Evan had always loved the ocean. It was the only thing that ever made sense to him—vast, unpredictable, impossible to own. Violence and calm in the same breath. He’d grown up in the water and never felt quite right being away from it. Distance from the sea left him off-balance, like some part of him had been left behind on the sand—barefoot, sun-dazed, still watching the waves roll in.
Barty used to joke that you could take the man out of SoCal, but you couldn’t take SoCal out of the man. A throwaway line, something he said whenever Evan complained about the New York cold or got defensive about tacos. But beneath the teasing, Evan had always suspected he was right. The truth was, Evan had never really belonged in New York. Not the way Reg did. Not the way Barty did.
Regulus fit the city like he’d been built for it—especially Brooklyn. He thrived on overpriced coffee and obscure bookstores, talked philosophy with his revolving cast of friends (all of whom wore black and owned, in Evan’s opinion, an unreasonable number of turtlenecks). He made belonging look easy, like becoming a New Yorker was just something that happened to people who knew how to lean into the noise.
And Barty—Barty was the city personified. Sharp smile, black jeans, combat boots, attitude. Evan had tried. Through college, and after, he kept telling himself he could make it work. In hindsight, it was a metaphor for everything else—because much like New York, he’d tried with Barty. Again and again. He’d wanted Barty to be it, to be home. But, like New York, try as he might, he couldn’t make a home where he didn’t fit.
The streets pressed in too close, the air too thick. His skin itched for open space—for horizon, for the sound of water. He told himself he couldn’t leave; his career was there, his friends, his life. But really, he was waiting. Waiting for Barty to change his mind. Waiting for him to want what Evan wanted.
But he didn’t. So Evan left.
He did it the way he did most things: with absolution. One night he walked into his apartment—the one Barty had chosen, all exposed brick and minimal décor Evan had always secretly hated—and snapped. He decided he was done. Done with New York. Done waiting for it to feel like home. Done waiting for Barty. He called a guy from school, Rodger McNair. Not quite a friend, but friendly. McNair had gone west after graduation. By the time Evan hung up, he had an agent’s number. He called her the next morning. The conversation went in his favor; his portfolio was strong for someone just twenty-five. By the end of the call, he had a meeting. Within forty-eight hours, he’d given notice on the apartment and sold everything worth selling. The rest he dumped on the steps of a closed Goodwill.
A day later, he was on a flight to LAX.
By the end of the week, he had representation.
Coming back to Palos Verdes Estates feels like retreat. Like admitting they’d all been right—his stepfather, his mother—that he hadn’t been good enough to make it in New York.
The thing was, he had made it. At least on paper. His career was solid, built out of stubbornness and spite. He’d proved them wrong—just long enough to realize he hated every second of it. Hated New York. Hated the person the city had turned him into. Hated it even more than the person he’d been in California, which was saying something.
So yeah, coming back feels like losing in some ways. Losing the fantasy that New York would make him. Change him into someone he liked. Someone that fit in. Someone who had a place in the world. Coming back was resigning himself to the bitter truth that none of that was real, that he was still just him. It felt like defeat. But standing on the beach again, hearing the crash of the waves, salt thick in the air, sun warm on his skin—that feels like coming home.
The house is empty. His mom and stepdad are somewhere in Europe—Italy, he thinks, though he’s not entirely sure—and the silence, at least, is a small mercy. Dora isn’t there either. She’d stayed in Miami after school, working in media—or something adjacent to it. From what Evan can tell, most of her job involves getting paid to go to parties and schmoozing it up with B-list celebrities over expensive dinners.
Evan hasn’t been back to California since he left for college at eighteen—seven years ago now—and it feels somehow like both a lifetime ago and only days. The ghost of his eighteen-year-old self walks behind him through the house as memories surface like driftwood. He drifts through the rooms like a stranger. The furniture has changed; his mother’s constant urge to redecorate persistent as ever. Evan wonders how many iterations the house has been through since he left. Ten? Fifteen? The only thing that’s the same is the smell of salt that clings to the window frames, the furniture, the very stone of the house. That is the same.
From the balcony of his old room, he can see straight into the Blacks’ backyard. They’ve renovated since he left—ripped out the tennis court and installed a garish, light-up water feature that cycles through colors at night. It’s painfully tacky, the shifting lights garish against the darkening sky. Evan watches it go from cherry red to electric blue, then green, orange, and yellow in the fading light.
In the morning, Evan walks through the backyard toward the side gate linking the Rosier property to the Blacks’. The keypad’s still there, tucked into the ivy-covered post, and his fingers punch in the code before he even thinks about it. Muscle memory. He still knows it by heart.
