Cottage at the Beach (The Off Season)

by Lee Tobin McClain

  “Right.” He nodded, looked out across the field for a minute and then sat up. And didn’t meet her eyes. “It’s fine. I’ll take care of the baby. See you tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  POUND. POUND. POUND.

  It was Saturday morning, and Trey might have had one more beer than he should’ve the night before, but surely that wasn’t enough to create this severe pounding in his head.

  Or...maybe it wasn’t in his head. He sat up on the couch of the Healing Heroes cottage where he’d fallen asleep and looked blankly at the still-on TV and the bright sunshine coming through the windows.

  “Harrison! Are ya in there?”

  The pounding recommenced, accompanied by a child’s loud shouting: “Uncle Trey! Wake up, Uncle Trey!”

  At which point Trey realized who was at the door.

  Denny. Coming to spend the weekend, along with his kid and his pregnant wife.

  Trey really wished he hadn’t agreed to this. But Denny wanted to take his family on a weekend getaway, and Trey owed the man, so he’d suggested they come for a visit.

  And here they were, bright and early. Trey ran a hand through his hair and went to the door. “Come in. Make yourselves at home while I get cleaned up. Hey, Laura.” He kissed her cheek, shook Denny’s hand and swung Milo up and around until the boy was giggling uncontrollably. And then he escaped to the bathroom. When he looked in the mirror, he understood why both Denny and Laura had looked at him funny.

  Bleary eyes, dark circles under them, hair on end. The same paint-spattered T-shirt he’d worn yesterday. Yesterday, when he’d kissed Erica and she’d kissed him back like she meant it, and then promptly thought better of it and pushed him away.

  “Make your wife some coffee,” he yelled down the hall to Denny, and then stepped into the shower.

  Twenty minutes later, he found Denny, Laura and Milo out on the cottage’s back deck. Denny and Laura were sitting down, their chairs pressed close together, drinking coffee while Milo rolled around with an ecstatic King.

  “Get yourself some coffee, dude. But you should know it’s decaf.”

  “Decaf?” Trey stared. “I don’t even have decaf coffee.”

  “Which is why we brought our own.” Laura patted her slightly rounded belly. “Baby doesn’t like caffeine, and Denny actually quit it, too, just to keep me company.” She grinned over at her husband. “Or wasn’t I supposed to tell him that? He might think you’ve wimped out.”

  “He wimped out a long time ago.” Trey went inside and made himself a cup of dark roast, then returned to the deck.

  The morning sun was halfway up the sky already, warm on his shoulders as he leaned against the deck rail and surveyed his friend.

  Denny looked...just plain happy. He’d settled into marriage as if he’d never been a discontent womanizer. Laura had come along, swept him off his feet with her beauty and brains, and held him to a higher standard of behavior than he’d needed to use before.

  Now Denny was building a family.

  Trey was happy for his friend, but that didn’t stop the jealousy from eating at him. He’d always loved babies, always wanted kids. When his foster mom had brought home a new baby, he’d been the first to offer to feed it, hold it, play with it. To the point where the other boys in the family had laughed at him, but he hadn’t minded. He’d been plenty rough and tumble throughout most of his boyhood, but a baby was something precious.

  He could still remember the heartache when a foster baby had to leave.

  Denny leaned close and whispered something into his wife’s ear, and she put her hand on her belly and smiled.

  What would Erica look like if she were pregnant? Would she love it, glow with it, as Laura seemed to be doing?

  That wasn’t something he was destined to know, because right after they’d kissed, she’d said it was a bad idea and backed off. As soon as she’d been able, she’d run away.

  But why? He tried to think of whether he’d done something wrong during the kiss or right after, but he couldn’t think of anything.

  King whined a little from behind them, and Trey saw that Milo was trying to ride him. “Hey, buddy,” Trey said, going to rescue his dog, “you can pat him, but no riding. Let’s give him a break. Want to look at my phone?”

