Turtle still did, but he never did it before he had to drive. He just had a bit of a hand-to-mouth fixation and liked to play with his joints before he smoked them.
Hopping into the passenger seat, I waved goodbye to Blake as we pulled out of the boardwalk parking lot.
Turtle alternated from glancing at Blake and his rearview as he reversed, and I grinned at him.
“She’s cute, huh?” I offered, and he grinned at me.
“She’s more than cute, bro. I wanna split that girl in half.”
“Jesus,” I snorted. “Slow down, we just got here, maybe you shouldn’t shit where we eat.”
“Who said anything about shitting? She could be wifey material. Mrs. Turtle has a nice ring to it.” He grinned as he pulled onto the main road and headed toward my new shack.
“I’m going to start calling you Rabbit instead of Turtle. You’re moving at the speed of light, bro; I have whiplash.”
His smile just widened. “I figured it was just ‘cause rabbits like to fuck a lot,” he joked, and I shook my head, laughing.
“Just get me home, you d-bag,” I muttered, suddenly glad we weren’t sharing the van anymore. The last thing I wanted to do was be up all night listening to Turtle jerk off to visions of Blake in her little red Sharkies shorts.
“Aye, aye, captain.” He winked and turned on the stereo, cranking Noah Kahan’s soft acoustic notes.
Alexa Play: Hanginaround by Counting Crows
I’d intentionally left the curtains in my new bedroom open, so when the coral and tangerine glow of the morning sun filtered in, I was up and ready to get started.
Before crashing, I spent about an hour cruising online trying to find anything I could on Leviathans, but I came up empty.
Resolving to worry about finding a coach, once I had managed to get the townsfolk to warm up to me more, I decided to spend the day working on the physical part of my training.
There was a lean-to on the side of the shack that had a bench press with a bar and two 45-lb plates. There was also a free weight rack with dumbbells, which was more than enough for the strength training part of the regiment I had sketched out over a cup of coffee and abowl of plain oatmeal.
Also, to be clear,yes,I agree oatmeal is disgusting. But it’s cheap, and it has the carbs I need for energy. So, mushy and bland as it is, I forced that shit down.
I was stretching out my quads, getting ready for some barefoot sprints in the sand (running in sand isinsanelyhard;you should try it!), when a man I’d never seen before strode right past me.
He was shirtless and in black swim trunks with a teal shortboard tucked under his arm. He was older than me. I couldn’t tellhowmuch older, but if I had to guess, I would say he was in his late thirties. His shoulders were broad, and he was at least two heads taller than I was, with biceps the size of cantaloupes.
He had a chiseled jaw covered in coarse but well-groomed stubble, and his hair was shoulder length like Turtle’s, though this man’s hair was a swirl of golds and browns.
Like me, he had some pieces that had clearly been bleached by the sun and the salt water.
The man looked exactly like every other old-timer I had seen during my beach bum career while also giving me the sense that he was completely different from anyone I had ever met.
Something about him tickled my brain, like a strange sense of familiarity. I felt like Iknewhim, or wassupposedto know him, in some weird way.
The sensation was similar to the feeling of deja vu, and I found myself wondering if I had seen his face in my dreams because I couldn’t for the life of me think of a place where I could have met this man before.
I mean, I’d surfed a lot of beaches, and the way this guy was heading for my private shoreline like the ocean owed him something told me he wasn’t a kook. So maybe I’ve seen him around..?
Wait.
That’s right… This wasMYprivate shoreline!
What the shiz? This dude just walked right by me without evenlookingin my direction!
This wasmyproperty!
Not that I had a problem having people come surf my beach, but maybe at least ask? That was reasonable?Right?
