Boys of Summer (10 page)

I laugh. “It looks good on you.”

It isn't until her face flushes with color that I realize what I've said. Was I flirting? I certainly didn't mean to. I've never been very good at the flirting thing. I've never really had to get good at it. Harper and I have been dating since we were twelve.

I try to backpedal. “I mean, the
art
looks good. Not the polo shirt. It's hard to look good in those stupid club uniforms. Not that you look
bad
in it. It's just, you know, a polo shirt.”

And now I'm rambling.

She giggles. “Well, I better go finish cleaning up the room. If you think my shirt looks good, you should see the walls.”

“Do you need help?” My mouth says the words even though my body screams in protest. I'm so tired, and I have such a long day tomorrow.

Thankfully, she says, “Oh gosh, no. I'll be fine. I put on cheesy pop music and make a dance out of it. It's probably not your type of music.”

The image of Julie dancing around the kids' camp, scrubbing paint off the walls, makes me smile. “You're probably right.” I start for the door.

“Mike?” she says, and her voice reveals just the slightest flicker of hesitation.

I turn around. “Yeah?”

She fidgets with the hem of her painted shirt. “I'm new to Winlock Harbor, like I said, and I was just wondering, since you seem to be a pro, if maybe you could give me a tour tomorrow. Show me around a little?”

My heart lifts, and then immediately plummets back down again.

Is she asking me as a date? Or just as friends? Are
we friends?

“Oh,” I falter, feeling stupid. “I . . . I actually have to work tomorrow.”

“Right,” she says hastily. “Of course. Right. You work a lot. I get that. Totally. Okay, well, see ya.” She turns toward her locker and swings the door open.

I stand there like an idiot, my mind whirling. Suddenly all I can see is Harper in that amazing sundress tonight, laughing and drinking with Bree like nothing ever happened between us. And then suddenly all I can hear are Grayson's words to me before I left.

“At what point do you finally get fed up and just, I don't know,
not
be there when she comes running back to you?”

“Maybe some other time?” I blurt out to Julie before I can stop myself.

She beams back at me. “Sure. Whenever you're ready, I'm around.”

And as I walk out of the employee break room, I can't help but wonder if I'll ever be ready.

IAN

T
he first time I ever threw a punch was the day we received the medal from the army.

It had been a week since we'd gotten the phone call politely informing us that my father was dead, and my mother's screams were still constantly echoing in my ears.

I didn't know what to do. I tried to comfort her, but there was no room for that. All of her brothers and sisters were so tightly crammed around, it was almost impossible to get to her. Like they'd built a fortress of bodies and I didn't know the password.

The first few days I was numb. I couldn't play guitar. I couldn't speak. I couldn't feel. I could sense the emotions on standby, leaning impatiently against the door, waiting until I turned the knob and they all came tumbling into my life.

I was able to keep them at bay for almost a week. Then the medal came. My mother opened the package and fell apart all over again. It dropped to the floor and spilled out of its little box. My eyes tracked it as it bounced twice in slow motion before coming to rest near the foot of the coatrack, where my dad's winter coat was still hanging, reminding me that he would forever be cold, from that moment on.

All I could focus on was how gold the medal was. So bright and shiny that it hurt my eyes. Like looking directly at the sun. I knew my dad had received it because he'd been courageous. Because he'd sacrificed his own life for the lives of his men. Somewhere out there people were living because of him. Somewhere out there people were eating, drinking, breathing, running, jumping, sleeping, waking, laughing, crying, while all we had was this shiny piece of shit on the floor of our crappy apartment.

I turned, right then and there, and rammed my fist into the door.

It hurt like hell. I sprained three fingers. I couldn't play guitar for a month. And yet I didn't even cry out. I didn't feel a thing.

My dad had tried to teach me to fight my entire life, and I would never partake. He signed me up for karate when I was seven; I quit after one class. He installed a punching bag in my room when I was twelve; I used it to hang clothes on. When we would come to Winlock Harbor in the summers, Grayson and Mike were the ones he would wrestle with and play army base with on the beach, while I sat in a nearby chair and read. When I turned eighteen, he tried to get me to enlist, but I had no interest.

Even though he would never say it, I think he was always disappointed that I hadn't inherited his competitive streak. His need for physicality. I always thought it was stupid. Punching something to release your anger.

I guess I had just never been angry enough.

Despite my one-hit-wonder punching match with the apartment door, I've never actually been in a
real
fight before. Something I might have been wise to remember before I dove through the window of Whitney's bedroom like a wannabe action star.

But I wasn't fueled by wisdom at that moment. I was fueled by something else. Something I hadn't felt since that day they delivered my father's medal.

I catch them both by surprise when I tumble onto the hardwood floor. They're on the bed. He's on top of her, pinning her down with his hands. Her tank top is pushed up, revealing her bra underneath, and her jeans are unbuttoned.

Something animalistic comes over me and I lunge forward, grab the guy by the shoulders, and rip him off her. He's on his feet in a second, throwing the first punch. I dodge that one easily and feel pretty good about myself. Until the second punch hits me in the side of the face and knocks me right off my feet. Even though I've never fought before, I know that being on the floor this early is a bad thing.