  “Yeah!” Milo grabbed the forbidden item while Laura rolled her eyes at Trey.

  King sniffed at Denny and wagged his tail, and Laura fawned over him until he rolled onto his back for a belly rub.

  “How’s King taking the time off?” Denny asked.

  Trey hesitated, not sure whether he should give his friend the whole story.

  But Denny had known him forever. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Did something happen?”

  So he explained about how King had been reassigned and mistreated, and how he’d found the dog and brought him back. Laura gasped indignantly and rubbed King’s belly some more, and Denny shook his head. “I know Cochran a little, through mutual friends. He seems like a jerk.”

  “Yeah. Unfortunately, that’s not a measurable offense.”

  “Can’t believe he made K-9.” He mock-glared up at Trey. “Course, can’t believe you made it, either.”

  There was teasing but no malice in Denny’s words, even though he’d tried for K-9 himself and hadn’t made it.

  “Milo and I could use some exercise,” Laura said after they’d chatted awhile longer. “Mind if we take King for a walk?”

  “Go for it. Want company?” Trey pushed himself away from the deck railing.

  Laura waved a hand. “No, you two have plenty to talk about. Man talk. Denny would probably like some real coffee or a beer, too.” She snapped a leash onto King’s collar and trotted with him down the deck stairs to the beach, Milo running ahead of them.

  “Great girl,” Trey said.

  “She is.” Denny watched her walk across the sand toward the water and then looked up at Trey. “So how’s the rehab going?”

  He shrugged. “Lots of core work, heat and cold packs, stretching.”

  Denny grimaced. “Sounds boring. Is it helping?”

  “A little.” Seemed like way too little, most of the time, but that was the way healing went.

  “Rough.” Denny looked out at the water and then back at Trey. “You think you’re gonna come back?”

  “I don’t know.” He paused. “I want to, but even if my back heals, without King...”

  “Won’t be the same. I get it.” Denny blew out a breath. “Man, thought you made it out of the Heights mind-set, but...” He trailed off.

  Denny’s words stung. “I did make it out.”

  “Yeah, you did, but this kind of thing...losing jobs, getting divorced...seems like you’re walking in your old man’s footsteps.” He waved a hand. “Not that he was a bad guy.”

  “I know.” Trey breathed out a sigh as the unwanted memories assailed him. His dad had tried to raise him after his mom had left, but it hadn’t been in the cards. He’d loved Trey, for sure; he just couldn’t give up his roaming and women long enough to take care of a child. Periodically, he’d resolved to do better and managed to get Trey out of foster care, but it had never lasted more than six months, and then Trey would be back in the Heights with the same patient, decent foster family, including Denny, who’d ended up being adopted by them.

  It made sense that they’d adopted Denny and not Trey. Denny had an upbeat personality and did well in school, whereas Trey...didn’t. Trey had gotten in fights, messed up in school, all due to a lack of impulse control. His foster family had worked with him on it, but the lessons hadn’t stuck, not back then at least.

  Now he needed to do better.

  “Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m sure it’ll work out. It’s just...you competed forever to get that K-9 certification. Everybody in the Heights was so proud.”

  T
rey didn’t want to hear it, so he went inside, grabbed a basketball and brought it back out onto the deck. One of the great things about the beach cottage was that there was a basketball hoop down on the driveway. “Are you still as bad at this as you used to be?” He threw the basketball straight at Denny.

  “Fighting words.” Denny threw the basketball back and they trotted together down the stairs.

  They had grown up playing ball together in the Heights, and they shared a rough style of play. When they got down to the driveway, though, Denny held on to the ball and looked at Trey. “You sure you’re up for this, man?” he asked.

  “Way more up for it than you are,” Trey said.

  “You sure? Even with your back?”

  “Forget about my back.” Trey held out his hands. “You going to play or just stand there like a fool?”

