Once I’m waist deep, I glance over my shoulder. My right leg stretches as far as it can while my left thigh and knee brace against stone. The position is equal parts awkward and painful. The sea weighs me down and then . . .
My toe catches something! Yes! I strain for another inch. My biceps shake. My wrist cramps. My breath hitches. But . . . got it!
I pull myself back up, tugging the preserver along. The feat isn’t easy and it takes several minutes before I’m flat on the ledge. I pull the preserver in, gathering the attached rope foot by foot by foot. The raft nears. Closer, closer. The figure inside comes into clear view. A boy. With dark hair and broad shoulders that accent his narrow hips.
A boy so familiar, I almost drop the rope.
A boy I know so well, I nearly tumble to the sea.
This can’t be happening.
My heart can’t take it.
Fifteen
Merrick
The car idled at the corner of two major cross streets—if they could be called that. This town could fit inside San Fran’s little finger.
Merrick stared at the longest traffic light in history. Maybe his glare would force it to turn green.
“Patience, compadre.” Grim clapped Merrick’s shoulder, then slouched low in the driver’s seat of his ’89 Chevy Camaro.
The thing was ancient and Merrick was pretty sure his friend used burger grease to wipe the leather seats, but it was more than Merrick had to his name.
“What do you need a car for, Son?” Ah, the wise words of San Francisco’s king. “We have chauffeurs.”
For a man who claimed to believe in hard work, Merrick wondered if the man ever lifted a thumbnail for himself.
The light blinked a green eye and Grim eased onto the gas, the exhaust spitting out a motorcycle-like noise. An elderly woman with an umbrella in one hand and a hankie in the other glared their way from her perch on the sidewalk corner.
Merrick slunk down. “How long have you had this thing?”
Grim honked and rolled down his window. “Good evening, Mrs. Oliver!”
Mrs. Oliver eyed them as they passed. Was she familiar? No. At this point Merrick would have thought—or hoped—everyone looked familiar. The more people from his past he could find, the closer he would come to his mom.
“Don’t judge an old lady by her grumpiness, comrade. You never know what’s going on behind her cold gaze.”
Sure enough, a quick peek back at the woman revealed where she was headed. Merrick watched her amble, slow and sure, toward the town cemetery. It was dark, but Merrick thought he caught a glimpse of flowers in her hand.
The sight stung and a thought he’d be ashamed to speak aloud rose to the surface. Better to have someone die, to leave you behind against their will, than to abandon you on purpose.
The beach town’s sidewalks were barren aside from dog-walking, night-jogging locals. Things wouldn’t pick up again until late May when Memorial Day flags flew and ice cream shops had lines out the doors.
“So why’d you guys stop coming to my beach?” Grim had a way of reading his mind.
Even after so many years, Merrick had to smirk when his friend called it his beach. “It’s complicated.”
“Our summer parties aren’t the same without you, mon frère. I’ve had to set off fireworks from the beach all by my lonesome. It’s a shame.”
Merrick’s laugh shook his shoulders. “Not much of an interesting story, I’m afraid. Same old Hiroshi for you.”
“Ah.” Flipping the blinker, Grim changed lanes without a glance. “That’s right. I saw your summer property in the local ads. Sold for, what, a few million?”
“Yeah. He said the money could be invested in more important things than a vacation home.”
“Such as . . . ?”
“Education. Other businesses. Elbow rubbing and behind kissing.” Nikki’s face appeared in his mind. The dinner at Gary Danko had been several hundred, easy. Chump change to his father. An easy spend for a big deal.
One hand on the wheel, Merrick’s oldest friend drove as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “You know, just because he doesn’t show up doesn’t mean you have to follow in his footsteps.”
There he was. Grim had never been one to hold back his thoughts.
“I’m not like him,” Merrick said.
“Hate to break it to you, pal, but you are.”
Merrick pressed his lips and ground his teeth. He was exhausted and he wasn’t going to argue. “I appreciate everything. I only need a place to crash tonight. Then I’m gone.” He would have gone back to the hotel or even hopped a bus back home tonight, but he could barely keep his eyes open. After the day he’d had, all he wanted was sleep.
At a four-way stop, Grim turned to face him. “Stay as long as you please. Invite Amaya if you want. How old is she now?”
“Ten.”
“Whoa. Already?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.” A car pulled up behind them and honked. Grim eased on the gas after looking both ways. “My mom is abroad for a while. Paris, Italy, the works. She’s wanted to travel for years, and I’m not a kid anymore. So I have the castle to myself and nothing but sunshine days ahead, my friend.”
Merrick laughed. “I almost forgot you call the beach house a castle.”
“Make no mistake, mate—that’s what she is.” He turned the knob on the radio, raising the volume more on static than melody. “Mi castle es su castle.”
Merrick considered the offer.
Grim had the beach house to himself. His mom was gone.
It was too perfect.
“Tell me about your girl.” Grim changed lanes as quickly as he changed the subject. The car’s blinker sounded like a dying cricket.
“My girl?”
“Yeah, the one I see you with online and stuff. And in those grocery store checkout lanes. The magazines.”
Magazines. Right. Tabloids was more appropriate. News they were not. But gossip? Bingo. “Not much to tell, I guess.”
Grim whistled. “I don’t know, Romeo. You two looked pretty cozy in those pictures.”
Merrick scratched the back of his head, wishing to the king of the ocean, if there was such a thing, they could talk about anything else. “Looks can deceive.”
Grim waited.
Merrick tugged on the seat belt. Was it trying to strangle him? “I don’t know, man. Nikki’s nice. Great legs. Pretty smile.”
“Good kisser?” Grim elbowed him.
Ha. Understatement of the year. “Yeah. But she’s . . .”
“Not your one.”
His one. As nonexistent as mermaids. He was about to tell Grim everything. About Nikki’s “I love you” and Amaya’s ambulance ride. But then Merrick’s phone buzzed. He slipped it from his pocket and stared at the name that flashed across the screen.
Dad.
“You need to answer that?” Grim asked.
“Nope.”
When it buzzed again, Merrick set the vibrate setting to silent.
He’d talk to his father eventually. But only after he got Maya out of there.
“Did you mean what you said? The whole mi castle es su castle thing?”