Chasing Forever Down (Drenaline Surf Series) (13 page)

But they can keep tabs on us now
too.

“
Are you sure?” I ask, hoping I don’t sound too eager. Linzi is a lost cause; she’s already planning the rest of our time here with Alston.

Reed nods.
“Definitely,” he says. “I owe you that much. Anyone who gets on a jet ski with A.J. has earned it.”

Back at the hotel, Linzi can’t pack her things fast enough, as if we are leaving tonight. I make the routine phone call back home and tell my mom how great all of these colleges are, and I feel guilty for not feeling guilty about lying to her. As soon as the obligatory parental call is over, we finish packing everything except tomorrow morning’s necessities and Solomon and
Sofia, our incredible (thus far) spirit guides.

I reach over to turn off the lamp when I see him smiling up at me from the nightstand. All of my options have been exhausted. I hold up the photo and ask Linzi one of the many things I still don’t know.
“Who the hell is the blonde?”

A.J.’s face pops up when I slam my car’s trunk shut. He grabs my extra bags and hauls them inside without bothering to say ‘good morning’ or ‘hello’ or even ‘what the hell are you doing?’ Instead, he asks a stupid question.

“
Why don’t you have a shell necklace like Linzi’s? It’s badass,” he says. He drops my bags onto the hardwood floor of one of the bedrooms of their guest house.

“
It’s a tourist trap,” I say.

Reed is standing in the middle of the bedroom, and A.J. abandons us. I’m glad I don’t have to
go into great detail about the tourist trap associated with those stupid necklaces.

“
I have to head to work, but the other room is right around the corner – Linzi’s room – and the bathroom is in between. That screen door out there goes straight under the awning and into the kitchen, so we’re close by,” he explains. “A.J. and Alston can show you the ropes while I’m out.”

My mind is between unpacking – again – and doing laundry as Reed is walking out the door. But I stop him. Actually, the beer-drinking blonde hiding in my purse stops him.

“Who is he?” I ask, holding up the picture.

Reed laughs.
“You stole that from Drenaline?”

“
I’ll put it back,” I say, hoping he can’t see the lump in my throat.

He shakes his head.
“It’s cool. Keep it.” He glances around, though we’re alone, and checks outside of the door before he speaks. “I’ll tell you, as soon as we have some time alone. Just don’t mention it to the other guys, okay? I swear, I’ll tell you. It just has to be later.”

I nod and watch him disappear between the guest house and condo. I hide the blonde one more time. By nightfall, I’ll at least know his name. Or else.

A.J. walks back into the room, falls onto my bed like he’s dying from exhaustion although it’s barely ten A.M., and tells me that Linzi and Alston are headed to the beach.

“
So, what do you want to do?” he sits up and asks.

“
Laundry,” I say, dragging my bag of dirty clothes across the floor.

“
This way, darling,” he says.

My clothes smell like pineapple, and I’m beginning to wonder if all of Crescent Cove bathes in this scent. The Strip is busier today than the first night Linzi and I scoped it out. Tourists and families crowd the sidewalk and blanket the sand. A.J. and I have yet to spot Alston and Linzi, but A.J. doesn’t seem to mind. He’s gnawing on his blue raspberry snowcone like a starved dog who’s just been tossed a few scraps from the dinner table.

“
They’re probably off fucking somewhere,” A.J. says as nonchalantly as he would’ve said that it’s hot out here or that his flip flops are full of sand.

I attempt to smile at the mother next to us evil-eyeing A.J. I push him along and change the subject to an extent.

“How’d you and Alston become friends anyway?” I ask. I’m hoping that I can start with this grain of sand and build my way up to the sandcastle of Colby Taylor.

A.J. licks his blue lips.
“We met in kindergarten. We were only friends because we were the only kids who looked like us. I didn’t know he was Asian. He was just the only other brown kid, so we became friends, and by the time we were old enough to know better, we were kind of stuck with each other,” he says.

