My eyes travelled over my bookshelf, mounted on the wall of my bedroom. I'd slept in again, something I was making an unwanted habit of.

I'd always loved adventure novels. Stories with a purpose, a quest, a prophecy to fulfil. Books that play with my imagination and took me away to a place far more interesting than my day to day life. Even if the main character was ordinary or boring, something always happened that made them someone special, someone worth reading about. 

Thinking about it, that was kind of like me this summer. But instead of a whirlwind adventure or magical journey, Alastair had turned up at the ice-creamery and wanted to make friends with me and the people I'd grown up with. From there, so much had changed in my life, and I hadn't even realised my walls breaking away like tiny grains of sand falling between my fingertips.

By the end of each summer, I honestly began feeling a physical repulsion to the colour sky blue. Today, as my eyes kept catching the glare from my slip-on shoes in the bright morning sun, I couldn't help wincing. I reminded myself to suggest a colour change to Susan for next year.

Sandy Cove was growing less and less populated by the day. Tourists were retreating home for the oncoming months of autumn, and people weren't travelling to the seaside with the gradual decline in temperature. The water was growing colder, and the pristine, sunny days fewer.

I was working with Susan, her hands nimbly unwrapped a packet of wafer cones and stacked them onto the stand.

"You must visit the Blue Mountains when you're living over there. At least make a day of it," she said, talking about my moving to Sydney for the year. Ever since she'd found out I'd be moving, she had been telling me tales and recommending places to visit. She had studied there herself. "Marvin actually took me there on a date once."

I looked at her as she gazed into the vanilla ice-cream dreamily. "You met him at university?"

She nodded. "He'd had the audacity to doubt my skills in business, so I decided to prove him wrong. We were both head over heels from there."

"That's really sweet," I said. Marvin, Susan's husband, had passed away several years ago. I didn't remember him much, but everyone at Sandy Cove seemed to adore him.

"University's a great experience, you know," Susan continued. "Not just for boys, but making something new of yourself. Starting afresh."

"Starting afresh sounds like a great idea," I mused. It seemed that there wasn't many relationships I had left here that hadn't been tarnished in the last few weeks.

"But don't forget your friends back home," she lectured.

"Of course," I said quietly. Those that I had left. Thinking about Maisie made my heart throb in desperation. Time was ticking, the summer was ending.

She plagued my thoughts throughout my shift. So when I heard the familiar, tell-tale noise of two little boys who I'd come to know very well, my hopes rose through the roof.

Maisie's two little brothers were pointing animatedly through the window of the ice-cream display, their chubby faces in awe as they described in detail their thoughts on each flavour.

"Oh, Valerie," Joy's voice spoke behind them. As if on cue, I inhaled the jasmine scent as I saw her kind, gentle face. "How are you going, dear?"

My hands were frozen around a metal scoop. Beside me, Susan shot me a knowing look and finished serving the customer I had been tending to. "I've, uh, been okay. How's Maisie?"

Her eyebrows furrowed in concern. "Not good."

"Can we have two double-chocolate rainbow ice-creams, Valerie?" One of Maisie's brothers (possibly Sam, it was hard to tell the difference between them) asked loudly.

Joy gave me an apologetic look as I got to work on their ice-creams. I looked at her hopefully. "I've been trying to get a hold of her, I've been so worried."

"I think she's been trying to isolate herself," Joy sighed sadly. "She's not handling it well, hardly eating anything. They were together so long, I think it's just so hard on her, and she's pushing all of us away."

I nodded along, my worry for Maisie increasing by the second. "Do you think... do you think she will want to see me? Before we go away?"

Joy looked sympathetic. "She has this idea at the moment that if she refuses to leave her bedroom before university starts, she doesn't have to worry about fixing anything. She keeps saying she's been a terrible friend to you, but she's not doing anything to mend it."

I exhaled slowly. "I just wish I could see her and knock some sense into her."

She laughed a little, and fished around in her flower-printed hand bag for some change for the boys' ice-creams. "How about you come around tomorrow. I'll be at work and the boy's are back at school, so you can just let yourself in. I think just seeing someone else for a change could help a lot. Besides, it's Valentine's Day. It'll probably be tough for her."

I hadn't realised it was Valentine's Day tomorrow, a day I always considered a terribly unnecessary and sickening occasion. I smiled gratefully. "I'd really like that."

"I hope you can get through to her. Things just aren't right at the moment, and they won't be until you two have things sorted again."

"Thanks, Joy," I said sincerely as I gave each of the boy's their ice-cream cones.

The prospect of seeing Maisie cheered me up a little, and after my shift I stopped back home to change out of the ghastly colour choice, into some shorts and a shirt with a bikini underneath just in case. 

