Nobody knocked on my door at nine in the morning on my one morning off. It was supposed to be just coffee and cartoons. I looked forward to the lazy mornings when they didn’t have to be rushed out the door and Becca wasn’t rushing around.
River looked up from the sofa like she wasn’t sure she actually heard it.
I opened the door to find Colt Anderson glaring at me. Little rude. He was wearing a blue shirt that was clinging to his body. I hated that I noticed. He’d been running again. But clearly his run wasn’t very relaxing. His jaw was clenched and his eyes said it all. He was pissed. At me. I didn’t know what I did. I was still on my first cup of coffee. Little early to be out pissing off the world.
“Colt.”
“Summer.”
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
“Who pissed in your Wheaties?” I asked.
“I don’t eat cereal.”
“That tracks. You seem like someone who eats steel-cut oats with no sugar. No—yogurt. Definitely a yogurt guy. With a greensmoothie. The kind that tastes like someone mowed their lawn and tossed it in their blender.”
“Summer.” He said my name like a warning. He was not in the mood for humor.
“Do you need to borrow a cup of sugar or what? Why are you darkening my door so early?”
“My port site was trashed this morning,” he said. “Actually trashed. Spray paint. Vandalism.”
“More poop?”
“Poop can be cleaned up. This is different. This is destructive.” He was looking at me like he was waiting for me to confess.
I straightened up. “I hope you’re not standing on my porch implying thatIhad something to do with that.”
He stared back at me. I glared, folding my arms across my chest and tapping my foot. If he was going to accuse me of a crime, I was going to make him say it.
“No,” he said finally. “I don’t think it was you.”
“Great.”
“But I think you might know who it was.”
“I don’t.”
“Summer, this is serious. The man that’s running this business is not happy. He’s getting the police involved. I’m worried someone is going to get in real trouble. If you know who they are, you need to tell them to stop.”
“I don’t know anything and if you keep accusing me, you’re going to be cleaning up a lot more than dog shit.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.”
“Look, I’m giving you the heads-up and maybe you can talk to the few people that are being the loudest,” he said. “I know you’ve heard things. Bodhi knew about the project, which means others knew.”
“Colt, I’m going to be honest with you.” I kept my voice even, trying not to take offense to his insinuations I had anything to do with what was happening. “I haven’t talked to a single person in this town who wants that port. Not one. So your suspect list is basically every person who lives here, and that’s not me being difficult. That’s just the truth. It isn’t a few people. Bodhi is just the one that had the guts to say it to your face.”
He exhaled through his nose. “If people actually understood what this project does for a town like Surfside?—”
“Oh, here we go. Please, pitch me. That’s exactly what I want to hear this morning.”
“We’ll be bringing in new clientele. More customers. More money. Exposure that will bring people in.”
