A few hours earlier
As soon as I feel full from my boring cereal bowl, I realize that I acted sub-optimally when I met the new renter. She assumed my food was a welcome spread waiting for her—not that crazy of an assumption. I’ve actually toyed with the idea of leaving snacks out, but I’ve never implemented it.
I blow out a breath. In my defense, she didn’t need to be so truculent. Still, I will strongly consider apologizing if I get the chance.
Except when I start cutting the grass, there she is, even more adversarial than before.
Fuck. Why is it always the attractive ones? Forget the apology. I’ll just avoid her for the duration of her stay, which kind of sucks since we’re next door to each other, and she’s the only person younger than sixty-five in a ten-mile radius.
Whatever. Since I have the energy and the lawnmower, I cut the grass for one of my nicer, elderly neighbors—one of the few who don’t give me HOA-related grief.
When the hour is up, I make sure Brooklyn’s car is not in the garage, then cut the rental’s lawn. Afterward, I walk in to get my tools from the kitchen—and there she is.
Sally, my cat.
“How are you here?” I ask.
She slowly blinks at me, and it’s not difficult to guess what that lazy gaze is saying:
Well, duh. Using our wiles, we escaped the evil palace where our captor hides us away from the tomcat-in-shining-armor.
With a sigh, I grab Sally and the tools before heading home, where I find one of the sliding doors slightly ajar, which is probably how she got out.
“How did you open that?” I demand.
Sally swishes her tail.
Wiles, remember?
Harry, my dog, runs up to me and wags his tail with so much enthusiasm you’d think I was gone for a year.
Human dude and cat dudette. You’re both finally home. Awesome sauce.
I fill both of their food bowls, and while they eat, I get everything ready for a trip to the beach.
As soon as Harry is done with his food, he sprints over to sniff the surfboard.
Don’t forget me, bro. You know how much I like to ride them waves.
I smile. “I’m going more for you than for me, so you’re coming, don’t worry.”
I load Harry and the board into the car. As I grab my keys, Sally gives me a baleful glare.
If our evil captor so much as hints about bringing us near that obscene amount of water, eyes will be gouged.
Everything is as usual on the beach: Boone and Bonnie are sitting on the couch they found at a junkyard a week ago, and in the far distance, Calvin is walking one of his pet cows.
No. Wait. Something is different. There’s a woman lying on the sand.
Given how pale her back is, she’s either a tourist or a vampire.
Just my luck. The locals don’t mind when Harry is off leash, but she might.
As I get closer, I recognize her. It’s Brooklyn, and she’s not sunbathing. At least not on purpose. She seems to have fallen asleep face down in the sand, and has somehow rolled away from her towel too.
It’s a good thing the house she rented has a king-sized bed, or else she’d probably fall off.
I wince as I watch the sun mercilessly bake her smooth, pretty skin. Even if she’s wearing sunblock, she’ll have second-degree burns in an hour.
The humane thing to do would be to wake her, but then she’d bite my head off.
No, I need another idea. If I had an umbrella in the car, I’d set it up here, but I don’t. So, risking my balls and sanity, I pick up her towel and cover her with it to prevent further sun exposure.
There. I doubt she’d do something like that for me.
Harry looks at the ocean and whines.
“Yeah, yeah,” I tell him. “We’re going.”
Once Harry is dressed in his canine flotation device, I take my board and we wade into the waves.
Ahh. Only surfing brings me this intense feeling of relaxation mixed with exhilaration, peace with terror, and above all, an almost spiritual sense of freedom. Harry loves it too and has such a blast that he makes me appreciate surfing all the more. I’m also grateful that he’s in my life because he often drags me to do this when I need it the most.
Just as I’m riding a big kahuna, I see Brooklyn approach the water and all my joy evaporates.
Can’t the woman read? The sign says very plainly that the ocean isn’t safe. Even Harry and I have to be careful today, and we’ve been coming to this beach our whole lives—not to mention, he has water-rescue training and I’m a certified lifeguard.
“Don’t!” I shout, but I doubt she can hear me over the surf.
Damn it. She’s stepping into the water. Doesn’t she see—
Fuck.
The wave that was clearly headed her way knocks her off her feet.
“Help her,” I command Harry and point at her before I leap into action, a burst of adrenaline propelling me toward the shore.
I beat Harry to the scene, but I don’t see Brooklyn on the surface, and when I dive, it’s all muddy sand.
A moment later, Harry barks, his nose pointing to a spot a couple of feet away.
Heart hammering in my chest, I dive there—and there she is.
As quickly as I can, I position my surfboard under her chest to keep her head above water. Moving faster than I thought possible, I get her onto dry sand, then move her so she is splayed on the surfboard, safely away from any waves that might come.
“I’m calling 911!” Bonnie yells from the couch.
I don’t thank Bonnie now, but I will later—at this point, every millisecond counts.
I check to see if Brooklyn’s breathing.
Nothing.
Even as ice spreads through my veins, my training kicks in, and I begin CPR.
At first, there’s no effect.
As I inhale in preparation for another rescue breath, she gasps, then rolls over and vomits ocean water, her eyes wild and scared.
I hold her hair and soothingly stroke her back. As her spasms ease, I help her lie back on the board. She closes her eyes, still breathing raggedly. As I watch her chest move, it feels like I’m relearning to breathe too. I don’t know why I got as tense as I did, probably because this is my first real rescue attempt.
A few seconds later, Brooklyn opens her eyes, looking a bit calmer. She may be okay, but I don’t let myself relax. Looks can be deceiving.
“The wave came,” she says haltingly.
“It did.” I’m proud of how soothing I sound given my overwhelming temptation to chastise her for walking into such a tumultuous ocean.
“Did I almost drown?” she asks.
I nod, ice filling my stomach anew at the knowledge of how close she came to dying. “But you’re breathing now, and the paramedics are on their way,” I say, to reassure myself as much as her. “You should be all right.”
She sits up. “Paramedics? No. I don’t need that. I’m already all right.”
“You almost drowned.” Maintaining a soothing tone is becoming more difficult. “You need to go to the hospital.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I don’t like hospitals.”
My jaw ticks. “Only hypochondriacs like hospitals. And maybe not even them.”
“But I’m breathing fine,” she says stubbornly.
“You’re going to the hospital,” I grit out.
She narrows her eyes. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
I sigh in exasperation. “I’m obviously not going to drag you to the damn hospital. Neither will the paramedics. But you could have organ damage from the lack of oxygen, so you should go.”
She blinks. “All I wanted was to just relax, for the first time in forever,” she says, her voice cracking—like she’s on the verge of tears. “Is that too much to ask?”
I liked it much more when she was angry and irritable. This vulnerable side of her twists something in my gut. “Look, Brooklyn,” I say gently. “If the doctors clear you, you’ll still have six more days to relax. And the rest of today.”
“I think I’ve forgotten how to relax,” she says.
“In that case, I’ll help you,” I shock myself by saying. “I’ll take you to a beach without waves. And then Sealand—a nearby seaquarium run by a guy I went to high school with. And if you like that one, we can also go to Octoworld, a place where—”
The siren of the ambulance drowns out my next words.
When the cacophony eases, Brooklyn sighs. “Fine. I’ll go to the stupid hospital.”
“We’ll go,” I say. “I’m coming with you.”
“You are?” she asks, looking at the paramedics fearfully.
“If that’s okay with you,” I say.
She catches my gaze. “Thank you. For everything.”
I scratch the back of my head. “No problem.”
“I’m going to ask a stupid question,” she says with a flush. “What’s your name?”