Page 68 of Wilder Love
While I’d been in prison, he had lost the business. The surf shop hadn’t been running at a profit. Why? Because of John Hart. It hadn’t been enough to send me to prison for manslaughter. He’d gone after my dad too. I had deserved what I’d gotten. My dad had not.
Now, the house was all he had left, and I’d beg, borrow, and steal before I’d let him lose that.
“It’s settled anyway. I’m going to work for Sam for as long as I can.”
“Workfor him?”
“That’s what I said.”
Sam took people out on snorkeling and diving expeditions. It did not sound like the right fit for a man with a goddamn brain tumor. The set of his jaw told me there was no point arguing. And who was I to argue anyway? Being on a boat, diving, snorkeling, made him happy. “Now that’s settled, you wanna tell me about Remy?”
“Like I said, there’s nothing to tell.”
“There’s nothing standing in your way now. Nothing to keep you apart.”
Was he delusional?Everythingwas standing in our way. “Are you playing matchmaker now?”
“I want to see you happy. It’s been too long.”
“Yeah well, Remy’s not the answer to your prayers. She makes me the opposite of happy so stay out of it.”
“Whatever you say.” His mouth quirked with amusement like he didn’t believe me. My dad believes in soul mates. He believes in love that lasts forever even when the person isn’t there. I knew this because he had loved my mom that way. He’d had a few women in his life since my mom died but he always said that a man only has one great love in his life. And he’d already had his.
“It’s not too late for your surfing career, Shane.”
Et tu, Brute? What was it with the people in my life? “Who’s going to sponsor a convicted felon?” I sounded bitter. We’ve had this conversation before. He kept insisting that I needed to do something that makes me happy. As if it was that simple. “It’s not what I want anymore.”
It was a lie. I’d give my right nut to get back into it. But we couldn’t afford it. The pro surfing gig was expensive. Even if I had the money, the pro circuit would never let a convicted felon represent the sport of surfing. What I had done went against the entire ethos of the sport. For me, surfing was sacred, and I would never sully its name more than I already had. The media had called me a ‘disgrace’ to the sport of surfing.
Except for the time I’d Googled Remy, about six months ago, I stayed off social media.
Truth was, even if I could go back to pro surfing, I didn’t have what it took anymore. Not physically. Not mentally. Not emotionally. Thirty years old, and I was all washed up. Cue the pity party for one.
“There are other things you can do in the surfing industry.”
“Can we just drop it?”
He sighed, but he dropped the subject and we sat in silence for a while.
“I just don’t want to think of what might have been.”
“I know,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
I apologized all the time now. It didn’t stop me from saying things I shouldn’t, but I didn’t want my final words to him to be something I’d regret for the rest of my life. My dad taught me that a long time ago, but I never really took it to heart. Now I knew what it was like to live with regrets. To spend years going over and over what you could have—should have—done differently. That was my penance. They call it prison for a reason. It’s more than just being confined to a six by nine cell. Trapped in bricks and mortar. Your own mind becomes a prison if you let it. I’d done my time, but some days I still felt like I was in a prison of my own making.
“Wanna go surfing with your old man after work tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Sounds good.”
He smiled, contentment on his face. He looked like he was at peace. Happy. And I wondered what his secret was. How had he found a way to be so fucking happy, even though life had screwed him over time and again?
29
Remy
Ipulled into a parking space across the street from the fancy deli on Main Street where Sienna used to buy her school lunches—Caesar salads and those fudge brownies she loved. We couldn’t afford it back then but now I could buy anything I wanted, the reality of that hitting me harder now that I was back in Costa del Rey. I made my way around the store, throwing food and drinks into my basket and I ordered salads and sandwiches from the deli counter—all of Shane’s favorite things, and lunch for me and Jimmy.
