by Max Monroe
I laugh. “Isn’t that the truth.”
Chloe waggles her eyebrows at me, and I don’t have to think twice about the motive.
“I suppose I could give you an allowance to spend on yourself while you’re there. Just to make the reasoning credible.”
Chloe squeals, jumps up from her seat, and runs around the table to give me a kiss on the cheek. “Woo-hoo! Thanks, Dad!”
Without waiting, she heads for the den to do what I have no doubt is a massive amount of online “pre-shopping,” as she calls it. As I understand, it’s intended to make the actual shopping easier and more efficient when she gets to the store.
I usually just take the shortcut of doing the pre-shopping and leaving it at that. They deliver clothes these days, and it’s amazing. I haven’t had to set foot in the mall to shop for myself in years.
Just like that, dinner with Chloe is over.
I sigh, but I focus my energy on tonight’s uninvited, but always welcome, guest.
“So, what’s up, man?” I ask, knowing that even being the pain in the ass he is, he wouldn’t be here if there weren’t something bothering him at home.
Garrett shrugs at first, ignoring the question, so I take the opportunity to get up from the table and go to the fridge to get each of us a beer.
When I return to the table, I set it in front of him with a resounding thunk. “Come on, man. Talk.”
He scrubs a hand down his face and then sits back, putting the bottle to his lips for a swig before complying.
“She’s just giving me shit about work. I’m supposed to go up north for a couple weeks, battling those two big fires that are approaching the national forest. She says I’m abandoning her and the kids.”
Fucking hell.
“Dude, you know that’s bullshit.”
“Of course I do,” he agrees. “And it’s not like I really get a choice. The captain says we’re going…we’re going. You know?”
I nod. I’ve known Garrett for nearly fifteen years, and being a dedicated firefighter is truly one of the things that makes him tick. Even his beloved facial hair—I’ve never seen a man love sporting a beard more—takes a back seat to his commitment to the job. In fact, that’s usually how I know his schedule—if he’s sporting a beard, he’s on downtime. And his family has always been the most important thing to him, but he doesn’t have a normal nine-to-five job. Bethanny just never seems to understand that—and she’s been with him longer than I’ve known him.
“Anyway, she’s at the spa. Said if I wasn’t going to make her a priority, she’d just do it herself. I dropped the kids at the movies and headed over here.”
It’s hard to hold my tongue anymore. Shit like this has happened one too many times, and I’m getting tired of watching my buddy get treated like he’s a piece of garbage. “Look, man. You know I back you one hundred percent. I know you’re fighting for this. Trying your best. But at what point is enough enough?”
He shrugs. “I am gone a lot. I…don’t want to be insensitive to that.”
“You’re gone for work when you have to be,” I reassert. “Every other moment, you’re home being a husband and a father.”
“I want her to do what she needs to do to feel whole. If she needs to go to the spa, I understand.”
“Yeah, Garrett,” I say gently. “I get that. I’m all for it. Self-care, whatever. It’s not about her going to the spa or buying shit or any of that. It’s about how she treats you, dude. There are ways for her to communicate her needs that don’t shit all over who you are as a human being, you know?”
He looks at me for a long moment before one corner of his mouth cracks into the curve of a smile. “Maybe I should be paying you to be my marriage counselor.”
I smirk. “You’d never be able to afford me.”
He snorts.
I raise my beer bottle in front of me in a sort of shrug. “I’m not married, dude. So, I guess you have to take what I say with a grain of salt. But it seems to me the principal of a relationship should be pretty cut-and-dried. It’s both give-and-take. Not just one or the other. And I haven’t seen Bethanny give you much of anything other than a headache and blue balls in quite a fucking while.”
He doesn’t say anything, just pulls at the label on his beer bottle as he considers my words.
“Now, come on,” I say, cutting into his thoughts. “You interrupted dinner, so now you’re going to buy me dessert on the way to pick up your kids.”
