Free Divine by B.L. Teschner

what I had to say.
    When I finished talking
he gave me a nod. “Yeah, I remember how it was,” he said.
“It's not usually like that, though; we had a weird summer.”
He reached up and gently rubbed his hand across the light brown
stubble on his face. “So, Summer, your name, does your mom like
the season so much that she named you after it?”
    “ Yep. Maybe
that's why I love the heat so much, too.”
    He laughed lightly at
my comment. “What's your full name?”
    “ Summer Ashton
Peregrine.”
    “ Ashton,”
he repeated as he looked back into the flames. “Ash; I like
that. I think I'll call you Ash if you don't mind.” He broke
his stare away from the fire and looked over at me with a warm smile.
    “ Ash works.”
I was thrilled that he cared enough to give me my own special
nickname. “What about you? What's your full name?” It was
my turn to give him his.
    “ Jonah Daniel
Brown.”
    “ Hmm,”
I pondered out loud while jokingly tapping my finger on my chin.
“Well, Dan is a nice
name, but I don't think that fits you. I think Jonah suits you just
fine.”
    “ Jonah works,”
he said with a satisfied smile.
    My eyes dropped to the
silver beer can in his hand. “So, I'm guessing you’re
twenty one?”
    He turned the front of
it toward his face and looked down the red lettering. “No,
actually, I'm nineteen. But every once in awhile I like to enjoy a
beer.”
    “ Wow,” I
said, surprised that he was younger than what I thought he was. “You
don't look nineteen. I thought you were at least twenty, if not
twenty-one.”
    “ I thought the
same thing when I first saw you,” he said while shooting me a
sideways glance. For a split second it looked as though I had seen a
flicker of green light flash in his eyes.
    I must be seeing
things.
    “ Yeah,” I
agreed. “I look older than my age.”
    He nodded his head and
became lost again in the fire. The topic of our age seemed to bother
him, making him crawl back to his uncomfortable body language.
    Why couldn't I just
be eighteen already?
    I was desperate for a
subject change. “So, where's your dad?” I asked.
    “ He died when I
was sixteen,” he spoke quietly, his eyes fixed on the burning
embers.
    “ Oh, I'm sorry. I
wouldn't have asked if I would have known.”
    He broke his gaze from
the fire and looked at me with an understanding smile. “It's
okay; I've accepted it.”
    I took that moment to
take a sip from my soda. It felt like I had created an awkward
moment, and I was at a loss for words; I didn't know what to say
next.
    Surprisingly, he took
it upon himself to continue the conversation. “He owned the
auto shop, Dan's Auto Shop; Dan was my dad. When he died my Uncle Lou
took it over, but he kept the name in remembrance of him.” He
dropped his legs from their bent position into a crossed one and
leaned forward to touch the smoothness of the warm sand in front of
him. “When I turned eighteen I became part owner of it, so I
own half and Lou owns half.”
    I watched as he picked
up the sand and let it pour out between his fingers, forming small
piles on the ground. I stayed quiet, partly to let him finish his
story, and partly because I didn't know what to say.
    “ The day he died,
he was working underneath a car and it fell on him.”
    “ Oh my god,
that's terrible,” I said consolingly as I reached up and put my
hand on his back.
    “ I tried to help
him but there was nothing I could do; it crushed him to death.”
    I left my hand on his
back and circled it lightly around for a few moments before bringing
it back and crossing it in front of me. “I'm so sorry, that's
awful. And for you to have seen it, too . . .”
    He smoothed away the
piles of sand in front of him and turned his head to look in the
opposite direction of where I was sitting.
    He must be tearing
up.
    After he took a minute
he turned back toward me and smiled. “I'm doing okay, though,”
he added. “I'm getting through it. I just really miss him.”
    “ I can't