Falling for Mr Maybe

by Jenny Gardiner

  He grabbed his phone from the console of his car and snapped a quick picture of the check, phone number and all. That way if anything came up, he’d know how to get hold of her. Although right now the only thing that seemed like it was coming up was becoming a bit too obvious pressing against the crotch of his wet suit. Seriously, thinking about her tits had done this to him? What guy gets his board killed, his car dented, and can only think about how he might be able to get into the pants of the perpetrator? He laughed. Scratch that—pretty much every guy he knew.

  Scrubbing a hand over his day-oldish beard, he shook his head. He had to put those thoughts out of his mind immediately. After all, he didn’t come here to get involved with a woman, ditzy or not. He came here to get away from responsibility in all forms, and, well, crap, usually hopping on his surfboard served to clear his mind from such emotional pollutants. Looked like today he was going to have to pretend this never happened because that seemed the easiest way to purge the hot blond surfboard killer from his besotted mind.

  He took one more look at his broken board.

  Good luck with that, he thought, shaking his head.

  Why did he have the nagging feeling she was going to be harder to cleanse from his thoughts than the others were?

  Chapter Three

  Georgie felt awful. It was bad enough she’d banged into a stranger’s car, but to destroy the man’s handmade wooden surfboard, well, that was beyond the pale. How could she have done that? She wished she could make a new one for the guy, but she hadn’t a clue about woodworking. Or surfboards. For that matter, she didn’t even know who the man was. She should have gotten his contact information. She could have followed up. Apologized again. Maybe invited him over for an I’m sorry I didn’t mean to kill your surfboard dinner. Although, under the circumstances, he probably wasn’t up for fraternizing with her. And she could hardly blame him.

  But she wanted to do something. Maybe she could make him a gift, like, say, knit a sweater. But since she was left-handed, she never did get the hang of knitting. Everyone who ever tried to teach her had thrown in their knitting needles after the first lesson. She wondered if she was the only leftie knitting school dropout out there. You know things are bad when your knitting teacher bails on you.

  Well, to hell with them. She was a crafty sort of girl without that knitting skill. She made pretty candles. Even those sand art sculptures that you put cacti in. Although to be honest she hadn’t made either of those since probably sixth grade, so maybe she would have to remove that from her crafting skills resume. She used to make those lanyards by the dozens. Then again, that was at summer camp when she was ten. Hmmm… What else could she make?

  She hit the heel of her hand to her head. Of course! How could she have not thought of this right off the bat? She was a talented quilter. She’d made several quilts, the last of which was buried with her mother when she passed away three years ago. She’d thought about keeping the quilt to remember her mom by, but she wanted her mother to be comfortable wherever she was. What if she got cold? Georgie wanted her to be cozy and warm and pain free. Maybe her mother would better remember her if she had that quilt, wherever she was now.

  Georgie didn’t like to dwell on that whole concept of afterlife and such. She hated that her mother might be alone somewhere out there. She’d had a hard-enough time of it when she was alive, between Georgie’s father’s hot temper and the divorce and then when her mother got sick. She took a lot of comfort knowing that quilt was still with her mother somewhere.

  The other quilts she’d made were little wall hangings, but she thought it would be weird to make the guy a quilted wall hanging. Unless maybe they had surfer-themed ones, which she doubted. So then would she make him a full-out quilt? For his bed? That seemed odd too, didn’t it? Make a quilt for a complete stranger who probably hates you, not knowing what he likes, even what colors he likes. Not to mention what size bed he sleeps in.

  Hmmm… The thought of that guy sleeping in a bed stirred things up down there—a bit surprising considering Dan pulled a runner right before their wedding. Ever since, she’d started to think she was downright dead below the waist. That’s why this hint of a resurfacing libido was potentially encouraging. One could argue, how could it not be? Because dang, that surfer was pretty hot. She closed her eyes and thought about his tanned chest, the taut abdomen, and that strip of sandy-blond hair that started at his navel and disappeared into the damned wet suit at such an inopportune location. If only that Lycra or neoprene or whatever those things were made from had been a little lower… No doubt he had on some board shorts or something beneath it, though, so she wasn’t going to get a peek at anything more, regardless.

