Page 98 of Wilder Love
“I’m tired of being bitter.”
“And angry?” She arched her brows at me.
“And angry.”
She sighed. “I’m hungry.”
“Let’s surf for an hour and then I’ll take you for tacos. Afterward, I’ll feed you a mango.”
“I’ll suck the juice off your fingers.” Her tongue swept out to wet her lips.
“Fuck surfing. Let’s go for mangoes.”
We got the tacos to go and ate the mangoes first.
We banished sad and bitter,and life started to be good again. Little by little, I recovered pieces of myself that I thought I’d lost somewhere along the way. Slowly but surely, Remy and I started to find our way back to each other and our days fell into a rhythm. Mornings, Remy and I surfed together. She spent her days taking photos of all the beautiful and ugly and interesting things and was teaching herself graphic design.
“Why graphic design?” I asked one evening over dinner when she’d brought her laptop over.
“I’m designing a logo for your new business venture.” She winked at me. “Branding, baby. I’m going to help you make it a success.”
“Really. And what business venture is this?”
“Firefly Surfboards.” She grinned, and my dad rubbed his hands together, “Now we’re talking.”
By day, I worked at an ugly job that I’d grown to appreciate in a weird way. Demolition work wasn’t my lifelong ambition and certainly not my dream, but I took some measure of satisfaction from doing an honest day’s work for honest pay. I told Miguel that surfing was my religion, and I worshiped at the altar of Remy St. Clair. He wasn’t sure how to take that. Nobody at the demolition site knew what to make of my attitude adjustment. I’d been out of prison for just over a year now and while it wasn’t yet a distant memory, the bad memories were starting to fade. They didn’t have their claws sunk in so deep anymore. I was beginning to remember how it felt to be an optimist and how it felt to live rather than just survive.
I’d once heard that if you wanted to learn how to live, you had to learn how to die. My dad was still living his life to the fullest. He tired easily and had short-term memory lapses, and headaches he denied having, but he was still here. Larger than life. Living in the moment. In the evenings, we had dinner together and we talked about life and surfing. For us, they were one and the same.
Whenever I had free time, I shaped boards in the garage. Sometimes Remy hung out with me and sometimes my dad did. Dylan popped in occasionally, and every now and then he even talked. A few times Travis stopped by and wanted to get in on the action.
“You know how I surf. You know what I need,” Travis said, sanding down the rail opposite the one I was sanding. “Make me a board.”
Why the hell not. I agreed to take a stab at making a board for a world champion. He agreed to stop giving me shit about Remy.
August was a good month. Remy and I were happy. As happy as two people with a lot of excess baggage could be.
38
Remy
“Ready?” Shane asked with a grin.
I returned the grin. “I’m up for anything.” Except for walking in these swimming fins. They slapped against the boat deck as I made my ungraceful journey to the platform on the back of the boat. “These things are hard to walk in.”
He laughed. “They’re not made for walking.”
“Tell that to a duck.”
Shane laughed harder and pulled the mask over my face, reaching around to tighten the rubber straps to make sure no water could get in. “How’s that?”
I gave him a thumbs up and he pulled down his own mask. “No matter how tempting it is, don’t touch anything,” Shane cautioned.
I nodded, and he squeezed my hand. “I want to keep you safe, trouble.”
“Thank you, lover. I appreciate that.”
“Hold on to your mask and snorkel when we jump in.”
