"Josh, wake up, man. You're dreaming."

Josh jerked awake as the pressure on his shoulder eased off. He blinked, bringing his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun's rays that slipped between the gaps of the bougainvillea vines above him.

Ah, great. Now he was going to end up with weird tan lines. Again.

As he sat up, he realized that someone was standing over him, chuckling. He hoped it wasn't his dad again, coming down to check up on him. After all, he hadn't gone up to see them in a few days.

But it wasn't his dad. Instead, a familiar grin was the first thing he saw, then blue eyes and blonde-reddish hair.

"Hey, you," Josh grinned as Erik Maystrom, his best friend since they were kids, grabbed his hand and pulled him up from the deck chair. "Didn't I tell you not to come back here? When do you ever listen to what I have to say?"

"Since when did I ever listen to you, man?" Erik said, pulling him into a quick embrace. It had been awhile since they'd seen each other, and this after years of hanging out together almost every day.

Both men were tall, with broad shoulders that tapered into narrow hips and long muscular legs. While Erik had the lean body of a runner and defined shoulders from swimming laps at the local pool, Josh had the muscled torso of a surfer. But the very thought of getting back on a board grated at Josh then. After what happened to him, he probably would never surf again.

"Your sister better not be with you," he muttered. "I'm not ready to see her. I feel like crap."

"You look like crap," Erik said. "When was the last time you took a shower?"

"None of your business, man, unless you want to soap my back or something," Josh grumbled. "I like the way I look. Besides, there's the pool and I do laps in it every day. That counts as bathing, right?"

"No wonder your hair's so brittle and dry. The chlorine alone will do that to those blonde locks of yours."

"Shut up. You're sounding like my girlfriend."

"Suit yourself. You haven't had a steady girl in months anyway," Erik said, chuckling. "I would have wanted to run my fingers through that hair of yours–"

"Shut up already."

Yet despite his grumbling, Josh didn't mind the ribbing. He and Erik had been best friends since the Erik's family moved into the five-unit apartment building next to his house in Manhattan Beach. They were both the same age and hit it off immediately. They went to school, played, and got into scrapes together and always with a third wheel hanging around, Erik's scrappy twin sister, Olivia.

Wherever Erik went, one was bound to find Olivia or Livvy, as Erik preferred to call her. They came together "like a set," Josh's father used to say. When Erik got a tricycle for Christmas one year, Livvy traded in her new Barbie doll for a tricycle of her own. When her brother got a pair of boxing gloves, she asked for a pair of her own. She was Erik's shadow until she turned fourteen and realized that some of the girls hung out with her so they could get close to the two boys. By the time she turned fifteen, Livvy found her own friends although she still remained Erik's shadow in many things.

But while Erik grew up to be tall and lean, Olivia was petite, with just the right curves that even Josh couldn't ignore. But he'd kept his feelings from her, especially after she got married to an Italian race car driver and later, widowed too soon after his car crashed on live TV. Erik flew to her side immediately, accompanying the new widow and her three-month old daughter, Bella, back home to California.

For months, Josh visited her as often as he could. He helped around the house whenever Erik was too busy with his medical practice. Secretly, Josh looked forward to Erik's busy days because it meant more time with Olivia and Bella. He even volunteered to babysit. Him, of all people! And for almost a minute there, Josh actually thought he had a chance.

And then the damn shooting happened.

He limped toward the patio table where he'd left his cane. He hated having to need the damn thing and he tried his best not to use it. He still had his pride, after all. He was only thirty-two, too young to need a cane, but walking without it for long periods of time left him with pain shooting down his leg and he hated that. One day, the pain would go away, or so his physical therapist loved to remind him. But what did she know? She knew nothing about how a bullet can shatter dreams in a blink of an eye. She knew nothing of the dreams that haunted him, of the words he never got to say.

"Care for a beer?" Josh stepped into the cottage or casita, as he called it. It was perfect for a single guy like himself, with its spacious living room that opened right onto the deck and beyond it, a narrow pool where he did his physical therapy everyday.

"We'll do the beers later. Why don't we take a walk? We've got some catching up to do," Erik said, tilting his head toward the trail that led to the grove of eucalyptus trees up the hill.

"What's there to catch up on?" He followed Erik through the gate he'd made using branches he found throughout the property, all assembled together into a fence and a gate complete with an arch. "I still get shooting pains on my leg on damp days like I'm a damn barometer, and I sometimes lose feeling down my left arm just when I'm actually using it, like helping Dad put up some shelving in the guest rooms."

"You're a ray of sunshine, that's for sure," Erik said. "But you're talking so I'll take it. It's the most you've spoken since it happened, and as your unofficial doctor, I'd say it's a good start."

"There you go again, playing doctor like always."

Erik laughed. "Because I am a doctor. Anyway, everyone's worried about you. It's been awhile since you've been down to the beach."