As the gate swings open, he spots Will—lounging on a sunbed by the pool, legs stretched, bikini minimal. Her body, sculpted by some of LA’s most exclusive surgeons, looks like it belongs to someone twenty years younger. She’s holding a mimosa, oversized sunglasses perched on her face, a glossy magazine open across her lap.
Evan lifts a hand in greeting. She raises her mimosa in return.
“Ev, darling!” she calls, her voice carrying.
Evan jogs over, stands looking down at her as she beams up at him—or tries to. The upper half of her face barely moves, frozen smooth by an overzealous hand with the Botox.
“My God, you’ve grown up.”
Evan shrugs. “Tried to avoid it.”
She lets out a delighted little laugh. “How’s my favorite boy?”
Evan smiles. “He’s good. New York suits him. Said he might come down for a few weeks this summer.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.” She waves a manicured hand. “Never have children, Evan dear. You give them your best years, and then they fly off and leave you for New York,” she sniffs dramatically. “What do I get? One visit a year if I’m lucky.”
“Sirius around?” Evan asks, choosing not to comment on that particular piece of life advice.
“No—he’s in Santa Monica these days,” she replies, taking a sip of her drink.
Evan nods, a flicker of disappointment tightening in his chest.
Will must catch something in his expression, because her lips twitch at the corners. “He keeps a few boards in the small garage. Spare key’s under the Monstera pot,” she says, sliding her sunglasses back into place. “Help yourself.” Her nose wrinkles slightly, like she’s smelled something bad. “Everyone else does.”
Evan raises an eyebrow, but she’s already turned back to her magazine—and he’s been dismissed in favor of Vogue. He heads for the smaller of the two garages, wondering vaguely who everyone else was. Then he shrugs it off, crouches to retrieve the spare key from beneath the Monstera pot, and slides up the side door. The garage groans in protest, metal shivering in the morning heat. Inside, the air is sharp with salt and wax and sun-dried neoprene. A half dozen surfboards lean in a haphazard row along the back wall.
Sirius’s sparrow, a twin fin, a longboard too, and a fish. All high-gloss shapes with metallic fins.
There are three more boards stacked further in—older, less flashy. Well-waxed, rails patched. Not neglected, just used. Familiar to someone’s hands. Loved. One of them has a stenciled cityscape across the tail—cranes and high-rises in black and orange, the sunset over the San Pedro docks. A mix of gothic and industrial. It’s cool. Really cool. Evan steps forward to inspect it, runs a hand over the design. Not Sirius’s. No chance. Not his style. Everyone else’s, then.
Evan turns back to Sirius’s boards. He’d sold all his own gear when he left—boards, wetsuits, even his kite—all gone in one Craigslist purge. Told himself it was maturity. The start of his new life. New York had no waves, no salt on the skin. Just a city that never slept—stifling in summer, frozen in winter. So why keep them? He hadn’t realized then how much he’d miss it. How soon he’d start dreaming of the pull of the tide, the snap of the drop, the water rising around him like a second skin. He hadn’t realized how much of himself he’d left behind. A severed limb. Like walking around with a part of him missing. He hasn’t touched a board in almost six years. If he had any sense, he’d take the longboard—ease himself back in. Glide.
But he doesn’t.
Evan might look like the sensible one from the outside, steady—especially next to Reg’s intensity—but that wasn’t real. If you looked a little harder, you’d see that beneath the still, glassy surface there was a riptide. He’d always been the biggest risk-taker of the two of them. The first one in when the swell turned. The first to paddle out past the breaks when Sirius wasn’t looking, just to see what was out there. The one who couldn’t resist the pull of a storm rolling in over the horizon.
So of course he reaches for the shortboard.
Back in his own parents’ garage, the car situation is not ideal. Evan doesn’t have one—not anymore. People don’t drive in New York. He’s got three options before him: his mother’s Porsche, his stepfather’s over-polished black G-Wagon, or Dora’s horrid excuse for a truck.
The Porsche’s out—he’s not about to try to wedge a surfboard into the back of that thing. The G-Wagon is the least offensive, apart from the fact it belongs to his stepfather. Evan eyes it with the same distaste its owner inspires and decides—perhaps a little pettily—that he’ll take Dora’s monstrosity of a truck.
