by Rose, Emery
“Golden Boy?” Shane muttered, raising his brows at me. I just shrugged. I should have mentioned that Bastian goes both ways and was a shameless flirt.
“Enjoy the show?” Bastian asked, his leg bouncing as he took a deep drag on his cigarette.
“It was great. You were great, Bastian,” I said, meaning it. Because he was. Bastian was gifted. So freaking talented it wasn’t funny. But even now, five years after hitting the big time, he still needed that reassurance.
He blew his smoke through the moon roof and settled back in his seat. “You two want to hang out and party?”
I shook my head, knowing that Shane was worried about leaving his dad home alone for too long. He’d texted a few times, only to get Jimmy’s reply to stop worrying and enjoy the concert. But still, we both worried. “No. We need to get home.”
Bastian asked the driver to drop him off at the Chateau Marmont and he let all his ‘people’ know where to be when he arrived. He led a weird life in the spotlight, hounded by fans and groupies, but Bastian was always lonely. Especially in a crowd. He never really knew who he could trust either. I was one of the few people he let into his very small circle of trusted friends and I’d never taken his friendship for granted.
“Are you ever coming back to New York?” he asked before he got out of the Hummer.
“If all goes well, no.”
He gave me a smile. “Love always wins, yeah?”
“Yeah. You’ll find your one.”
“Not in this lifetime. Goodnight Cinderella.” He kissed my cheek and shook Shane’s hand, telling him to take care of me before he hopped out of the car and got whisked away by his manager and his entourage of bodyguards. I watched him through the window as he stopped to sign autographs. Bastian’s story was a Cinderella story too. Once upon a time, he came to LA with dreams and empty pockets. Now he was a rock star, with the money and the fame and all that went with it. None of that could buy happiness though.
The Hummer navigated the LA traffic homeward-bound, and Shane leaned back in his plush leather seat looking all chilled and relaxed. A few minutes later, he side-eyed me. “Have you ever had sex in the back of a stretch Hummer?”
“Never.”
He grinned. “Another first.”
He undressed me in record time, and seconds later, in nothing but a black lacy bra and suede ankle boots the color of the desert sand, I was straddling him.
Three orgasms and a glass of champagne later, I sprawled out on the seat with my head in Shane’s lap, and woke up when the car stopped in front of his house. Jimmy was lying the hammock, the patio lights still on as we rounded the back of the house. I squeezed Shane’s hand as we ventured closer and we both sighed in relief when Jimmy’s eyes opened. When he saw us standing there, he gave us a little smile then closed his eyes again and drifted off to sleep. We stood there for the longest time, neither of us going inside the house. I had the strangest feeling. Like this was the end. And pretty soon it would be time to say goodbye.
Two days later, Jimmy had a seizure. And then another one when he got to the hospital.
41
Shane
Two Weeks Later
Sam passed me the bottle of whiskey and I took a swig, passing it to Remy. Leave it to my dad to get us all out to sea on a boat. It was peaceful out here. The moonlight glowing on the water. The boat rocking back and forth in a steady rhythm. If it weren’t for the occasion, I would probably enjoy this. But here we were, waiting for my father to die. Death was so goddamn final. I found it hard to believe or accept that by the time we headed back to land, I’d never hear the sound of his voice again.
We might be out here for days or for hours. Could he really predict his own death? Yet he seemed to know that it was close. That he wasn’t going to live much longer.
In the end, it had all happened so quickly. One minute we were talking and laughing, and the next minute, he was all disoriented and his words made no sense. After the two seizures, we brought him home from the hospital instead of putting him in a hospice. Remy hired two nurses and I didn’t argue with any of the money she shelled out for my father’s care. Pride be damned. This was for my dad. He slept a lot, he wasn’t in pain, and his sense of humor was still intact during his lucid moments. Today he had told us that it was time and even if he was wrong, we weren’t about to argue with him.
So, we got him on a boat, just like he’d wanted and upon Remy’s insistence, we took it a step further and set him up in the hammock on the deck in the space between the seats. Not the easiest feat but we did it and now here we were, ‘celebrating’ the end of my dad’s life.