He nods with a smile and stands up to carry his plate to the sink while I yell for Chloe in the den.
“Chloe! Get your shoes! We gotta go!”
“Where?” she shouts back but makes no move to come out from behind the closed den doors.
“To grab some ice cream and pick up the twins with Uncle Garrett.”
“Um…hello? I’m a little busy in here!” she retorts, but after only a few seconds of silence, she adds, “But I could be convinced into going if we get froyo!”
“Yeah. Sure thing, Chlo.”
“What the fuck is froyo?” Garrett asks and I shrug.
“Hell if I know.”
“It’s frozen yogurt, Uncle Garrett,” Chloe chimes in, already heading into the mudroom to grab her shoes. “Sheesh. You guys need to learn the lingo.”
“Is it just me or do teenagers make you feel really damn old?” Garrett asks and I laugh.
“Preaching to the choir, dude.”
Holley
Now would be a fantastic time to put on your big-girl panties and get out of the car, my mind sasses me as I stay rooted in the driver’s seat of my parked car.
Instantly, I lean my head back against the headrest and force myself to inhale a big, cleansing breath.
For a Wednesday morning, this is the very last place I want to be—sitting in a public parking lot in front of Coronado Beach, moments away from attempting to find Jake Brent.
Holy moly, talk about insane.
The rearview mirror taunts me, and it doesn’t take long before I meet my reflection again and check my makeup for a third—or is it fourth?—time. I doubt much has changed since I last looked a minute and a half ago, but my nerves are acting like this is a Fourth of July fireworks show.
Pow, bam, sizzle!
Any more of this, and they’re going to drag me out to the barge in the Hudson River to be a part of the television broadcast display.
Not that I know much about the Hudson River and New York City. I’ve only ever been twice, and after growing up in the Midwest with my dad, I ended up choosing the West Coast over the East. Once I graduated from my small-town high school, I headed for the bright lights of Southern California to attend college at San Diego State.
Compared to the Iowa farm country I was born and raised in, California was glitzy and glamour-filled, and needless to say, it wowed me.
Sadly, it’s probably because of that wide-eyed wonder that I fell so easily in love with frat boy Raleigh Reynolds. He was clean-cut, well-liked, from a well-off family, and he treated me like I was something special. Amid a crowd of perfect bodies and plastic surgery, I was absolutely thrilled that someone like him could think I—the small-town girl from Iowa—stood out.
One month after meeting Raleigh at a party during my junior year of college, we started dating, and to be honest, I thought I’d date him for the rest of my life. I thought we’d get married and have kids and be the perfect California couple with big dreams and a house in Malibu.
I glance at myself in the mirror again and shake my head. My God, what a naïve little girl I was.
I swipe at the crease of my eye shadow and check the corner of my mouth for excess lipstick. Everything is in order, but I still pull out my eyebrow pencil and do a couple extra strokes at the apex of the arch of my brow.
The clock glares in the dim morning light, clicking over to another minute of time, and I swallow wordlessly.
It’s time to face the bachelor music.
With a pop of my door handle, I step out of my c
ar quickly, and along with the door, I shut any chance of checking my makeup another needless time behind me. I tug at the hem of my black blazer, trying to get it to settle onto my shoulders in a way that feels remotely comfortable.
The morning air is heavy, almost misty, and I can’t remember the last time I was awake this early. Actually, that’s not true. I do remember the last time—I remember it vividly, in fact. It’s just that I choose not to relive the horrid memory that served as a big fat catalyst for my world imploding.
Graceful as can be, I trip as I take my first step onto the sand on Coronado Beach, but I catch myself without taking a tumble. It’s not crowded, though there are several more people than I would have expected, seeing as the sun is barely even peeking above the horizon.
A contingent of Navy T-shirt-wearing men jog by, and not a single one of them looks up at me. I choose to believe it’s their dedication to their duty and not the extra pounds I’ve put on recently that make me invisible.
