Page 51 of Love At The Shore
Nick took off his helmet and stared at him. The kid apparently thought he was Aquaman. “Of what?”
“The open water.” The sea and the mysteries of what hid in its depths had scared the life out of him when he was a boy. Every time a piece of kelp touched his foot, he’d been convinced it was a shark. “That’s not great when all you want to do is surf. So I told myself if I could swim to that lighthouse and back again, I’d drop the whole scared stuff.”
Nick studied the lighthouse’s worn exterior. Originally built on an oyster bed, it had been part of Tybee’s landscape since the mid-eighteen-hundreds.
“How old were you?” he finally said.
“I don’t know.” Lucas thought about it for a second while a seagull swooped low in front of them. “Probably about your age.”
Nick’s eyes went wide. “Oh, great. So now you want me to swim out there too? To improve my time?”
“No, definitely not.” The channel wasn’t deep, but it had a powerful current. “In hindsight, it wasn’t the most logical plan.”
It had been pretty reckless, actually. He hadn’t brought Nick to the lighthouse to teach him anything about swimming. He wanted to try and change the way the kid thought.
Nick sighed.
“Look,” Lucas said, “I’m not worried about your swim trials. I know you’re going to hit your time.” He was within a fraction of a second of 1:18 already. “All I’m trying to say is, it’s pretty amazing how strong you can be if you’re pushed to it.”
He paused before adding, “Even if you have to push yourself.”
Because the truth of the matter was that Lucas wouldn’t always be there cheering Nick on. When he went to school swim try-outs in the fall, he’d have to make it across the pool on his own. If he could teach the boy anything, it would be to push for the things he cared about. Things he loved. But maybe that wasn’t a lesson he could impart so easily. He and Nick were running out of time together.
Thinking about it made Lucas feel oddly hollow inside, and he’d been thinking about it quite a bit lately.
“Wow. That was kind of deep,” Nick said.
“Don’t get used to it, kid. Deep is boring.” Lucas used to think so, anyway. But he was beginning to have a whole new perspective on the things that made life interesting.
Lucas shot a quick glance at Nick and reached for his helmet. He’d said what he needed to say. It was time to stop thinking about the end of summer and enjoy the moment for what it was. The sun was high in the sky, and back at camp there was a hot dog with his name on it. “You hungry?”
“Yeah, sure.” Nick swung a leg over the seat of his bike.
“I’ll race you to lunch.” Lucas waggled his eyebrows, hoping to stoke some of the competitive fire he’d seen when Nick raced Grayson on field day.
It worked.
Nick pumped hard on his petals, zipping past him and leaving a ribbony trail in the sand.
“You’re on.”
At long last, Jenna was closing in on the end of her manuscript. Over the past few days, she’d written a detailed outline for her final chapters plus an epilogue. Now all she had to do was finish getting the words she’d planned so carefully onto the page before her deadline, which was now less than two and a half weeks away.
Thankfully, Nick and Ally had both been in bed since eight-thirty. They’d both been so exhausted after another day at summer camp that they’d fallen asleep on the couch during family movie night. Even a bowl of popcorn sprinkled liberally with mini-chocolate chips couldn’t keep Ally awake.
Jenna had been banging away on her laptop for over an hour at the kitchen table, but just as she was hitting her stride, the sleepy silence of the beach house was interrupted by music drifting through its walls. Jenna’s fingertips paused over her keyboard. She heard voices above the beat of the music—loud, cheery voices.
Was Lucas having a party?
She glanced at the time display on her cell phone. It read 10:05 p.m.
“Okaay.”
His party, or whatever he had going on over there, was in clear violation of the 9 p.m. rule that had been established after her volleyball victory. She’d earned that victory, and she’d had the sore biceps for days to prove it.
Maybe she should cut him some slack, though. He’d been so great with the kids lately.
She started typing another sentence, but before she got to the period at the end, the music cranked up a notch. Jenna glared at the wall separating her half of the house from Lucas’s. When she glanced back down at her computer screen, she’d forgotten what she’d been trying to say.