  She wondered: did he sleep in the altogether? After all, it had been awfully hot lately, so he probably did sleep naked. All. Night. Long. Sprawled across a queen-sized mattress—or was it a king?—the sheets barely draped across his hips so she could visualize those cut abs right where she’d slip her hand beneath the crisp, white bedding. The bedding that would tent as soon as she placed her hand on his torso.

  Oh. God. She had to stop contemplating the surfer dude in the buff. First off, she was never going to see him again. Second, even if she did—to give him the quilt she decided she would make just in case—she certainly wasn’t going to see him naked. With a little luck, maybe he’d at least be stripped down in the wet suit. She could always hope.

  Chapter Four

  Spencer peeled off his wet suit, then chucked his beat-up board in the back of the garage, behind the recycling bin, covering it with a drop cloth that lay in a heap nearby, if only to block it from his sight line. Out of sight, out of mind was what he needed for now. Even though he was going to be continually reminded of the demise of his surfboard every time he headed out to the beach, he’d have to ride the wave of the seven stages of grief. Maybe someday he’d be good with it. After all, he’d already breezed through shock and denial, limped through pain, steeped in guilt for not watching out for stupid drivers, trotted on past anger and bargaining, and slipped right on into depression. So that was four stages down in a matter of hours. He could do this.

  But not without a couple of beers. He reached for his phone and called Ben, his good friend and surfside soothsayer, a name Spence gave him because he was so wise. More like a wiseass, but either way, it was all good.

  “Dude. Beer. Now. Rooftop.” Spencer never locked his door, so he knew Ben would come right on in. He stretched and scratched his chest as he walked to the refrigerator and grabbed a six-pack and an opener. He opened the sliding glass door, went out on the balcony, then climbed the stairs around the corner to the top of his beach house, which fronted a wide stretch of Carolina sand and overlooked the same waters that gave him his sanity.

  The view alone was worth shaking up his life and taking off for the beach a few years ago, even if it did piss off his father and leave his mother behind wringing her hands in dismay. To steal a line from the movie Risky Business, “Sometimes you just gotta say ‘What the fuck.’” And when his father demanded he go to Yale, though all he wanted to do was go to art school, he made his move, packed up his things, and headed south with hardly a backward glance. It helped to have a trust fund and a pretty awesome, albeit aging, Range Rover, but honestly, material things didn’t matter much to Spence. Give him some blue sky, a sunny day, a handful of diving pelicans, and the perfect wave, and he was a happy man.

  It took Ben all of about three minutes to show up, a bag of Tostitos and a jar of salsa in tow.

  “I brought dinner.” He shook the bag of chips.

  “Careful—that’s precious cargo in your hands. Don’t want shattered chips.” He opened a bottle of local IPA for his friend.

  “Thought I’d see you at the beach today—where were you?” Ben took a swig of his beer then unscrewed the salsa lid from the jar. He dumped a bunch of chips on the small table between them as he sat down in the folding chair next to Spencer.

 
“Nice. A good clean surface to eat from.”

  Ben shrugged. “And that matters because?”

  Spencer nodded. “Good point.” He grabbed a chip and dipped it into the jar. “Yeah had a tragic event occur this afternoon.” He hung his head, chin to chest.

  Ben looked at him. “Huh. Don’t see any blood. No bruises. No stitches.”

  Spence shook his head. “Far worse than bodily harm, my friend. It’s Petie.” He frowned.

  Ben lifted an eyebrow. “Petie? You break your fin?”

  Spencer heaved a sigh. “I wish.” He took a swig of his beer. “Some batshit crazy chick backed into my car and my board was on the back and she snapped it in half.” He held a chip aloft between his fingers and broke it for emphasis.

  Ben’s brown eyes grew wide. “She killed Petie?”