  Denny dribbled the ball and tossed it, and Trey went for it. Denny tried to get it away from him, but Trey could tell he was going easy on him. He took a couple of shots and taunted his friend.

  “Look, I’m not that same guy who’s going to win at all costs,” Denny said. “Becoming a father tends to change you some.”

  Trey rolled his eyes and continued dribbling and tossing. But it was true—his back was hurting. And his heart was, too.

  Would he ever get the chance to become a father? Would anyone ever choose him the way Laura had chosen Denny?

  If anyone asked his ex-wife, she’d have said no, said that Trey was no good at marriage and that he wouldn’t be a good father, not that she wanted kids anyway.

  Would Erica choose him? It didn’t look that way. Looked like she had chosen not to be with him.

  He thought back on kissing her. Her lips had been soft, so soft. Her body petite, thin, tiny in his arms. But he’d felt the strength of the muscles along her spine. She was a strong woman, a very strong woman.

  A woman who could be strong and soft. That was what he wanted. And that was what Erica was. But unfortunately, she didn’t want him.

  Denny snatched the ball away from him and made an easy basket. “You’re losing it, old man,” he said. Teasing, because Trey actually was just two days older than Denny.

  Trey tried to joke along, but he wasn’t feeling it. So after a few more minutes of play, he admitted that his back was hurting, and they went back up on the deck.

  Moments later, they heard barking—not King—and then the click of dog toenails on the stairs. Ziggy burst onto the deck and jumped up, first onto Trey, then onto Denny.

  “Whoa. Who’s this?” Denny laughed and pounded Ziggy’s sides. The doodle’s big fluffy tail wagged.

  Trey’s heart beat faster and he looked over the railing for Erica.

  But Hannah’s voice, and then Hannah herself, came up the stairs. “I’m sorry! He pulled the leash out of my hands. Ziggy!”

  “Where’s Erica?” He looked behind Hannah, on down the stairs.

  “She, uh, didn’t feel well.” Hannah looked uncomfortable.

  Had Erica asked the teen to lie for her? No, she wouldn’t have done that. So Hannah must have made an excuse for her on her own initiative.

  “She said you’re supposed to train him this morning?” Hannah looked at him with a nervous expression—was it pity, a desire not to be questioned about Erica? Had the teenager sensed something wrong between them, or had Erica told her she wanted to keep her distance?

  “That’s right. I’m training him today,” he said. Never mind that Erica normally wanted to be involved in the training. Since training was more about owners than dogs, it was actually crucial.

  But he wasn’t going to beg.

  “Thanks,” he said, giving the teen a smile. “I’ll bring him back over after his lesson.”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll stop back and get him.”

  As soon as Hannah left, Denny turned to Trey. “Who’s Erica?”

  “Her aunt.” Trey nodded in the direction Hannah had gone.

  “Something going on with her?”

  Trey opened his mouth to deny it and then looked at Denny’s knowing expression and didn’t even bother. Denny knew him too well. “I work with her at the school.”

  “And?”

  Trey sighed. “I like her.”

  Denny squinted at him. “You like her, okay. Why? Is she different from your wife? You liked her, too.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “but this is different.”

  “Different how?”

  “She’s better. A better person.”

  “Uh-huh.” Denny leaned forward. “Just a word to the wise. Some of us aren’t the best at choosing women.”

  “I know.” Trey thought about his wife and the dreams he’d had. All completely unrealistic, he saw now.

  “I got lucky,” Denny said. “But we didn’t see a lot of good examples back in the Heights. Might be you’d want to be cautious. Hate to see you get hurt again.”

  For Denny to be that expressive meant he was really concerned, and that didn’t sit well with Trey. If Denny was concerned, there was a reason for it.

  Trey was bad at relationships, and his best friend knew it. So where did he go from here?

  * * *

  ON MONDAY MORNING, Erica kept so busy that she barely had time to talk to Trey.

  And, yeah, that was on purpose.

