.”