He tilts his head back and rakes the last drops of blue ice from his Styrofoam cup into his mouth. I’m suddenly thankful that piña colada snowcones are clear and that my entire mouth isn’t blue. Then again, I’m more vain than A.J. I don’t think he even brushed his hair today. He tosses his cup into a nearby trash can, but I keep mine, even if it’s nearly empty. As long as I pretend to eat, he’ll keep talking.

“Reed and Alston started hanging out in junior high. They were into the boating, surfing, fast cars kind of stuff. Alston’s parents hate me. You know he’s adopted? Rich white people. They love Reed. So I was thrown to the wolves and rescued by Reed’s dad’s mechanic,” he says. He looks at me like I should understand. “You know, Vin?”

“
Oh,” I say. “Vin works for Strickland’s Boating?”

A.J. shakes his head and stops to look at a rack of sunglasses.
“Not anymore. Just at that time. He got a better offer and quit. He’s got other things in the works, so he needed some free time.”

Of course. Working on cars takes away from his hair-dye-selling time. I shove my spoon into my mouth to keep myself from speaking ill of A.J.’s salvation from abandonment. He studies himself in a mirror, modeling different sunglasses at the vendor booth.

“The four of us just kind of stuck together. But then I dropped outta high school,” he says to the mirror more than me. “Reed graduated early to help at his dad’s store. So we crashed at the condo with Taylor for a while, before he moved out to that rich kid beach house of his. Alston moved in after grad, and his parents can’t say a damn thing about me living there.”

I fight the smile that wants to crawl across my face. This is where Colby Taylor enters the story. A.J. and Alston were childhood ‘brown kid’ besties until Alston met Reed who he had more in common with. Then Alston ditched A.J., and Vin rescued him because he worked
for Reed’s dad and obviously felt some sort of personal attachment to the criminal kid. It all makes sense. Except Colby.

But all of my excitement, hope, and progress vanishes in the shadow of a monster whale that’s being driven by tiny legs, swim trunks, and little sandals. I can’t pull A.J. out of the way in time, and in three seconds flat, the rack of sunglasses crashes to the sidewalk.

“What the fucking hell!” A.J. screams.

He plows his fist into the giant inflatable whale like he’s some kind of underwater ninja in a video game and his arch nemesis is the orca.

The little boy wails like a siren, but I can’t see him. I can’t see beyond the plastic whale that’s thrashing before me. Sunglasses snap and crunch under the fight as A.J. tries to untangle himself from the rack and the whale. I grab his flying fist and pull him to his feet, but I can’t stop the F-bombs from dropping off his tongue.

The boy’s mom grabs him and his whale, apologizes to the sunglasses vendor, and gives A.J. that inevitable squished-bug look of disgust. Warranted or not,
it pisses me off.

“
You need to watch where your kid is going!” A.J. screams at her. “Fucking parents these days!”

My grasp on his arm becomes a death grip as I pull him down the sidewalk. He mutters about the woman and the whale and spits out a few comparisons to Alston’s mom, and I know all talk of friendship and history is over. Just another detour on the long road to the forever-chasing surfer. I block out my disappointment with a visual image of the beer-drinking blonde.

Tonight’s the night.

CHAPTER
11

“
Piña coladas with pineapple rum – best you’ll ever taste,” Alston says.

He hands a martini glass to Linzi. She sips from the straw then raves about how it’s the best she’s ever had, like she’s an expert in mixed drinks at seventeen.

A.J. shakes his head. “You’re fucking kidding me, man. I need a beer.”

He pushes past Alston and heads back down to the kitchen, leaving the rest of us on the rooftop of the condo.

Nighttime in California is magical. The ocean is black glass, shifting back and forth against the winds with the whitecaps rolling in. An abundance of stars are sprinkled throughout the dark clouds. Everything has that soft milky velvet feel to it. I want to slip in between the clouds and waves just like warm blankets straight out of the dryer.

