The Last Song(72)

Tonight, the place was deserted, and as he and Ronnie strolled barefoot through the breaking surf, he was struck by the thought that this was the girl with whom he’d like to face the future.

He knew he was too young for such thoughts and was under no illusion that he was even considering marriage, but somehow he felt that if he met Ronnie ten years from now, she might be the one. He knew Scott wouldn’t understand the concept—Scott seemed unable to imagine a future that stretched past the upcoming weekend—but then Scott wasn’t so different from most of his peers. It was as if their minds ran on separate tracks: He wasn’t into one-night stands, he wasn’t into scoring to see if he could, he wasn’t into acting just charming enough to get what he wanted before cutting someone loose in favor of someone new and attractive. He just wasn’t like that. He would never be like that. When he met a girl, the first question he asked himself wasn’t whether she was good for a few dates; it was whether she was the kind of girl he could imagine spending time with over the long haul.

He supposed that had partly to do with his parents. They’d been married for thirty years, started out struggling as many couples did, and over the years had built the business and raised a family. Through it all, they had loved each other well, celebrating their successes and supporting each other during tragedy. Neither of them was perfect, but he’d grown up certain that they were a team, and eventually, he’d absorbed that lesson.

It was easy to think that he’d spent two years with Ashley because she was beautiful and rich, and though he’d be lying if he said that her beauty was irrelevant, it was less important than the things he thought he saw in her. She’d listened to him just as he’d listened to her, he’d believed he could tell her anything, and vice versa. But over time, he’d felt increasingly disappointed in her, especially when she’d tearfully admitted that she’d made out at a party with some guy from the local college. Things were never the same after that. Not because he worried that she’d do something like that again—everyone made mistakes, and it had only been a kiss—but somehow the incident helped crystallize his thoughts about what he wanted from the people he was closest to. He began to notice the way she treated other people, and he wasn’t sure he liked what he saw. Her ceaseless gossiping—once something he considered harmless—began to annoy him, as did the long waits she made him endure while she readied herself to go out at night. He felt bad about eventually breaking up with her but consoled himself with the fact that he’d only been fifteen when he first started dating her, and she was the first girlfriend he’d ever had. In the end, he felt he had no other choice. He knew who he was and what was important to him, and he didn’t see any of that reflected in Ashley. He figured it was better just to end the relationship before things got any harder.

His sister, Megan, was like him that way. Beautiful and smart, she’d intimidated most of the boys she’d ever dated. For a long time, she had flitted from one guy to the next, but not out of vanity or flightiness. When he’d asked why she seemed unable to settle down, her answer had been straightforward: “There are guys who grow up thinking they’ll settle down some distant time in the future, and there are guys who are ready for marriage as soon as they meet the right person. The former bore me, mainly because they’re pathetic; and the latter, quite frankly, are hard to find. But it’s the serious ones I’m interested in, and it takes time to find a guy like that whom I’m equally interested in. I mean, if the relationship can’t survive the long term, why on earth would it be worth my time and energy for the short term?”

Megan. He smiled, thinking about her. She lived her life by her own rules. She had driven Mom crazy during the last six years with her attitude, of course, since she’d quickly eliminated pretty much every guy in town who hailed from the kind of family of which his mother approved. But he had to admit, he thought Megan had gotten it right, and thankfully, she’d been able to meet a guy in New York who satisfied all her criteria.

In a strange way, Ronnie reminded him of Megan. She was an oddball, a freethinker, and stubbornly independent, too. On the surface, she was unlike anyone he could ever imagine finding attractive, but… her dad was great, her brother was a hoot, and she was just about as smart and caring as anyone he’d ever met. Who else would camp out all night to protect a turtle nest? Who else would stop a fight to help a little kid? Who else read Tolstoy in her spare time?

And who else, at least in this town, would fall for Will before knowing anything about his family?