I didn’t know how much my dad heard but we talked to him throughout the night. We told stories. Recounted memories. Sam and I talked about my mom. Remy talked about working with my dad in the surf shop and about the time he taught her to surf. Our words flowed. We laughed at some of the funny stories and smiled at some of our memories. We talked about the sea and about surfing. About the stars in the sky and the friends who had stopped by to see my dad and what they had meant to him in his life. His surfer buddies. His former employees from the shop. A few friends who had known my mom.
There were times throughout the night when he was lucid. We held his hand. We tried to decipher his garbled words.
Sea… love… son… Zoe…
“He’s telling us he wants us to be happy,” Remy said. “He wants you to be happy.”
“I’m happy,” I said. “You were the best father any guy could ever ask for. I hope you know that. I hope you know how much I love you.”
And I thought he heard me and understood. I thought I saw him smile. I wasn’t sure, but that was what I needed to believe.
Jimmy Wilder passed away peacefully at six twenty in the morning on the first of October. Three weeks before the anniversary of my mom’s death. Silent tears streamed down Remy’s face and Sam’s eyes were red-rimmed from crying.
My eyes were dry, my heart heavy as we headed back to shore.
42
Shane
Over a hundred surfers gathered on the beach for my dad’s paddle-out, and I spotted Miguel hanging back on the fringes of the group. Dude was built like the Incredible Hulk so blending in wasn’t an option. It was the first time I’d seen him away from a demolition site. Instead of dusty work clothes and a hardhat, he was sporting a gray button-down shirt and slacks, his dark hair slicked back with styling products.
“I came to your church,” Miguel said when I made my way over to him to shake his hand with Remy in tow. “Not to surf. But to pay my respects.”
“Thank you. That means a lot to me,” I said sincerely. It was two in the afternoon on a Friday which meant he’d taken off work to be here. “This is Remy. Remy. Miguel. We used to work together.”
“I remember,” Remy said.
I winced, reminded of the time I’d given Miguel the lunch that Remy had brought for me. He’d taken one look inside the bag, scrunched up his nose at the salad containers and passed it back to me. I’d ended up eating the lunch, but she never knew that because I never told her. I was still in my asshole phase.
“Thank you for coming,” she told Miguel, gracing him with one of her genuine smiles. It was blinding. Miguel looked a little star-struck for a minute. Couldn’t blame him. Remy’s wetsuit fits like a glove, hugging every curve of her body. Curves I loved that she didn’t have when she first came back to Costa del Rey. Wild jet-black waves of hair fell down her back and around her shoulders, framing her perfect face.
“It’s my pleasure,” Miguel said, pulling himself together.
We moved on to the others gathered on the beach and I shook hands and clapped shoulders, fist-bumped a few old friends and thanked everyone for being there. Then I gave the nod and we all paddled out together, slipping under the waves and over the choppy water, orchid stems clenched in our teeth and leis around our necks. The orchids and leis were Remy’s contribution and I was pretty sure she’d wiped out the entire stock of o
rchids on the west coast or Hawaii or wherever she’d ordered them from.
It took a while for so many of us to get into the right position, but eventually, we formed a wide circle in the calmer water out beyond the breakers. I sat up on my board—my dad’s favorite orange longboard—and looked around at the circle of surfers. Remy was right beside me just like she had been since the day my dad died. Before that, even. She wasn’t a quitter, and she hadn’t given up on me even when I’d given up on myself. Dylan was on her other side. We were besties now. Not really. Dude barely spoke. But over the past two weeks, we’d been hanging out together. I guess I hadn’t realized how close he and my dad had gotten while I’d been in prison. For Dylan and Remy, my dad had been the only real father figure in their lives and his death had hit them hard. During the first week after my dad died, Remy cried a lot. I’d find her in the vegetable garden, pulling weeds and crying. Making a salad, butchering an avocado, and crying. When I took the knife out of her hand and told her she was going to lose a finger if she kept it up, that made her cry harder. Last week, she threw herself into a project and yesterday she presented me with a photo album that brought tears to my eyes. She’d enlisted Sam’s help and he’d dug up photos from forty years ago, thirty years, twenty, and her own photos up until the day he died. There wasn’t a single photo in that album where my dad wasn’t smiling or laughing.