I was going to go to Alastair's. Since his return on my front doorstep I hadn't seen him at all, and each time I thought about him I felt guilty, because of how much I missed him when he was at his Aunts. And how rude I was when I spoke to him last. Now, I felt like I needed to at least make an effort.

His street was deserted, the expensive cars that had been in the fancy neighbouring houses were gone, their owners no doubt returned to their luxurious lives. Still, I could see movement behind the huge windows of the Sullivan house, which put the worry that had been etching into me at bay. For a moment, I was scared that they'd left.

I awkwardly rang the doorbell, completely unsure of the reception I'd receive. I hadn't even cast a thought to the probability it wouldn't be him answering the door though.

"Oh, hello, Valerie," Therese said cautiously. Clearly I'd caught her off guard. She was dressed in slacks and a knitted jumper, which was definitely needed for the low temperature of their home. They must have had the air conditioning set at ten degrees.

"Hi, Mrs Sullivan," I said to her. "Sorry for interrupting."

She gave me a tight smile. "Are you here for Alastair?"

"Err, yeah-"

"Mum, who's that?" Lottie's voice echoed from inside.

Therese turned away from me. "Valerie, she just popped by."

"Oh." Lottie appeared in the doorway beside her mother, both sharing the same bemused look on their faces. "He's out on a run."

He runs? I thought, but I didn't dare say out aloud. 

"Ah, okay," Therese said. "You're welcome to come in and wait if you like."

"Um, thanks," I said.

Lottie gave me a knowing look before she sauntered her way upstairs where she must have been before. Therese shut the door behind us.

"Would you like a cup of tea?"

I was about to object when Therese led me to the kitchen and turned the kettle on without waiting for a response. Maybe tea was the right thing to do, they were English after all. 

"I think Charlotte is watching a class online at the moment," she said. "And Alastair has been keeping busy. They're both sulky about leaving here, but you should have seen the fuss they'd made when I said we were coming in the first place."

"I guess Sandy Cove has a way of impressing," I suggested gingerly. 

"That must be it." She placed two mugs on the counter top. "Milk and sugar?"

"Yes please."

"You know," she said as she assembled each mug with tea bags and raw sugar. "I think Alastair will do really well being based in London."

This surprised me, with how reserved Therese seemed, it was odd that she was talking about Alastair's schooling with me. And in a way that wasn't completely negative. "He seems happy with the change."

"Of course he would be. Clearly he hated his last university," she snorted in a very un-ladylike manner. "But I just hope he doesn't lose focus."

"Lose focus?"

Her eyes flitted up to me, their jade colour reminding me very much of her son. "I don't mind him pining for someone on the other side of the word, Valerie, maybe it would set him straight for a while. But if it's enough to detract him from his studies... it would be very detrimental to his future."

I realised exactly what she was saying. She was worried about Alastair's interest in me, and my influence on him, not that it was anywhere near as severe as she thought. She was trying to manipulate me, to make sure he followed her plans perfectly. I swallowed, ordering my response carefully. "I think we both want the best for Alastair."

"I'm glad we're on the same page then." She wandered around the kitchen, placing things away. She might have taken my hesitation for my deciding to minimise my influence on Alastair's life. Maybe I should have decided that. But her controlling only made me want to stick by Alastair more.

As if our conversation had triggered him, the front door opened. His skin was coated in a sheen of sweat, his hair plastered damply out of his face. He saw me, his chest rising to a fast rhythm, his eyes boring into mine even from across the marble lobby.

"Ah, Alastair. Miss O'Conner stopped by," Therese said.

"Hi there, Miss O'Conner," he mocked, kicking his shoes off, to his mother's obvious distaste.

"Hi." Seriously, his shoulders in the sports shirt he was wearing made my knees annoyingly weak.

"Mum!" A voice suddenly echoed from upstairs. "Can you come here a minute?"

Therese sighed in annoyance, before circling behind my chair and heading to the stairwell. "Sorry about your tea, dear, I'll be back in a moment to make it."

"Mother, I'm sure Valerie didn't come here for tea with you," Alastair sighed.

Therese shot Alastair a venomous look before ascending the stairs, in a way similar to the classy strut Lottie had managed.

"Hey, Val," he said, properly this time.

"Hi, Alastair."

He made his way into the kitchen, and I was sure it was his sweat that made the hormones in the room seem almost visible. His scent was so sharp, his skin so flushed that I was acutely aware of the space between us feeling small, even though he was a handful of metres away.

He caught me looking at him, and I blushed instantly. He tugged at his sweaty shirt. "You want a hug?"

"Gross," I said. But he made his way over to me anyway and greeted me with a sweaty hug. It wasn't exactly unpleasant, in fact, it was completely overwhelming, but I think he realised the contact between us was much more intimate than he intended. Maybe that was because of the way we'd left things when he went to his Aunts, or something between us shifting, but it was an unignorable presence.

