“I didn’t catch your name. I know this little man Huck now,” Luke offered, straightening up, grabbing the clipboard, trying to be businesslike to assuage the tension he felt in his throat. “I need it for the signing of releases. We ask all parents to sign one. Sorry, just a formality. Not to make you worry.”
“Katie Doyle. And yours?”
“Luke Forrester.”
“What will he be doing today exactly? I only know from the poster that you are water-oriented, but I don’t really want my son in the big waves.”
“We don’t let any kid in who can’t handle themselves. We teach them how anyway fast, even ones much smaller than this guy.”
“You’re one of the instructors?”
“Yeah, I run the camp. In the summer. In the off-seasons, I’m still kind of submerged in the ocean. I’m a marine biology teacher. Mostly young kids like yours.”
“You teach?”
“I do,” he answered, not looking up at her. “It’s an elective in the school, but the kids love it. We do all our classes in the sand, even when it’s cold, we learn right on this beach. Anyway . . . Huck’s birthday is . . .” Luke asked, looking at his clipboard.
Being with this man, whoever he was, made something inside Katie ache with a mixture of angst and exhilaration. She smiled and stared at him for a moment, letting her eyes glaze over a little. She had to rein it in and remember she’d come here for someone else; someone to whom she owed a fair, focused trial.
Just then, Kona walked over to Julia Chase, who had just arrived. He threw her son Richie up in the air three times to make him laugh. And for more strategic reasons, he knew this talent with her son would cause Julia to melt with burning desire.
Next, something strange happened: Kona and Julia walked right into Kona’s Jeep. This did not go unnoticed by the other instructors and a few of the envious mothers dropping their children off. Kona and Julia disappeared down Beachwood Lane right at the start of camp.
Luke tried to concentrate on this beautiful woman with green eyes, but he made a what the fuck? expression over at Kenny, who had also witnessed Kona and Julia’s sudden departure at the busiest moment in camp.
“Here, honey, step into the legs,” Katie instructed her son, just to occupy herself and not look up at this man. She realized they’d forgotten the sun cream in the car, so she walked back with Huck. “We’ll be back in ten minutes.”
Back in the lot, she took her sweet time getting Huck’s suit on, making sure his swim trunks weren’t all bunched up, the shoulders weren’t tight, and that he had room under his arms. As a local teacher, this guy must know something about the school system, so she could just keep it formal, professional, and keep in touch with him. With her child now more ready, she walked up the lot and right back to the cute camp director.
From the little creases in the sides of her kind eyes, Luke figured she must be about two to four years younger than he, somewhere in her late twenties or perhaps just thirty. Mature, though, not desperate for marriage since probably she’d already been through all that. Nice age, not that rough period when all they wanted was a ring, and not so young she had time to play mind games like his ex, Simone, whose body he still couldn’t get out of his mind.
Kenny poked him way too hard from behind and whispered in his ear, “She’ll be begging for it if you charm the son like Kona does.”
Luke shoved Kenny back with his elbow a little too hard so he got the point: shut the fuck up, Kenny; don’t fuck this up for me. I’m not like Kona that way; she’s gonna think we are all idiots.
Luke knelt down, partially to get out of Kenny’s air space and partially to focus on little Huck, who looked somewhat lost in a sea of entitled kids. Most of them knew each other from New York City private schools. Her child was adorable, and she was a parent who didn’t roll in like the world owed her something. She’d even asked him what he did year-round. That had to be the first show of interest in his life from a camp parent.
Katie zippered up the thick neoprene wetsuit onto her fidgety boy. Now that she could actually talk to this man, her mind wound all the way back to spring of tenth grade, at the end of a day in April: Tommy, the baseball player (in sloppy uniform), stood on the other side of her locker in a bustling hallway. When she slammed the door, he simply smiled and said “hello,” and she was lost in his spell for years. This damn guy from the shop smiled just like Tommy, and his look was all messy the same way.
“Where do I go, Mom? How do I know I don’t have to go into the ocean if I don’t want to?” asked Huck.