Travis was on my other side, his brother Ryan, Cody, and Oz and Sam in the circle. A few silver surfers who had a good twenty years on my dad, and the locals who surfed this break every day.
We were all out here to celebrate Jimmy Wilder’s life. A paddle-out is a beautiful Hawaiian tradition, and I couldn’t imagine a better way to honor a surfer’s memory. A better way to honor my dad’s life, a man whose passion for the ocean had lasted for all of his fifty years.
Over the past two weeks, I’d made peace with my dad’s passing. I missed him like hell and I always would, just like I still missed my mom after all these years. But a few weeks before he died, he told me he had no regrets and I took solace in that.
“I’ve lived a good life. I’ve loved, and I’ve been loved. What more could a man want?”
What more indeed.
I turned my head to look at Remy and her eyes locked on mine. For a few seconds, it was just the two of us out here, sharing an intimate moment. She gave me one of her beautiful smiles, and it made my heart ache. The afternoon sun lit up her face and her aquamarine eyes rivaled the blue of the ocean. But it was her strength and her courage and her indomitable spirit that shone the brightest. “Are you ready to say goodbye, Firefly?”
She shook her head. “This isn’t goodbye. He still lives on. In the ocean. In here,” she touched her heart and then placed her palm over mine. “And here.”
I clasped her hand in mine and brought it to my lips, placing a kiss on it. Then I released her hand and the ceremony began.
With a patrol boat in the distance shooting water from a canon and spectators watching from the beach, we threw our sunset-colored petals into the sea and splashed water.
Hands joined, we raised our arms above our heads, whistling and howling. After a while, I led a roaring chant that seemed to echo off the bluffs: Jimmy. Jimmy. Jimmy.
It was loud, and it was joyful. For a few minutes, out here on the ocean, a place I’d always considered to be my home, there was no anger or bitterness or sadness or pain. Only love.
We pointed our boards toward the sky and beat on them like drums.
Then, we surfed.
I swear that I could feel my dad’s spirit vibrating through my body as I rode those waves. He was with me—in the ocean and the grains of sand, the brushstroke clouds skittering across the blue October sky. Remy was right. This wasn’t goodbye.
But it was time to let go and move on. From the old life I’d been clinging to, grieving the loss of, and the dreams that had died the day I got locked up in prison. As Sam told me the other night when he stopped by for a few beers, “A good sailor knows when it’s time to readjust the sails.”
And that was what I had to do. Readjust my sails and take a different course.
Since I’d lost my job on the demolition site six weeks ago, I’d thrown myself into shaping, glassing, and finning surfboards. I had a whole rack of them in the garage and a few commissions to fill. I needed the money, still a touchy subject for me and Remy. But I also needed a purpose. A new dream. A new future. With any luck, I’d be pursuing those things with the same girl.
Remy, Dylan, Travis, and I stayed at the break, surfing long after the others had paddled in. The sky behind us was red with the promise of a good day tomorrow when we rode our last wave in. As I undid my leg leash, I saw him standing on the beach watching me. A lone figure in khakis and a navy blazer with a crisp white dress shirt.
Our eyes met and held for a few seconds then he tipped his chin and he turned and walked across the sand, carrying his expensive Italian loafers in his hand. I stood and watched him go, my feet sinking into the wet sand. I didn’t know what to think. Maybe it was his way of acknowledging that we’d both lost so much. Or maybe he had come to pay his respects. My dad and John Hart used to be friendly acquaintances, and Jimmy’s Surf Shack had been the exclusive supplier for HartCore surfwear in Costa del Rey. John Hart had always liked my dad. Until he decided to fuck with him. When he disappeared from my sight, I tipped my head up to the sky.
Thanks, Dad.
I chuckled under my breath, amused that I thought my dad had some hand in this. As if he’d sent a sign that everything would be okay.
“What was all that about?” Travis asked, jerking his chin in the direction of the staircase that John Hart had just climbed.