  “Trust me, I’d never lie about such a thing.”

  “What’d you do?”

  He shrugged. “What was I gonna do? Not like I could punch a woman or anything. And all I wanted to do was cry but that wasn’t happening.”

  “So, you just stood there?”

  He nodded. “Pretty much. Crazy lady with the dinged-up car kept saying crazy things, then she wrote me a check to fix my board even though I can’t fix it, and she drove away.”

  “A check?” Ben said, spinning his finger to his head to indicate that alone was nuts. “Is this like 1990 or something?”

  “Right? Who writes a check anymore?” Spencer ran his fingers through his hair. “And on top of it all, I didn’t get to go out on the water today, and it was so perfect, and I know the waves were amazing.”

  Ben pursed his lips. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say they were the best they’ve been in weeks.”

  Spencer held up his hand. “Say no more. Bad enough day—no need to make it worse.”

  “Can I see Petie one last time? Or did you read him last rites and send him off to the fishes?”

  “That’s not a bad idea, give him a proper burial at sea. Petie would like that. But right now, he’s in the garage. I don’t have the heart to look at him in that state.” He took a long draw from his beer, finishing the bottle, then grabbed another.

  “I don’t blame you, man.” Ben tipped the neck of his bottle to his friend’s. “To Petie, dude. He was a helluva board.”

  The men sat in silence on the roof as the sun crested below the waves, scattering barbs of violet and peach and magenta as if Mother Nature had spilled bottles of tempera paint across the surface of the ocean.

  “You gonna make another Petie?”

  Spencer scrubbed his face then took another swig of his beer. “Man, I dunno.” He grimaced. “I’ve got that board I was working on for my brother, but I feel like I’d be a douche to keep it for myself. And I don’t have the time to make another one. I’ve been so busy with work.” By day Spencer was a bicycle courier. “And by nighttime, I’m beat, man.”

  “I hear ya,” Ben said. “But I think he’d understand. It’s a board emergency. Besides, he’s not gonna need it till next summer when he comes down here again.”

  “If he comes down here again.”

  “I thought he loved it here.”

  Spence shrugged. “He does. He came down here to manage the surf shop as an easy way to escape my control freak father, and he fell in love with the place as much as I did. But he’s not as good at cutting the cord altogether as I was. He’s still on track to finish that MBA program next year, so he might have to enter the real world. At least if the old man has a say in things.”

  “In other words, he isn’t going to have much need for that board.” Ben arched his eyebrow and grinned.

  “Well, when you put it that way…” He furrowed his brow and looked at his friend. “Petie two?”

  They clinked bottles. “Here’s to the second time around.”

  “And to never encountering crazy blond women again.”

  “Hear, hear,” Ben said with a laugh.

  Chapter Five

  After her mom died, Georgie’s mother’s best friend, Margie Garfinkel, tried to fill the void created by her absence. Which meant regular outings to shop, eat, and gossip.

  “Oh, Georgie, I can’t believe you did that to that poor boy’s surfboard,” Margie said over margaritas and nachos.

  Georgie blushed. “I know, right? Can you even stand that I destroyed this man’s handiwork? I feel so awful about it, and I don’t even have a way to reach out to him to apologize further.”

  Margie placed her hand on top of Georgie’s. “Maybe that’s just as well, sweetie. Strange men with rage issues can be a scary thing.”

  Georgie rolled her eyes. “Who said anything about rage issues?”

  “Well, didn’t he use the f-bomb on you?”

  “Of course he did. Same as I would have if he’d ruined something that took me ages to make by hand. Not that I can imagine anything like that, but if there was.” She was still entertaining the idea of making that quilt, but it seemed such a crackpot of a thing to do for someone she’d probably never see again.

  “So, he wasn’t enraged at you?”

  Georgie scrunched her nose and thought about that for a minute. “Actually no, he wasn’t at all enraged. He was surfer-dude chill. Surprising. I mean I’d be jumping up and down and screaming my head off. But his shoulders sank, his face fell. To be honest, he seemed more crestfallen, if anything.” She thrust out her lower lip in a pout. “I feel awful about that.”

