Chapter Text
Beach Life
July 17th, 2026
"This suit sucks," one of the students said as she pulled on the sleeve of the rubber wetsuit.
Leah chuckled. "You'll get used to it."
It was her forty-second group class since she'd started instructing scuba diving more than fourteen years prior. She preferred instructing one-on-one, but especially with kids, it always seemed to have to be done in groups.
Parents didn't want to trust their little ones with someone if they didn't know it was a class.
Being a mother herself, part of her got it, but she still found it problematic. Teaching even one brat to scuba dive at a time was hard enough... oops, she meant, one brilliant spark of life.
She'd never expected for her small business of teaching people to scuba dive to become her main means of income, but it was how it happened.
Of course, her other major mean of income – working at the garage – had ended when Jake and she had gotten a divorce almost two years ago.
Jake and she had been married for more than ten years. And in some ways, they could have lasted a lifetime. But after she'd had Kara – their youngest – almost five years ago now, her sex drive had dropped to nil.
And if Jake had been satisfied with just love and companionship than they'd probably still be married. But him, unlike her, still had a healthy sexual appetite.
Then again, she supposed if she'd been willing to let him satisfy that desire elsewhere, they'd still be married. She wouldn't be married to someone sleeping around, though... which was more than a little ironic given her past.
So she'd divorced him.
Unfortunately, their relationship had been strained since.
So she focused her efforts into her job, teaching people to be proficient scuba divers – though some simply didn't want to put in the effort that it truly took to become a good scuba diver.
And as the same kid continued to pull on the sleeve of her wetsuit, she suspected that kid was one such person.
…
Jake sat on his roll around stool for a moment as he took his break, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it up.
It was a nasty habit, and he knew it, but once he'd started in on it, he didn't seem to want to stop.
He blamed Leah.
After all, he'd only picked it up since his divorce.
Embry lowered a car on one of the hydraulic lifts, looking toward Jake once it was down. "You know, my son is over eight years old, and I've still never even gotten to meet him."
"Yeah, it sucks. But you sort of have no one to blame but yourself." He knew that was harsh as, in truth, it was hardly Embry's fault. But Jake was nervous, which meant he wasn't in the best of moods. Besides, he was tired of Embry's woe is me temperament.
Embry scowled. "There should be a warning label when it comes to the terminology of statutory rape."
He knew the story, Embry had only been sixteen when he'd slept with a girl by the name of Elena who'd moved from Neah Bay to La Push only a year before. They'd been dating for a while before they'd taken that step, and she'd been in the same grade as him – a junior in high school – so he'd believed she was the same age as him. But she'd actually been only fifteen. And after her parents found out she was pregnant, they had him charged with statutory rape.
Even though they moved away before everything was done, and before Elena had her son, he ended up being convicted. And because he'd had sex with someone under the age of consent, even though she had consented, it had been determined to be sex with a minor. Which meant he'd been put on the Sex Offenders List and kicked out of school.
More than eight years later, and it was still ruining his half-brother's life.
Quil, who'd originally wanted nothing more than to join both Jake and Embry working at the garage, had actually gone on to college instead and then had moved away.
Of course, in another year and a half, Claire would be eighteen, and though she wasn't related to Jake, he strongly suspected she'd be coming to work for him.
And, he knew, some people probably thought it was weird that almost half of his employees were women – given that it was an auto garage. But he actually found that women tended to have a more deft hand, and were generally more flexible than most men.
In fact, he currently had Bianca and Valentina – Yorkie's two oldest – working for him, and an African American woman who'd moved to town about a year prior that went by Taylor.
Taylor and he had actually been dating for the last four months.
On top of them, he had Isaac, Collin, Brady, and Embry working for him.
"I don't know what to say, Embry. I'm not exactly the person to be asking for parenting advice. I only see my oldest on the weekends, which is now split with Leah. And I only have my younger three on Tuesdays and Thursdays."
"I still don't get why you gave up a day with Ephraim and Vanessa to her, anyway. She has no relation to them."
"She's been as much a part of their life as I have. Besides, I'm only actually related to one of them."
"Don't remind me. They're twins, for gods' sake."
Jake dropped his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his foot. Did he know that it was really stupid to smoke in an auto garage? Yep. Did he care, though? Now, that was the question.
…
"Mom! What's for supper?" Sean asked.
She rolled her eyes. "I don't know. I just got home. Give me a minute to at least get my suit off."
"I told him you're making worms... Or maybe I am," Melissa grumbled.
Leah let out a startled laugh. "And why's that?"
"Because he's driving me insane. Why am I stuck babysitting, anyway?"
"You wanted the job last summer, remember?"
"I didn't realize it would be this much of a pain in the as... pin cushion."
Leah narrowed her eyes at her oldest. "Well, that wouldn't be my fault, would it?"
Kara ran over to her, stretching her arms up. "I want up!"
"You want to shower with momma. Because if I pick you up, you're going to have to."
"No! No shower!" She backed up fast.
Leah started heading to her bedroom but paused on the way. "Maybe we'll have some clams tonight. I don't know."
Truth was, she wasn't much of a cook. She could drop stuff in water, or another liquid, and that was about the extent of her skill. But she tried to make do, for the sake of her kids.
It had been easier when Jake and she had still been married, when she'd been working at the garage, because then she'd had a reasonable excuse to stop at Bella's little diner and get food for them there. But now, she almost never made it down to Forks from La Push.
She missed the easy relationship she'd had with Jake. But it was more than a little late for regrets. She should know, he'd actually gone to the trouble of letting her know his plans – a courtesy, he'd called it... She'd thought of it more as a stabbing pain.
Leah shook her head and continued to her shower.
…
Even when he'd been in fit health, he'd never been able to get around a car fast enough to open a door for the girl. And Jake hadn't been in that kind of health in almost fifteen years.
So he let Taylor get her own door as he parked on the edge of First Beach – the sun was just beginning to set as they got out.
"I don't know how anyone can ever get tired of this sight." Taylor looked out at the water. "The reds and oranges, the terracottas and yellows. It's simply amazing."
Normally, he'd grumble how it was quite easy to get tired of it, but he swallowed it down.
"Let's go for a walk." He stepped over to her, taking her hand and walking with her along one of the oldest paths he'd ever traveled.
The path took them down to the beach and past the pits where he used to make driftwood fires with Seth, past the tidal pools that he pushed Bella into when they were kids, past the giant pieces of driftwood that were good for sitting on, past the rock cropping where his dad's boat had drifted into, and past the big trees that were good to make out against. All the way to a little inlet with a huge overhanging rock, which left the area almost always in shadows.
The path held hundreds of memories, as many good as bad.
But as they reached the small inlet, the sunset casting it in the only light it ever got, he intended for it to be a place of at least one more memory.
Jake came to a stop and turned toward Taylor, pulling out a little black box as he dropped to one knee in front of her.
"Taylor Renault, will you marry me?"
Her answer. Good or bad. It would be another memory.