Page 11
One year ago today.
I can’t believe it’s been that long.
Fifty feet from where I’m standing is where I tore off my shirt and sprinted into the water that first night here. How Carter piggybacked me around his hips, the comfort of him. One year ago today.
Except it’s not evening now—it’s an hour after sunrise, and we’re out in force on the beach, keeping Clua clean.
I’m at the edge of the cove, my rubber boot squelching on the craggy rock as I reach down, trying to avoid a black sea urchin, its spines wafting toward my hand.
This one is massive.
Sea urchins are cool as shit. They actually use hydraulic pressure to move, pushing water through their tube feet. And bonus fact—sand dollars are sea urchins, flattened from adapting to life on the shifting sand.
I grab a crushed aluminum can that’s wedged in the rock a few inches away, pinching it with my fingers and tugging it out. Its sharp edge could snag the softer underside of the urchin.
I drop the trash in a bag and straighten, sweeping my damp hair back while taking one last look down at where those memories are so clear, then pick my way carefully to the beach, the sweet smell of flowers hitting my nose, and the morning sun heating my shoulders.
“Theo.” Sheri, one of the volunteers, waves and heads over. “Hey, I think we’re done on that side.” She points to the area her group is canvassing along the tree line, the sun making the trees behind them a brilliant green. “Anything else today?”
“Nah.” I scan the length of the beach, noting the groups of volunteers who are all finishing around the same time. I planned that way, of course. I’ve been the volunteer coordinator at Conserve Clua for the last six months now.
I love it. Who knew I would fall in love with this island?
But every day it feels farther away from Colorado, which is where Carter landed his first teaching job.
What I haven’t told him yet is that I put in my two weeks’ notice yesterday.
I’ll miss this place, but I want to be where he is. I’ll admit this: I’m still a work in progress. Or as Cater calls it, a bro in progress , always grinning at me through our FaceTime calls. Lighting me up, in the way he always does, just by being there.
I always get this sense of belonging when I see him. It’s not that I belong to him or he belongs to me, more just this space that feels right. I’m not all fixed up yet, but I really am good with being me . And maybe I’ll always be a work in progress, that’s cool too.
“Thank you,” I say to Sheri, pointing at where to set the trash bags I’ll lug out later and then giving everyone in the group a fist bump before they head off. I close up with the next two groups that come by, the sun inching higher in the sky, warming the back of my neck and heating the sand so that I need to slide on some flip-flops from my bag after shrugging off my boots.
As everyone heads off, I grab my water bottle, then notice a missed call.
Shit, I’m smiling at his name.
I call him, FaceTime connecting, and then he’s there .
I can’t explain how it feels. The instant brightness, the way he fills both the screen and my thoughts. How everything locks into the place where it belongs.
I am head over heels in love with him. Butterflies and nerves and the whole deal. And none of that has quelled over the last year. If anything, it’s more.
I miss him so fucking much, and it tightens my throat and then spills out before we even say hi.
“I love you,” I say as soon as his eyes focus on me. I know people usually keep that for the end of the conversation, but fuck it. That’s how I always open our calls. Unless he beats me to it.
He beams, face lighting like mine probably does.
His breath is quicker, like he’s walking somewhere. There’s blue sky behind him. Intensely bright blue, which is weird for Colorado this time of year.
“I love you, too,” he says. “Sorry, I’m walking.”
“I can tell.” I swing the phone so that he can see the beach. “I’m close to our spot.”
“Oh yeah?” A breeze whistles through the phone speaker. “Making it beautiful?”
“Yep.” I’m grinning so widely at the phone that my cheeks hurt. “It’s kinda our anniversary.”
“I know.”
“I wish we were together for it.”
His brows rise. “Do you?”
I laugh. “Of course, dude. I actually… I have something to tell you. But before that, I’d be all over you. Sandy, sweaty guy pretty much suctioned to you like a giant octopus.”
“You promise?”
I blink, my smile falling slightly. There’s something in his tone I’m not picking up. And it feels like he’s waiting for me to understand. I squint at the image of him. He’s holding the phone close to his face, just edges of sky above his head.
Deep blue.
That’s not a Colorado sky. Even when it is blue, it’s rarely that color up there, not like it is on Clua, this close to the equat?—
Wait.
“Carter?” I lick my lip, holding the phone closer to my face, like that will help me sort it out, my heart pounding. I don’t want to get hopeful, but shit, I am .
He’s got stuff to take care of in Colorado though. He told me that…
But he keeps smiling.
I look towards the boardwalk along the rear of the beach, the phone warm in my palm, the sun hotter on my back.
There’s a man standing on the boardwalk, holding up his phone, but he’s not looking at it. He's looking at me. He’s wearing a white t-shirt and board shorts with a roll aboard beside him, a sweatshirt drooped over the top, and one sleeve dangling on the ground.
Jesus. I know. I know. I fucking know.
I’m moving, phone tossed on my bag, flip-flops kicking up sand, that familiar pain in my knee complaining, but I ignore it and fucking run .
I launch into him, slamming against his chest, arms wrapping around him, heart pounding so hard that I’m sure he can feel it.
“Carter,” I push out through my tight throat, heat already gathering in my eyes. I’m gonna fucking break down, and I don’t give a shit.
“Hey.” Then he’s kissing me, backing me up to the rickety railing—kissing me like when we’re alone, his hand palming my jaw, his breath synching with mine.
I’ve got no idea what’s happening around us, the scruff of his shoes, the strain of the wood under our combined weight. We kiss until we can’t breathe, until my jaw hurts, until there’s a sheen of sweat between his palm and my jaw.
And still, it’s not enough.
I used to think he was too much sometimes. And now all I think is I want more .
He sighs as we finally break the kiss, his thumb smoothing along my jaw as his hand slides down to my neck. “Fuck, I missed you.”
We stay like that for a long minute, the heat building behind my eyes until a few tears spring out.
I’m just so happy to see him.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper, leaning in to kiss him again, lightly on his cheek, and he smiles.
“I got a last-minute flight.” His thumb rolls over the side of my neck.
“What about those meetings you had about next year’s curriculum?”
His hand slides down, tickling over my forearm before his fingers lace with mine. “I said, ‘fuck it.’”
I blink. “It’s your job.”
“Well, it was .”
I lean back. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I didn’t renew for next year.”
“What?”
He squeezes my fingers. “I thought that maybe I’d move here. I’d?—?”
“I put in my two weeks.”
His brows launch up. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“So, we both quit?”
“Yep.”
“Shit.”
“Right?”
We stare at each other on that sun-warmed boardwalk, the beat of the waves steady, the echo of a gull calling as it swirls overhead, the sway of palm leaves, our fingers tangled.
“We could go anywhere,” I whisper. “We could do anything.” I know he still wants to teach, and I need to be doing something like I am here—but kids and conservation are all over the world.
I suddenly feel this… possibility. It’s seeping out everywhere, more than it ever has in my life before.Football had been one possibility, but it wasn’t the only possibility.
I squeeze his fingers. “You know, sea otters hold each other’s paws when they fall asleep so that they don’t drift apart.”
He smiles so widely that his dimple pops out. “I think that’s an excellent plan.”
“Me too.”
His teeth scrape across his bottom lip. “Are you ready?”
The same question he asked on the plane a year ago.
I tried to be ready then. I am ready now.
“Yes.”