I almost roll my ankle again, and I curse under my breath to make myself feel better. Stooping low, I take off what my dad likes to refer to as my “man heels” in favor of bare feet. They’re normally my most sensible “I’m still trying to look professional but not get blisters” shoes—hence the less-than-flattering nickname from my dad—but apparently a heel of any kind in soft sand is a death sentence.
I scan the waterline for a man of Jake Brent’s description—tall, athletic, muscular—but all I see are military men and large, rolling waves. To be fair, a good number of them are of both good height and physical condition, but none of them seems like the man I’m looking for.
There’s something about Jake Brent that makes me feel like I’ll know him when I see him. It’s not cosmic destiny or anything—it’s just access to information.
In addition to the personal ad entrants submitted for the contest, they also had to provide a brief physical description. For whatever reason, the paper’s legal team insisted on it, but for the most part, they all read the same way to me—average male.
This one, though—it had something else—rigorous details that people often don’t notice about themselves.
Tall, lean-muscle athletic body type, black hair, bright blue-green eyes rimmed with laugh lines, and a tattoo-sleeved arm that tells the story of my life.
I still remember the way it brought my mind to a halt when I read it.
Trudging farther into the sand, I make my way down the beach until I’m even with the Hotel Del, the landmark Jake Brent’s daughter referenced when explaining where I’d be able to find her dad.
Ha. “Landmark referenced.” More like the hint she dropped on my doorstep right before she ran. It was the ultimate ding-dong ditch of explanatory phone calls.
The air is still a little hazy with dawn, but from what I can tell, almost everyone else I noticed in the vicinity before has moved on to sandier beaches…or something
I look back toward my car, wondering if I should just peel out of here, get on the phone again, and hope Jake Brent actually answers my call this time so I can schedule a meeting in which I feel slightly less awkward. But in the end, the sheer distance of the walk makes my decision for me
Instead, I plop down in the sand and dig my newly freed toes down until the grains feel cool. Serene and quiet, the morning blankets me comfortingly.
The truth is, I’ve spent the last six months out of sorts. Confused, lazy, desperate to find something that motivates me again after breaking off my engagement to my college sweetheart. After I spent more than a decade of my life with someone, it’s like I forgot how to function properly on my own. I laugh to myself as I think of my dad’s car analogies I almost never get.
According to him, ever since I broke it off with Raleigh Reynolds, I’ve been down a cylinder or two. Whatever that means.
I check the time on my chunky Michael Kors watch and glance over my shoulder. Nobody. Frankly, the place seems to have gone from hopping to deserted in no time flat.
I look out at the ocean and scan the surface of the water for anything of interest.
I don’t expect to see much, but with a hand over my eyes to shade out the light from the rising sun and a squint, I can just make out a human-looking figure in the ocean right before it disappears under a crushing blow from a huge wave.
Holy shit! That doesn’t look good!
Panic grips me, and I jump up to my feet in the kind of swift motion I didn’t even know I was capable of anymore in my thirties. I search the surface of the water for signs of the person as quickly as I can. Briefly, so briefly I almost miss it, his head pops up from the hollow in between the waves, arms stretched up, and then disappears again.
Shit! That definitely isn’t good! Isn’t that, like, the international sign for distress in the water or something? I feel like I’ve read it in a book before.
I run forward toward the edge of the waterline, dropping my purse in the sand in the process. I watch avidly for the man to reappear, but all I’m able to make out is a rogue arm through the wall of yet another wave.
I think that guy is going to drown!
Fear for the stranger’s life grips me, and I jump into action without thinking, sprinting into the water up to my thighs. My clothes are getting more drenched by the second, and the instant a wave breaks right in front of me, I freeze in my spot.
How in the hell am I going to help him? I’m not Michael Phelps, for fuck’s sake!