  She hurried the kids in and got them into their seats. “Listen up, everyone,” she said. “Since we just have two weeks of school left, I really want to make them count. So we’re doing something different. We’re starting a new interdisciplinary unit today, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

  Trey was leaning against the wall in the back of the room, and she couldn’t resist sneaking a glance at him. But his face was impassive.

  So very different from how it had been when they’d kissed, right here in this classroom.

  “Interdisciplinary how?” Rory asked.

  She cleared her throat. “It’s all about one topic. We do math, science, English, social studies, history, even service learning, all focused on one thing.” She looked around to make sure she had their attention. “And our topic is... Who wants to guess?”

  Venus raised her hand. “Dogs?”

  “Summer vacation,” Shane called out.

  “Quadratic equations.” That was Rory, and a couple of the other kids groaned.

  “No, none of you guessed it. It’s...hurricanes!”

  No one jumped up and down, and there were very few murmurs of interest, but that was just teenagers trying to be cool. At least, she hoped so.

  She’d thrown herself into class planning this weekend to avoid thinking about Trey, and it had worked...somewhat. She’d only spent short periods of time remembering the feel of his lips, the warmth of his embrace, the caring in his eyes.

  Too much of that type of thinking would derail her, she knew. She’d already learned that ruminating about what she’d lost—the opportunity to have kids, the likelihood of a long and healthy life—could send her into a spiral of sadness. Good old-fashioned hard work was a solace. So she’d spent hours putting this unit together, and in the gaps she’d cleaned the entire house and fixed a gourmet dinner Saturday night and a superhealthy brunch Sunday morning.

  It was almost enough to chase away the taste of Trey’s kiss, but not quite.

  “So, um, what’s the first step?” Trey asked. His question brought her out of her reverie and she realized she’d been staring into space. The kids were losing focus.

  “Sorry,” she said, her face heating. “Our first step is to hear from some local hurricane survivors about what it can be like around here in a big storm. In fact—” she looked at the clock “—they should be here any minute.”

  As if on cue, there was a knock on the door. Lindy Neuhaus, a seventysomething woman who owned the gas station on the road to the next town, came in, accom
panied by old Mr. James and his son, Kirk.

  Erica ushered them in and quickly arranged several desks in a row where they could sit as a panel. When Trey saw what she was doing, he helped, but his expression was guarded.

  She probably should have run this whole idea by him, since he would be involved. Whoops. But after all, she was the teacher, and he was just the volunteer.

  No need to think about the fact that he’d become far more than a volunteer.

  She introduced the panel and asked them to describe their experience with hurricanes on the Eastern Shore. The kids were surprised to learn that there even were hurricanes here, as there hadn’t been a serious one in several years.

  “I’m telling you, Hurricane Agnes was every bit as bad up here as what you may have heard about down south,” Lindy said. “Lots of property damage, and thirty-seven deaths along the coast.”

  “That wasn’t a hurricane by the time it reached here,” Kirk scoffed. “We’ve never had a hurricane make landfall here.”

  “If you’d been here instead of running around all over the country,” old Mr. James said, “you’d know that there were hurricane-level winds. For all intents and purposes, it was a hurricane.”

  That piqued the kids’ interest and they started asking questions. The older two panelists had been through that storm, and they described making preparations to the houses, and who had evacuated versus who had stayed back.

  “I was smart and got out,” Lindy said. “But this one...” She pointed at Mr. James. “He stayed put.”

  “You should always evacuate when ordered to,” Mr. James said to the kids, “but...I didn’t.”

  “Why not?” Erica asked.

  “Because he’s a stubborn fool,” his son said.

  “Because I loved my dogs. They weren’t letting you take them to the hurricane shelters. I didn’t have anywhere else to go and I didn’t want to leave them to drown or be hurt.”

  “I wouldn’t, either,” Venus said. “That’s cruel to ask you to leave them behind.”