“You’re a bitch for keeping this from me for a year and a fucking half,” she said, wrapping her arm around my shoulders.
“You’re a bitch for figuring it out,” I laugh-sniffled.
“You’re a bitch for making me beat it out of you,” she said.
Matt came up behind us and folded us into a hug. “Every time,” he muttered. “Every time you two go out, you get sloppy drunk and run a bar tab the length of my arm.”
“I totally thought you were going to say cock,” Lauren giggled. “It’s not your arm, but it’s still pretty long.”
“Your mouth, Mrs. Walsh,” he whispered. “Still shocks me.”
“You’re a bitch for talking about my brother’s junk all the time,” I yelled.
“Says the girl with the broken vag,” Lauren said, smirking at me. “See? You’re already getting me back for it.”
*
San Diego wasBoston’s opposite in every way. Where San Diego was sunny and bright, Boston in November was routinely gray. Everything here glistened and shined with newness, and my life back home was dedicated to preserving things that counted their age in centuries. The Pacific was a serene, sparkling sapphire when we touched down at the airport, nothing like the choppy, blue-green of the Atlantic. Despite the drought, bougainvillea vines edged the freeway, and there wasn’t a barren tree in sight.
Just as Boston was all mine, San Diego was Will’s, and I could have scooped a cupful of his happiness right off him the minute we stepped into the terminal. The entire cab ride from the airport was filled with half-complete stories about friends, beaches, high school, and SEAL training, each one piling on top of the other as he interrupted himself with a new memory.
“So you’re serious about staying at your parents’ house?” I said when we stopped in front of a classic bungalow in Coronado Village, complete with a white picket fence, Spanish tiles, and overflowing hibiscus bushes.
“They’re on a freaking safari until the new year,” he said, hauling our luggage to the curb. “If they weren’t too busy petting giraffes for Judy’s blog, they’d tell you that they want us to stay here.”
“Yeah, and you technically live here,” I added.
“I haven’t been in one place for more than a few weeks since…since I was in college, Shannon. There’s no reason for me to move out. I believe you’d classify that as unjustifiable expenditure.”
“Yeah, but…” I gestured to the American flag waving in the light breeze. “It’s your parents’ house. We’re in our mid-thirties. People in their mid-thirties don’t shack up at their parents’ houses.”
“People in their mid-thirties don’t wing limes at each other either,” he muttered. He produced a set of keys from deep inside his backpack, and unlocked the front door.
I ducked under his arm and into the house. “Would you just let it go?”
The sun-washed walls were pale yellow with bright white moldings, and there was no missing the nautical theme. Seashells, sand dollars, starfish, anchors, ship’s wheels…everywhere, but it was homey and wonderful and I loved it. An entire wall in the family room was arranged in a mosaic of photographs starting with Will, Wes, and Lauren as babies and fanning out to their college and military graduations. The white and navy kitchen opened up to a small patio overflowing with squat trees, vines and flowers, and a babbling terra cotta fountain.
I was staring at one of the trees when Will found me. “I don’t get it,” I said, pointing at the fruit.
He wrapped his arms around my waist and dropped his chin to my shoulder. “It’s a fruit salad tree. Lemons, limes, and grapefruit, but don’t get any ideas.”
“That’s amazing,” I said.
Will’s lips traveled up my neck and my eyes drifted shut as I melted into him. “Amazing would be getting you naked right now,” he whispered, “and keeping you naked until it’s dark, and then coming out here and fucking you under the stars.”
“That might also be amazing,” I said. “But I’m still taking a picture of that tree before I leave.”
Will hauled me up, slapped my ass, and marched through the house. “Some people come to California and admire the beaches and ocean. My girl wants to photograph a fucking fruit tree.”
He stopped inside a bedroom painted blue-gray, and sent me flying through the air. I shouldn’t have been surprised that he threw me on the bed; picking me up and tossing me about was as routine to him as putting his jeans on one leg at a time.
“Such a meathead,” I murmured.
Will laughed as he crawled up and tucked me into his side. With my head on his chest, I studied his room. It was simple and neat, and seemed to function more as a guest room than shrine to Will’s formative years.
“I want to take you to the beach. I’ll catch some waves and you’ll decide you can’t live without me and the Pacific Ocean,” he said.
“It’s a package deal? You and the ocean? I can’t have one without the other?”