He heads back inside the house and grabs the keys. Dora’s truck is a fire-engine-red soft-top Wrangler with custom white leather interior. It’s the kind of car a twelve-year-old boy—or a man having a midlife crisis—would choose. It’s ghastly. But it smells like Dora, like coconut lip gloss, sunscreen, and bubblegum ice cream, and that makes Evan smile. Makes him feel like she’s not four states away, makes him feel a bit less alone. He tosses the shortboard in the back, drops the roof, and heads out. The wind feels good. The sun’s already burning through the marine layer, the sky that washed-out blue that only exists near the ocean. He drives south, hugging the cliffs along Palos Verdes Drive, then dips down toward San Pedro—past the lighthouse, past the crumbling fences around Sunken City, past rows of bleached-out bungalows and forgotten liquor stores.
Everything looks smaller than he remembers. Older.
But the coastline? The coastline hasn’t changed.
He pulls into a turnout near Royal Palms, gravel crunching beneath the tires, and parks with a view of the break. It’s Monday, but the beach is still busy—locals mostly, black dots rising and falling in the swell.
He sits in the car for a minute, watching.
The surf is decent—clean, consistent—and some of the riders out there are good. Really good. He watches one guy carve down the face of a wave with effortless grace, cutting hard into the pocket before vanishing behind a curtain of spray.
He grabs the board from the Wrangler and heads straight for the water.
The smell of salt hits him hard—brine and kelp and sun-warmed sand—and it’s like waking up. He ducks under the first wave, the cold biting through his wetsuit, and comes up grinning so wide it aches. He paddles out, muscles remembering without trying. Turns the board, straddles it, scans the horizon. There’s a decent set building—long lines rolling in from the southwest.
He breathes deep. Exhales slow. The kind of breath you don’t know you’ve been holding. And then he’s moving—arms pulling, board tilting, wave catching—and it’s better than the dreams. Sharper. Brighter. Real.
For a few glorious minutes, he’s flying.
Until he wipes out.
The drop is sudden and graceless, a whitewater tumble that knocks the breath from his lungs and spins him like driftwood. But when he breaks the surface, coughing, hair plastered to his forehead, he’s laughing. Salt in his mouth, sun in his eyes, heart racing. It’s humbling—but wicked, too. Wild in the best way. He spins the board around, paddling straight back out into the break.
That night, Evan stands at the edge of the garden, where the manicured lawn gives way to the cliffside. Below him, the Pacific stretches out—dark, endless. The water catches faint reflections from the house behind, a shimmer of light across the black expanse. He takes a sip from his beer and thinks about New York and the life he’d left behind.
From the outside, New York looked like a success story. In his third year at NCU, he’d won a screenwriting competition. The script—heavily revised, sure—got picked up. Made it to Sundance. That alone would’ve been enough to coast on, but he’d graduated with actual offers. From real studios. That didn’t happen. Not in his field. Not often. He’d ended up staffed on a major network crime show—lowest rung in the room, youngest by half a decade, but credited. It wasn’t what he’d set out to do. He’d gone into film chasing the dream of directing, but it turned out he was better with words than he’d expected. Or maybe just better at turning them into something people wanted. It was unexpected. Writing was meant to be Reg’s thing—Reg the poet, Reg the philosopher, Reg the wordsmith. Reg who’d studied creative writing, and Evan who had always been the visual one, more action than dialogue. And yet somehow, the roles had reversed. Reg was working in the visual arts now—a small, pretentious independent gallery that suited him so well it was actually painful—and Evan was the one writing.
Evan still thinks he’d rather direct. Thinks maybe he’ll take another shot at it. Maybe LA will be kinder than New York was. Maybe. He looks out over the water, shoulders hunched against the wind. He likes working in film—likes writing, most days—even if it’s not the great love he thought it would be. It’s funny, that. He’d always loved movies, thought making them would light him on fire, but it hadn’t. Not really. Maybe what he loved was the escape. Still, he enjoys it enough. There’s satisfaction in it—in shaping a scene, in hearing his words spoken back on screen. He likes telling stories. And maybe that’s enough.
He watches the tide pulse in the darkness, feels the calm it brings.
Evan loves the ocean. Always has.
Standing there now, salt in the air and the tide murmuring below, he thinks he probably loves it more than anything—or anyone—he’s ever loved. Maybe that’s the only thing he’s sure of, the only thing that feels solid. Something he can trust. He’d known it the moment he saw the water glittering through the taxi window. Maybe it’s a stupid thing to build a life around, but he thinks New York might have been manageable if he’d just been able to hear the waves.
Most things, he decides, are easier to survive when you’re close to the sea. And maybe it’s okay that he hasn’t figured the rest out yet—but this much he knows for certain: he never wants to live more than twenty minutes from the beach again.