“A truce?” Remy asked, her voice hopeful. She wanted to stay in Costa del Rey. I knew it without her having to tell me. Now that she was back, she didn’t want to leave Dylan, but she would. For me. I knew that too.
“John Hart won’t cause you any more trouble,” Dylan said confidently. He made it sound like he had inside knowledge.
My gaze swung to him and my brows raised. “Why’s that?”
“Rich people are back-stabbers who prey on others’ misfortune.” With that, he tucked his board under his arm and strode away. As if that explained a damn thing. Dylan St. Clair was a puzzle wrapped in an enigma.
Remy chased after him and grabbed his arm, halting him in his tracks. “What are you talking about?”
Travis and I caught up to them, curiosity getting the best of us.
“Explain,” I said.
He exhaled loudly like explaining himself was an imposition and we were meant to read his twisted mind. “Sienna’s dad—Simon Woods—had something on John Hart and was holding it over his head.” Dylan held up his hands. “I don’t know what. Don’t care either. But they were partners in a lot of their business deals and holdings. Now Simon Woods is the majority shareholder. John Hart isn’t poor. But his finances have taken a beating. He’ll be too focused on this feud with Simon Woods to give a shit what you’re up to.”
“Karma. What a bitch,” Travis said, sounding downright cheerful.
I shook my head. “You’re cold, Ice Man.”
Travis just shrugged. Remy remained silent and gnawed on her lower lip. A tell-tale sign that she was nervous or unsure.
I suspected she was just as conflicted as I was about that news. Did John Hart deserve to lose more than he already had? Honestly, I didn’t think he did. But that was life, wasn’t it? Sometimes it knocked you on your ass and then it kicked you in the teeth.
But harsh as the world could sometimes be, I was ready to get back to the business of living, not just existing. Remy and I had spent so much time dwelling on the past that we hadn’t discussed the future. Or the possibility of one together. She’d brought a bag to my house two weeks ago and was living out of it. She hadn’t even unpacked it, as if her stay was temporary.
Back in July, my dad had given me another piece of advice. Unsolicited, might I ad
d.
“If a man is lucky enough to find his one true love in this whole big crazy world, he hangs on and he doesn’t let go. Not even when it gets hard. Especially not when it gets hard. Fight for her. She’s worth it.”
43
Shane
“The first time I ever tried sushi was with you,” Remy said, slathering wasabi onto a piece of salmon sashimi and popping it into her mouth. Her eyes watered from all that wasabi.
I chuckled at the memory. “I remember. And now look at you. Sushi for lunch. Heavy on the wasabi.”
She grinned at me across the island in her brother’s kitchen—gleaming stainless-steel, glossy cupboards, and black granite countertops. I’d popped by unannounced. It had been two days since the paddle-out and Remy and I hadn’t gotten a chance to talk. We hadn’t seen much of each other at all. She was trying to keep me away, scared of what I might do or say.
Her hair was in a messy topknot and she was wearing one of my old T-shirts that I’d forgotten about. “Where did you get that T-shirt?” I asked, eyeing the slogan: Live Hard, Die Shredding.
“I stole it.” She cleared her throat. “Before you left for Rio that one time…”
That was about eight years ago.
“You wore it on our first date. I used to sleep in it. I didn’t wash it for about a year.” She laughed at herself then shook her head. “That sounds really gross. But I didn’t want to lose your scent, you know?”
“Remy—”
“Well, my, my, my… hello, sugar.” The scent of cigarette smoke filled the air and I ran my hand through my hair before I turned to look at Rae St. Clair.
I hadn’t seen the woman in seven or eight years, but she still looked the way I remembered her. She was wearing a crop top and a strip of red leather that she was trying to pass off as a skirt. On a thirteen-year-old girl the outfit might look cute. On a grown-ass woman it looked ridiculous. Especially when she’d paired it with black stilettos. She’d turned up unannounced at Dylan’s house the night of our paddle-out, and Dylan had called Remy for backup. It surprised me that he hadn’t kicked her ass out of his house. But here she was, with her matching red lips and nails, her eyes narrowed as she sucked on her cigarette. “You’re even sexier now that you’re an ex-con.”