'Down to the beach' would mean Manhattan Beach, where Erik owned a beachfront home and where Josh used to hang out almost everyday, parking his flip-flops on their patio and then grabbing his board, make his way to the water. When he'd had enough of the waves, he'd hang his board on the wall of Erik's garage where his friend had set up some hooks, and then shower and change for work. But all that was before the shooting, before he packed up his house and then moved up to Ojai where his parents ran a popular local getaway, the Rosemary Inn.

"It's only been a few months, man," Josh mumbled.

"Five," Erik corrected him. "It's been seven months since you got shot, five months since you came up here to live like a hermit. You even look like one."

"I need the time alone." Besides, Ojai was gorgeous this time of year. Hell, it was beautiful all year, way better than sitting in a small South Bay house hiding from the press who couldn't get enough of the story of the good cop who won against the bad cop. "So how's Sam? Is she with you?"

Samantha, or Sam, was Erik's wife. She and Michael, her three-year-old son with her first husband, lived with Erik in Manhattan Beach.

"Never been better," Erik replied. "They're both hanging out with your parents who, I'm sure, have already talked her into staying the night."

"And will you?"

Erik laughed. "Of course! We need to hang out, man. It's been forever."

They resumed walking again, an awkwardness settling between them for what hadn't yet been said. Josh could almost sense that Erik was waiting for him to ask the dreaded question. Ah, hell, he might as well ask it and be done with it.

"Is she still mad at me?"

Erik kicked a pebble and watched it roll ahead of them, settling in a groove along the path. "Who?"

"You know who I'm talking about."

"Nope. Who?"

"Livvy," Josh muttered. "There, I said her name. Happy now? Look, I'm sorry for what I said that last time she was here–"

"Two months ago."

"Yeah, two months ago," Josh continued. "I really was in a bad place and I hated that she saw me like that. I was miserable and it was... it was just a bad day, you know?"

"You were on some heavy stuff, too," Erik said. "Painkillers and whatever your psychiatrist recommended, right?"

"Look, I'm off them and I'm sorry, alright? I never meant to hurt her feelings or call her whatever I called her. I swear, I was on those damn pain killers and ever since that day, I've quit them cold turkey. She didn't deserve that." Hell, that's why he was dealing with the pain instead, gritting his teeth whenever the pain started late into the night. It scared him to death, but he had to learn to live with it. "I just hated her seeing me when I was... when I wasn't ready. You're the only one I don't mind seeing me like this."

"And what exactly is this?"

Josh stopped walking and spread out his arms. "This. Look at me, man. I'm a damn cripple. If you took away my cane, I'd be limping all over the place and I'm only thirty-two, alright? That's too young, if you ask me. I used to surf, man. We used to go running, remember? I can't even get far without needing to sit down because this damn leg would hurt so much if I pushed it."

"Have you tried?"

Josh laughed. "Are you kidding me? Stop pulling my leg, Erik, or whatever's left of my leg. They had to take a chunk out because of an infection, remember?"

"They took a little chunk out, Josh. It was scar tissue, and right now, I understand you're doing everything you can to get better. But you gotta start opening up to other people caring for you," Erik said, undeterred. "You still got a leg, and to be honest, there's nothing wrong with it."

Before Josh could say something, Erik walked ahead of him, catching sight of an arrangement of rocks ahead. Josh knew what it was for he'd built it himself. It was a heart-shaped stone labyrinth beyond the grove of eucalyptus trees that he designed and built with the help of friends, even the one who would end up betraying him one night. He had wanted to create a path wide enough to fit two people side by side as they entered the space, go their separate ways when they reached the center of the heart and then meet again toward the exit as one. It was sappy, but he'd been in a sappy mood when he first came up with the idea and there was all that flat space beyond the eucalyptus grove. Who knew it would be a popular feature of the inn these days?

He took his time to catch up with Erik and by the time he did, Josh was winded. How he hated this... him, who completed the triathlon competition three years in a row and outran his best friend every time, now reduced to someone who could barely walk without a cane.

"It was right here that Sam and I finally clicked," Erik mused as Josh stood next to him. "It was the first weekend we came here and I knew she was the one. Sam may not have known it then, but I knew."

"Well, that's because you're lucky." Josh settled on one of the benches his parents had installed facing the labyrinth. "My luck's long run out, man. I'm done."

Erik didn't speak for a few minutes. Instead he watched his friend in silence, a faint smile on his lips. Then he chuckled.

"What's so funny?" Josh asked, scowling.

"You. I can't believe what I'm hearing. All this woe is me crap." Erik paused, thinking for a moment. "But I know someone who can straighten you out."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm sending Livvy over."

"Don't you even try, man. I'm not ready–"

"I don't care if you're ready. If anyone can snap you out of this self-pity cruise you've been on lately, it's her," Erik said. "If anything, it might motivate you to take a shower, at least."

"Fuck you, man. I'm going to get you back for this–"

"Keep the beard, though," Erik added, laughing as he avoided Josh's swinging cane. "She'll like the beard."