Page 18 of A Daddy for Christmas 3: Nova

There was a rustle of fabric as he shrugged. “In a perfect world, I guess.”

I turned off the truck, and for a moment we just sat, staring out into the night, saying nothing, though I suspected that we were both thinking about similar things, like time we could have spent with family, only they were too busy working, and the way we’d allowed ourselves to roll down the same path.

“I thought I was breaking the mold when I took up surfing and set out to compete at the highest levels,” I said, hand caressing the doorhandle, though I left the door unopened for now. “It took until after I’d retired from active competition before I realized that I’d done the same thing as my old man. I’d sacrificed relationships and time with the people I cared about to work a job. I was a professional surfer. Emphasis on the professional part. It was my life, my world, my one true ambition. All the things I used to say to try and justify the difference between my life and his—it was all bullshit in the end. Sure, I avoided working in an office, but I was still tethered to the beach and my board the same way he was to his desk and computer. In the grand scheme of things, I turned out way more like him than I ever wanted to be.”

“I’ve been seeing the same thing in myself,” Nova remarked. “That I’m becoming my parents. That my life has become an endless stream of conference calls, presentations, and planning sessions. It’s not very satisfying. Some weeks it's just plain sad. I get that as adults, we’re supposed to support ourselves, but there has to be something more to life than just working all the time.”

“Isn’t that the truth?”

He sighed and turned in his seat, watching me as he rubbed the back of his neck. “The day we met, after you left to go find something to eat, I sat on the beach for a while, building a sandcastle and watching the sun set. Listening to the surf lap against the shore and the rolling cadence of the waves was so soothing, I should have been able to get lost in it. Only in the back of my head, I was still worried about the texts I hadn’t looked at and all the things that might have gone wrong during the presentation that had taken place earlier in the day. Kinda sad when you think about it.”

“What’s sad is that we’ve been conditioned to feel that way,” I said. “In school they teach us the things they claim we need to know to enter the workforce. They group us into categories and groom us to go to college or trade school, the military, or straight into the workforce. They dissect our strengths and weaknesses as some sort of litmus test meant to determine what we’ll be good at while we’re still trying to learn who we are. When you really think about it, the whole concept of school is as much about establishing the same sort of routine we’re expected to follow in the job force as it is about education. It’s a factory for worker ants.”

“That’s depressing.”

“I know, right.”

“True, though, now you’ve got me thinking about it,” he muttered.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to drag the mood down,” I said. “But hearing that you were sitting on the beach in one of the most beautiful places in the world, obsessing about what was going on in an office thousands of miles away, just made me feel some kind of way.”

“No, I get it, and for the record, you didn’t wreck the mood. You’re letting me get things off my chest that I haven’t dared tobring up to anyone in my friend group back home, not even my best friend Megan.”

“And why haven’t you mentioned your feelings to them?”

“I guess it’s because I don’t want to be the first one to admit that I can’t handle the constant pressure and expectations of the workforce,” he admitted, letting out a long, ragged breath. “I’ve worked my ass off to excel, to the point of being promoted and even running a division within my department…”

“But getting to that level and maintaining the kind of schedule required of you has been taxing both mentally and emotionally, hasn’t it?” I asked.

“Yeah, and I suck at finding time for the outlets that help everything not be so overwhelmingly stressful.”

“There’s nothing but time and opportunity while you’re here on the island,” I murmured, cupping his cheek and gently caressing it with my thumb. “Why don’t you let me help you explore some of those outlets?”

“You don’t even know what they are yet,” he replied. “Don’t you think you should wait and make sure they aren’t wacky, weird, or completely out of your wheelhouse before you volunteer to help me?”

“Now what would be the fun in that?”

Chapter 9

(Nova)

Ping.

Sighing, I rolled my eyes as I bent to pick up another seashell to add to the small collection in the bottom of my bucket.

“Guess I should have left my phone back in my hotel room after all,” I grumbled.

“Seems that way,” Robbie replied as he walked along beside me.

We had art supplies back at his house that I was itching to get my hands on, but first, we needed to gather enough shells for the critters we planned to make. The critters and the photos of my kitties that Megan had sent were the reason I’d brought my phone in the first place, so I could show them to Robbie, who’d chuckled at their antics. He hadn’t scoffed at the idea of an artsand crafts day. In fact, he’d gotten so excited about it that he’d directed my attention to the empty ledge in front of his kitchen window and declared that to be the perfect spot for the seashell critters he planned to make.

Ping.

So far this morning, there had been almost as many pings as there were seashells in the bucket. They’d started coming in while we’d been enjoying the omelets and pineapple fritter bites Robbie had made us for breakfast.

“I am seriously considering getting a second phone that’s just for personal use,” I grumbled.

“Might not be a bad idea.”