I search the water manically, hoping to lock on to a body part—a fleck of hope for this soul—when the back of a head bobs in the water before disappearing yet again.
Jesus, I can’t just leave him. I could never live with myself!
Shit. I’m really going to have to do this. I’m going to have to try to help him.
I time my jump into the body of the next wave just before it breaks, hoping to avoid getting caught up in the inertia of it. I’m an average swimmer at best, but I’ve seen the movie Blue Crush at least a dozen times. Surely, I can use all that research to my advantage.
Surprisingly enough, my film-grade technique works out okay, getting me to the other side of the wave without incident, but it’s in the results of my move where I find the problem.
No longer able to touch bottom, I fight to keep up my doggie-paddling as I search the water for the missing man. Another wave approaches, and without any footing to push off with, I don’t know how I’m going to force myself under the barrel of this one.
I glance back to the shoreline quickly, but it’s much farther away than anticipated. The current of the ocean has sucked me out well past where I’d ever choose to venture on my own.
And I’m getting dangerously tired. I would have sworn I’d be able to keep my legs churning for longer than sixty seconds, but maybe I’m not as buoyant as I used to be. Does age make you sink faster? Do carbs?
Okay, this isn’t good.
I scan the surface of the water again, hoping to find either the man who brought me into the stupid fucking ocean or a conveniently located platform to stand on, but I see neither.
Big and bold and overbearing, the wave makes it to me, crashing over my head as I take a huge last gulp of air. I immediately start fighting for the surface, but I can’t find it. I touch sand on what must be the ocean floor and flip my body so I can push off with both feet.
I fight and kick and claw my way to the top because there is no way I can look people in the eye in heaven if I know how absolutely stupid of a reason—trying to meet up with a guy I’ve dubbed Bachelor Anonymous for a freaking newspaper promotion—I died.
I’m not going down for useless pop culture!
I break through the top of the water and suck air into my lungs savagely, but it isn’t long before another wave crashes over my head.
Why would anyone swim in this ocean? Why? It’s a goddamn death sentence!
Salt water goes up my nose as I struggle for the surface again and burns a path straight to my brain where realization officially sets in.
I came into the water to save the life of a stranger, but chances are looking a little too likely that I’m going to drown before I even find the guy.
Jake
Morning swim-cardio completed, I move on to some of my lung-capacity exercises, slowly increasing the time I spend underwater one fifteen-second increment at a time.
I do it all for fun now, but I used to need the ability to ensure I came home alive. Something about that stuck with me, I guess, because I can’t start my mornings without swimming in the ocean. Clearly, I’d never be able to move away from the beach.
Timing the waves, I go under again, this time for a full minute, resting on the sandy bottom and taking in everything around me.
Thankfully, the water is pretty clear here, and after years of training, the salt water barely even burns my eyes.
A school of fish swims by, unaffected by my presence. The sound of the ocean’s churn is quiet, but even from the floor below, you can feel the power of each wave.
Something about it recharges me with the energy I need to face the day.
My underwater watch blinks, signaling I’m at the end of my interval, and I stand up and push off the bottom before swimming for the surface.
I breach the barrier of the water and take a deep, satisfying pull of air to fill my lungs once again. I feel invigorated and ready to go again, but I do my due diligence and give myself and my lungs the recovery time I know they need by floating on my back in the hollow of the swells.
Eventually, my timer goes off and I repeat it all again, over and over until I can’t take it anymore.
I’ve just crested the water after my two-minute dive drill when I unexpectedly see the head of a woman disappear under the barrel of a wave. I’m always out here alone—I make a point of it by being here so early. But something feels off about her presence, and I’m immediately on alert.
I scan the surface, waiting for her to reappear. It takes much longer than I’m comfortable with, and when I finally catch sight of her, it’s painfully obvious that my comfort level is the least of our worries. Her arms flail helplessly as she fights for purchase on the water’s top, and when that doesn’t work, she disappears to the depths of yet another wave.