  “I’m so sorry, sweetie.” Margie took a slug of her drink then smacked her lips. “Oooh-whee! They do make a good margarita here.”

  “Well the place is called Margarita Maggie’s so they’d better. It’s practically their calling card.” She pursed her lips, deciding whether to clue Margie in on her idea.

  “Something wrong, bug?” The term of endearment always made Georgie feel so loved.

  “I was thinking of doing something as a sort of ‘I’m sorry’ gift for the guy. The only thing is I might not ever see him again, so it might be particularly weird to do something like that, you know?”

  “Like what did you have in mind?”

  “Remember when I made that quilt for Mom?”

  She smiled, her eyes crinkling in that warm, loving way that melted Georgie’s heart. “Of course! Your mama treasured that quilt—all that love and devotion you put into making it for her.”

  “I enjoyed making that. It was a good thing to do with my idle time too. Perfect for watching TV. So, I thought maybe I’d make an apology quilt. For a man, I’ll probably never see. In which case, it’ll be a penance quilt that I’ll happily cherish.” She giggled.

  Margie nodded. “I, for one, think it’s a lovely idea, dear. What man wouldn’t appreciate that?”

  Georgie figured it went without saying that Dan wouldn’t have appreciated it. Dan. What a jerk. How could she have been so stupid? She shook her head, trying to get rid of thoughts of that miserable excuse for a man.

  “You okay?” Margie cocked her head.

  “I’m fine. All good.” She scooped up a chip with lots of cheese and ground beef on it. “I’m thinking about what a schmuck I was to have fallen for Danny Leonard.”

  “You weren’t a schmuck.”

  “Okay, a fool.”

  “Not that, either.” She patted her hand again. “You were a lonely young woman missing her beloved mama who fell for a man who turned out to be a coward. That was not at all about you, Georgie.” Margie pulled her chin toward her with her pointer finger. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Georgie shrugged. You can’t be left behind weeks away from a wedding and not take it personally. But she didn’t want to get into the nuts and bolts of it right now, so she simply agreed with Margie. “Yeah, I know.”

  “And I bet if he were ever brave enough to come back here, he’d apologize profusely to you.”

  “If he ever came back here, I’d kick him in the balls and send him packing.”
/>   They both burst out laughing. “I would be right behind you, maybe with a strong left hook.”

  “Now that I’d love to see,” Georgie said, pretending to throw a punch.

  “But let’s forget about Dan. He’s history, and there’s no reason to ruin a perfectly good couple of margaritas talking about him. Tell me what else makes you happy these days, Georgie.”

  She cast her gaze skyward, thinking for a minute, trying to come up with something. “I’ve been enjoying working with Harper Landry at her shop. She’s sweet and funny, and she’s even teaching me how to make jewelry.” She held out her wrist, on which rested a simple silver band with a swirl in the center of it.

  “Did you make that?”

  Georgie nodded. “With my own hands. I guess another craft I can add to my crafty resume.”

  “You have a crafty resume?”

  “Well, I guess informally. I tried to figure out if I had any interesting skills other than scrolling through Facebook too often.” She sighed. “Ugh. Facebook. It’s going to be the death of us all, isn’t it?”

  “I hear ya. I decided to go on a Facebook fast for the next month to see if I miss it.”

  “I bet you won’t.”

  “I bet you’re right.” Margie winked at her. “You can join me. Instead of wasting time on the computer, why don’t you get to work on that quilt?”

  Georgie curled her lip. “You don’t think it’s weird to make it for him when I’ll never see him again?”

  “I think it’s a delightfully optimistic thing to do. In fact, why don’t we run to the quilt store after this and we’ll find a pattern so you can get started on it? Maybe I’ll look for something little to work on too. After all, we’re going to have lots of time on our hands now that we’re off of Facebook. Deal?” She extended her hand to meet Georgie’s and they shook.