“Isn’t that what you girls call it now?” she asks as she lifts her mixing bowl with hands that tremble just a touch more than they used to. “Like a cougar?”
I hold a baking pan steady beneath it, and she pours the batter. “No. That’s . . .” I laugh, wishing Ryan were here to hear that one. “That’s a totally different thing, Gran. And I don’t think anybody calls it that.”
“Well. Whatever you want to call it. That’s why I went to the beach when I was your age. Soon as I slipped on that bathing suit, all the boys came around.” She opens the oven, slides in our two pans, and closes it. “That’s how I caught your grandfather, you know.” I smile at the thought of a young Gran, on the prowl for boys at the beach. “That’s why he married me so fast. He saw me in that bathing suit and couldn’t wait to see me out of it, if you know what I mean, and when we—”
“HOW LONG FOR THOSE TO COOK?” I interrupt.
Gran winks at me. “Forty-three minutes exactly.” She starts measuring out cocoa powder for another batch, and I reach for the flour.
“I wasn’t on the prowl,” I say, avoiding her eyes. “I just went to get away. Do something for a change.” Vague as it is, I know she’ll support this reasoning.
“Well, that’s good,” she says. “Sometimes you’ve got to go off on your own. Get out. Have a day to yourself at the beach.” She says it like she’s proud of me, like it’s a sign that I’m showing progress, or moving on, and I feel a little twinge of guilt that makes me keep talking.
“I didn’t really make it to the beach—I crashed the car when I got there, so I didn’t . . .”
Gran turns to me. “Well, it’s the fact that you went at all, Quinn. It’s a start.” She carries both of our bowls to the sink and turns on the faucet. “You should go back. I tell you what—if I looked like you, I sure as hell wouldn’t be spending my summer sitting in the house alone; I’d be out on the prowl.” She winks again. “Or at least on the beach, in a bikini underneath that glorious sun.”
She doesn’t say anything else, and neither do I, and this is one of the things I love about Gran. She knows when to say just enough. And today it’s just enough to get me thinking, and my thoughts drift back to Colton and his words: “You know where to find me.”
I do, and I can’t stop thinking about that fact.
“Maybe I will,” I say after a little while. “Go back there sometime.”
CHAPTER NINE
“There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue those.”
—Michael Nolan
BROWNIES ARE HOW I justify making the drive to Shelter Cove the next morning. I ran into his bus, and then he took me to the hospital and was concerned enough to check up on me. Sweet enough to bring me a flower. Wise enough not to push too hard. The least I can do is bring him a plate of brownies. I know from a post his sister wrote that he has a sweet tooth and that brownies were the first thing he wanted when he was allowed to start eating again, and Gran’s are the best. He at least deserves that. And then I’ll go to the beach.
I pile a plate high, seal it with plastic wrap, and scribble a note to my parents, who’ve gone out together this morning. Then I grab my beach bag and head out the door to make the same drive I did a couple of days ago, just as nervous as I was then, if not more so.
When I turn down the main street and see Colton’s bus parked in almost the same spot it was the first time, my heart speeds up and I drive right by without parking in the empty spot behind it. I turn down my music so I can think better. Right now I still have a choice. If I keep driving, I haven’t really done anything wrong as far as Colton and Trent go. But then. If I do that—if I keep driving—I may not get another chance to know more about him. “Sometime” will expire, and Colton will forget he said it, and maybe it’ll be too late to come back.
The next light turns red. Gives me a few more moments to think. I switch on my blinker. Turn it off. Flip it again. When the arrow turns green, I hesitate long enough for the car behind me to honk, and then I make a U-turn and double back. Back to where Colton Thomas is, after 402 days. Back to where I parked the first time. When I pull in, the dent in the bumper of his VW bus is still there, and it’s bigger than I remember, which makes me cringe. I glance at the plate of brownies on the passenger seat, and suddenly they seem completely ridiculous.
I don’t know what I’m doing. And now that I’m here, I don’t really know for sure where to find him. I roll down the window and look around like I might just happen to see him. The morning air is still cool, and it relaxes me the slightest bit when I take a big, deep breath. It’s about the same time of day as I showed up before, and based on what Colton said, he had to mean he’d be at either the kayak shop or the coffee shop. I thought of calling him before I left, but that seemed a little much. Plus I didn’t know if I was actually going to go through with it until right now, when I parked the car. In fact, I’m still not sure. The kayak shop looks closed, and even the café looks dark. I could still—
“The car’s in park, right? Turned off and everything?”
The voice jolts me from my back-and-forth, and when I look up, I see Colton, fresh out of the water, hair and wet suit still dripping, surfboard tucked under his arm. “You came back.” He’s happy but not surprised.
“I . . . yeah.”