"Sorry," he said automatically as we each pulled away. "That was, uh..."

"Disgusting?" I suggested, trying to simmer away some of the tension between us.

"Completely." He opened the fridge and pulled out a large bottle of water.

"I didn't know you ran," I noted.

"It's a good way to clear my mind when it's cluttered," he said absent mindedly.

"It's cluttered?"

He gave me a weird look, and I decided not to press further on his cluttered mind, in the worry of approaching uncomfortable subjects.  After gulping down a few mouthfuls of water he spoke."Do you want to hang out?"

"Yeah, sure," I said. 

"Well, I've been keen to go for a surf again. It would be nice to go, you know, before we leave."

"Oh, yeah," I said, weirdly uncomfortable at his mention of leaving. It wasn't something we often addressed. "We can go back to my house and grab the boards if you want."

"It might be a good way of cleaning off," he joked. His grin was electrifying, and I then knew what it meant when people said a smile could light up a room.

He went upstairs to change, and to my luck his mother didn't return, the tea possibly forgotten. Maybe Lottie had intended that, I recalled the conversation we'd had in her car when she was oddly insistent on Alastair and I acting like a couple towards his parents. Maybe she was trying to suggest thatfurther by getting us alone together.

Therese came down stairs to say goodbye and apologise for not making the tea just as Alastair was guiding me to the door. I found it unnerving how kind she was acting, considering how intimidating I'd found her previously.

"So how was Sandy Cove without the Sullivans?" Alastair asked as we made our way down my street.

"Hmm," I thought aloud, stroking my chin. "Normal."

"Normal?" he said, looking mock offended.

"It was boring," I told him sincerely. I didn't tell him how lonely I'd felt, or how much I struggled without him there to guide me.

"Thought so," he laughed. "Well, I have to say, my Auntie B's house was hardly that entertaining. Lottie was snarky the whole time, and my parents just kept going on about my university and new hotels they can open this year."

"Is one coming to Sandy Cove?" 

He laughed again, and the sound made me feel as if I'd been homesick, and I'd finally been cured. "Maybe in a few years. The town is expanding, you know, there's more people moving here, and its population is estimated to double in the next five years."

"You've done some research," I noted, thinking of my quiet little town climbing in popularity. I wasn't sure how that made me feel.

"I was bored." He shrugged. We were at my house, and I let us into the front door. My board was in my room, while my Dad's was out under the back veranda. "Well, until Maisie came to visit."

I froze. "Maisie what?"

He looked confused. "I thought you'd have known, she came and spent a few nights with Lottie."

My chest stung with rejection, and exclusion. She'd confided in someone other than me, and I was even a little jealous that she spent time with the Sullivan's, when I'd been stuck here missing both her and Alastair.

"She was upset because of the break up, I figured you would have been there if it wasn't for work and stuff."

"We're not talking," I said slowly. 

"What? Why? I swear you guys are inseparable."

"I thought that too."

We were in my bedroom now, and I stepped into the small space between my bed and my wardrobe to retrieve my board. I wanted to change the subject, to digest this new piece of information before I asked more questions. "I got into Sydney."

"What?" Alastair said, his mouth arced in a smile that was genuinely surprised. "I didn't know you applied?"

I felt a little proud of myself at his reaction. "Some guy told me he thought I was determined."

"Val, that's fantastic," he said. "Really."

"Part of me did it because of Dad. I swear he's changed so much over the past few weeks, since he introduced me to Penny."

"The woman who he was seeing when you stayed at mine?" he asked. Then he seemed to grow a little uncomfortable, maybe because of the mention of us sleeping in his bedroom. Yes, things had definitely shifted between us since our conversation at the bench.

"Yeah," I said, diverting my attention to tracing the pattern Maisie had designed for my surf board.

"Well, I'm glad you did it for yourself," he said. "Maybe we'll both be getting fresh starts."

I wondered if those fresh starts involved cutting each other out of our lives. I would understand if he didn't want to talk to me after this summer, especially if he admitted his feelings for me, and I was still clawing myself into his numbered days here. It was etched into my mind like a tattoo, injecting guilt into my system. Don't lead him on. Don't bring up Logan, or topics that centre anywhere towards love.

The space between us in my tiny bedroom suddenly felt suffocating, and I felt as if we didn't leave then I'd explode with tension.

"Do you think that Noah and Logan will be down already?" Alastair asked as I led us out of my back door to retrieve my dad's board.

I didn't think about that. The awkwardness that would exist between Logan, Alastair and I would be unbearable. "I don't think so, they usually go in the morning, and it's pretty late in the afternoon."

"That's probably a good thing then," he said. "You know, to prevent any awkward encounters."