“
What’s out there?” Linzi asks. She points into the distance past the old wooden beach house where the Hooligans partied the other night.

“
Crescent Cove’s old carnival,” A.J.’s voice answers from behind me. He throws his head back to chug down half of his beer then sets the can down and sits next to me. “You know that place is haunted, right?”

Linzi sips on her straw, but her eyes are zoned in on A.J. and whatever wild story he’s about to tell us.
“Is it true or just legend?” she asks.

“
True story,” A.J. says. “Schizophrenic clown…they called him Lickety Split… get it? Split? Anyway, he saw himself in the House of Mirrors, freaked out and attacked his reflection, and the mirror shattered. Sliced right through him.”

I wait for him to laugh. Or at least for Alston to. But no one moves.

“It stayed open for a while,” A.J. continues in that scary movie kind of voice, “but weird things started happening. Doors slamming, voices when no one else was around. There were screams reported from the House of Mirrors. They shut the place down almost two years ago. It’s just been left to rot.”

Alston slams his glass down.
“Let’s go out there!” he exclaims all too excitedly for me. His eyes glow with that reckless excitement A.J. had on the jet skis.

“
Hell yeah,” A.J. says. He’s on his feet instantly. “We can play hide-and-seek in the dark like we used to.”

I turn to Reed, hoping for some sort of intervention. But what he says is far from anything I expected.
“You’ve both been drinking…so I’m driving.”

“Let’s go,” A.J. says. He grabs my hand, pulls me to my feet, and runs back down the stairs.

I stumble behind, hoping my flip flops won’t betray me and send us both flying down the stairs
. He’s laughing louder than necessary, and it echoes off the high ceiling in the kitchen.

“
Run!” he screams as soon as our feet hit the sidewalk. Sand crunches beneath us, but I just keep my feet moving. I squeeze A.J.’s hand so I won’t fall behind.

He leaps over the side of Reed’s
Jeep and turns back to pull me up. “Get in! Get in! Get in!” he spits out.

I fall over him and collapse into the middle of the backseat. Our arms are entangled, and A.J. partially falls into the floorboard. I can’t stop laughing, and I don’t know why we’re rushing. Nothing is funny, but A.J.’s ear-to-ear smile keeps me laughing.

“What was the point of that?” I ask once I catch my breath.

He stretches an arm around my shoulders and pulls me close to him.
“You’ll see. Watch this. Play along.”

Alston and Linzi round the corner into the garage, and the disappointment on her face answers all of my questions.

“Sorry lovers,” A.J. shouts out. “One of you will have to ride up front with Strick. It’s mine and Haley’s turn to suck face in the backseat.”

I know he’s totally kidding and doing this not just for a reaction but to spite them. Still,
I bury my face into his shoulder. It doesn’t do any good because Linzi knows I’m laughing at them. I’m sure this is supposed to make me a terrible friend, but right now, I don’t really care because it’s about time someone bitched about their constant make out sessions, and I didn’t have to be the bad guy. They’ve known each other, what, a total of three days?

Alston crawls into the backseat with us. Reed glances around at the seating
arrangement when he gets in the Jeep, but he doesn’t make any additional commentary after he sees Linzi staring out her window with her arms crossed over her chest. She might as well be bleeding teenage angst all over his passenger seat.

The distant streetlights and the glow of the moon barely light up the old carnival grounds. The wooden sign hanging over the arched entranceway creaks as it rocks back and forth in the breeze floating off of the ocean.

I try to imagine this place in its glory with children running, popcorn popping, and the games buzzing with noises of winning and laughter. But I can’t hallucinate those images
any more than I can imagine the taste of one of those awesome carnival funnel cakes. The ticket booths are falling in with weather damage, and rust eats the surface of the metal rides.

A.J. leads us around the sea creature carousel, and I want to unhinge the blue seahorse from the ride and take it home with
me. He’s Solomon – life sized – and I wish I could touch up his peeling paint and shine his golden pole until he sparkled like I’m sure he once did.