I scramble to my knees just as his foot makes contact with my stomach. I let out a groan. I suddenly wish I had paid more attention in that one karate class.

I can write a ballad that will sweep a girl right off her feet, but when it comes to actually saving her, it turns out I'm pretty useless.

The guy gets in two more blows to the stomach before I collapse again. I cough, and blood trickles out of my mouth.

I can hear my dad's voice in my head.
Get up, Ian! Fight back!

But I've already given up. The guy has already won. I'm just going to have to live with the fact that I tried to rescue Whitney and I failed. If Grayson were here, this would be another story. He'd have the guy pinned and pleading for mercy by now. Even Mike would have thrown a stupid punch. I just stood there and let myself be taken down.

I cover my head and brace myself for more blows. He'll
want to finish me off. He'll want to make sure I'm really down.

I try to disappear. I try to escape this moment by retreating into my head, so I don't have to be here. So I don't have to acknowledge the fact that I'm a big fat failure. That I let my dad down in more ways than one.

I think about my mom dancing the Macarena on the beach. I think about my grandparents cooking breakfast together in the kitchen the way they do every morning. I think about fishing with my father. I think about Whitney beating me with a straightening iron.

Then suddenly my thoughts are interrupted by a loud, girly shriek.

Panicked, I lift my head and pop to my feet, discovering an untapped well of strength.

But what I see stops me cold.

The guy is on his knees, hunched over, his forehead resting on the ground. He's moaning in agony. I recognize the sound of that agony. It's a pain only another man can fully understand.

Whitney stands next to him, breathing heavily.

“What did you do?” I ask dazedly.

“What do you think I did? I kicked him in the nads.”

My eyes widen. That was
him
who screamed like that? I stare back and forth between Whitney and her attacker—who has now become the attackee—and I can't seem to find the right words. Or any words, for that matter.

Whitney, however, doesn't seem to have that problem. “You're welcome.”

An hour later I'm holding a cold compress to the side of my head while Whitney is frantically cleaning her bedroom, trying to erase all signs of the struggle. Apparently I didn't
even realize I crashed into a lamp when I fell to the ground in my champion prize fight.

“Are you sure you don't want to call the police?” I ask for the tenth time.

She sighs, growing impatient with me. “Yes.”

“I don't get why you'd just let him walk out of here.”

“Well,” she says with a smile as she sweeps shattered pieces of light bulb into a dustpan, “he didn't really
walk
. It was more of a hobble.”

“This is no time for jokes. He
attacked
you.”

She shakes her head. “It was a misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding?” I yell way too loudly. It echoes in my damaged brain, causing the room to spin a little. “C'mon, Whitney. I know you're not that stupid.”

She freezes, her body hunched over the dustpan. I can't see her face, so I can't read her expression, but it doesn't seem to matter, because a second later she resumes sweeping. “I gave off the wrong signal. Apparently that's what I do.
Apparently
what I think is a profound, meaningful conversation is actually just foreplay.”

For the first time since this whole ordeal began—maybe even for the first time ever—I hear the fragility in her voice. I catch a peek at the vulnerability under her tough exterior. And it stabs me in the chest.

“You have to tell your dad,” I say quietly. “Or at least Grayson.”

She points the full dustpan at me. “And you need to keep pressing those frozen peas to your head. Maybe it'll freeze your brain so you'll stop coming up with boneheaded ideas.”

“I don't think you get how serious this is,” I go on. “If I hadn't come in, he would've . . . he could've . . .” But I can't even bring myself to say the words.

Whitney laughs. “If you hadn't come in and kicked the shit out of him?”

I scowl. “You know what I mean.”

She dumps the glass pieces into a trash bag. “Look. I'll make you a deal. You won't tell anyone what happened here tonight, and I won't tell anyone that you got your ass saved by a girl.”

“But if we tell the police—” I begin.

Whitney cuts me off, all the playfulness drained from her voice. “If we tell the police, the whole island is going to know what went down here, and then the whole island is going to be thinking, ‘Well, it's Whitney Cartwright. What did you expect?' ”

I fall silent.

Does she really think that?

“Whitney,” I begin hesitantly, “why did you stop coming to Winlock Harbor?”

She doesn't answer. She just goes to work spritzing the hardwood floor with cleaner and wiping up my blood with a paper towel.

“Whit . . . ,” I implore, using Grayson's nickname for her.

“You, of all people, Ian, should know what it's like to have things said behind your back.”

I recoil. “What's that supposed to mean?”

She rolls her eyes. “Don't play dumb.”

“I'm not. What are people saying?”

“Only the truth!” she cries. “That your father is dead. That your mother is drinking. That you aren't handling it well at all.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to handle it?” I roar, tears springing to my eyes. I swat them away. “What am I supposed to do? Erect a park bench? Join a grief support group? Here's a news flash for you, Whitney. There is no
way to handle it well. And what my mother drinks or does not drink is no one's goddamn business.”