"You're probably right," I said, averting my eyes from his.

We took our boards down the steps and onto the beach. As I'd suspected, the surf was empty, save for a few kids boogie boarding in the shallows.

"Let's see if you can keep your reputation of a fast learner," I challenged Alastair, craning my neck to see the waves, which were much rougher than the last time we'd surfed.

"I don't know if you can classify me as a learner, maybe more of a pro."

I laughed, and we tied our towels around the hand rail before running to the water and letting the water play with our ankles, our boards slapping onto the rolling waves as we threw them aside.

After submerging our bodies in the water, we paddled out a little further than we did last time so we could sit on our boards and float over each oncoming wave peacefully.

"So how was your Aunties?" I asked. "You were gone for a week or so, you must have gotten up to something."

"It was unbearable," he said. "My mother and my Auntie together are terrifying. There's lots of wine and planning. And Auntie Beatrice is crazy at the moment. One day I swear she's normal, next she's plotting to end the male species."

I snorted. "Well, she's going through a divorce, right? It's got to be tough."

"Yeah, but it's like, her fourth divorce."

"Fourth?"

"Yep. And I wouldn't even be surprised if it's not her last."

"So you could be travelling back to Sandy Cove then?" I joked.

"I don't know," he chuckled. "This towns hardly very interesting."

"Oh come on, not even with me here?" I'd meant it as light teasing, but I realised how flirty I was beginning to sound. Was that too far?

He smiled tightly, but didn't respond. "I'm going to catch this wave in."

"I'll be watching," I assured him.

He lost his balance as the wave broke around him, the afternoon sun shone through the wave which allowed me to watch his silhouette as it fell forward. For a moment, I worried he wasn't coming up, but I was reassured when I saw his head pop back out of the water.

"You're a pro, eh?"

"Shut up," he laughed, shaking his head from side to side, causing crystal droplets to be thrown around.

I turned my gaze back to the horizon, the waves looking like enormous ripples that stretched on for infinity before me. "I'm going to miss this beach."

"Me too."

A nice looking wave appeared and I maneuvered my position so I was able to catch it. My body moved as one with the board, calving through the slope of crystal water as it carried me along with its trajectory. Unlike Alastair, I maintained my balance.

When I paddled back out to where we'd been residing, he was laying on his back, flat against his board, his arms stretched above his head. His eyes were closed as he glided over the waves, and I couldn't prevent my eyes from sweeping adoringly over the muscles of his body. He wasn't buffed out like Logan, but he carried what I thought was a grace. No, something more. Only to myself, and never aloud, I'd define it as sexy.

"So what happened with you and Logan? Like, he found out about the deal we made."

I jumped a little, not realising that he was aware of my presence. "He was pissed. And you didn't even see the awesome wave I just caught."

"I saw it. And how do you feel about it?" He sat up so he was in a sitting position again, and I tried to diffuse some of the heat I felt by focusing on the cool salty water around my legs.

I hesitated, unsure of how far I should go. Then I realised, it was Alastair I was here with. I felt like I could tell him anything. "I feel terrible."

"About the deal?"

"Yeah. He was really upset, Alastair."

"You do know that you didn't really do anything wrong, right?"

I shook my head. "I played with his feelings, I didn't consider him at all."

"In what? You tried something new Valerie, you opened up. You weren't pretending, and I know you. You didn't intend to hurt him."

"Well, he was hurt."

"Was he hurt or his ego, because another guy was a part of getting you guys together?"

"Probably both."

Alastair sighed. "Look, Val, I don't want you to be hung up on it. He was a dick to you so many times, through his friends and directly, and you were never mad enough to end it for good. Then he finds out about a little deal- which had nothing to do with him personally- and he calls it off? I think it really was for the best."

"You've been thinking about this too," I noted. "I think part of me really was trying. I knew I couldn't trust him with what he would say to his friends, but I wasn't used to any of it Alastair. It felt so real."

"It was real, it just wasn't right," he said. "Well, I'm not really the one to say that, that's your opinion. I just worry that you're beating yourself up about it, when it was his fault too."

"Thanks," I said quietly. Something was still bugging me, though. "I still don't know who told him. I don't even know how much he knows, just that it was enough to make him so damn angry at me."

"You don't suspect anyone?"

"I just can't work it out. I don't think Maisie would have done it, but, really she's my only lead. She was so pissed off at me that night... and I haven't told anyone else, besides you obviously."

"Maybe she told someone, not Logan, but someone who would tell him."

"Maybe."

"Anyway, let's just enjoy the surf and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist for a while."

"That sounds excellent."

AN: Ahh sorry this was so long! Please don't forget to vote if you enjoyed the chapter and comment any feedback or thoughts, I absolutely love reading them!