Rough Waters (5 page)

When we talked last summer about his great
escape, it sounded like one giant scheme to defy his parents, but
standing here now, listening to him speak about how they blocked
his trust funds with stipulations of a law degree and age limit, I
actually feel suffocated.

“I had no choice, Haley,” he says. “I
would’ve been a thirty-year-old lawyer before I could even touch
that money. I didn’t want to go to law school. I wanted to live a
little, screw up a few times, you know?”

I can’t help laughing. “Well, I think you’ve
got the screwing up part down,” I say.

Fortunately he smiles. “Lucky me,” he says.
“They gave me an ultimatum.”

I glance around The Strip before speaking,
but the morning breeze off of the ocean is our only company. I
definitely don’t want Vin or anyone in his corner to overhear
anything Colby tells me before I can strategize a game plan.

“What’d they say?” I ask, keeping my voice
low. I step closer to Colby.

“You ready for this?” he asks. “They said
they would put all of this behind them if I moved back to North
Carolina, changed my name back, and stopped living this ‘absurd
alternate life.’”

I skim the area like a paranoid junkie about
to get her fix. “What’d you tell them?”

He sighs. “I told them I was a legal adult
now, and they have no control over me. And I told them I’d really
made something of myself and I’d chased after a big dream and made
it my reality. I even offered to move them out here so they could
be part of my life.”

Part of me wishes Vin would step outside and
eavesdrop anyway. He’ll flip out when he hears that Colby’s parents
have a lawyer and may go after the store, but I just wish he could
hear what Colby has to say. He’s calm, collected, and is being a
mature adult about the whole thing. This is the side of Colby that
continually gives me hope.

“So they don’t want to be part of this?” I
ask, making that assumption from their ultimatum.

“No,” Colby says. “They said if I didn’t go
back, they planned to sue me for emotional damage plus
reimbursement for all the money they put into search efforts,
payment to their private investigator, and lawyer fees.”

Since he doesn’t make mention of Drenaline
Surf or Shark, I decide not to bring it up. Not yet anyway. I don’t
want to toss fuel onto the fire until I absolutely have to.

“It gets better,” Colby continues. “When I
told them I wasn’t playing their games, my dad said, ‘Who in the
hell do you think you are?’ I told him ‘Colby fucking Taylor’ and
walked out.”

Yeah, definitely not adding fuel to
that
fire. I don’t blame him. I really and truly don’t. This
is his life, his future, his career. He has to take a stand, even
if it means pulling a lot of people into the flames with him.

“Okay, so they’re coming for you,” I say.
“They had their lawyer with them last night at the press
conference, so they’ve clearly thought this out. Let me go in and
talk to Vin first. Just wait outside for a few minutes.”

He nods and remains against the fruit stand,
eyes closed and face to the sunshine. I hope he stays in this zen
mode when he finally goes inside and talks to Vin as well.

The front entrance of Drenaline Surf is
locked, but Miles sees me through the glass and lets me in. I’m not
sure what my opening line will be when I pull Vin into the back
office and warn him of all the damage that’s about to unfold across
the shores of Crescent Cove. I just need to think of that line
before I reach Vin.

But all thoughts of Colby and drama dissolve
for half a second when I remember why this meeting is even
happening. He smiles at me from the other side of the checkout
counter, standing next to Vin.

Logan Riley is pretty much everything I
imagined him to be. Lighter brunette, decent tan, medium build, and
a Crest commercial kind of smile. He’s got that marketable model
look, like someone you could imagine in a Macy’s ad as easily as on
the cover of Shaka Magazine. He’s the very opposite of Colby’s
disheveled ‘just got out of bed and went surfing’ exterior. He’s
put together. The surfer fangirls are going to die for him.

“Haley,” Vin says, motioning me toward them.
“I want you to meet our newest Drenaline Surf surfer, Logan
Riley.”

My legs are anchors dragging along the ocean
floor as I try to walk across the room. Logan says something about
how it’s nice to meet me and extends a hand over the counter. He
was more attractive at a distance. Up close, his eyes have dark
circles under them. Maybe he just needs more sleep, but I swear,
he’s aged in my trip across the store.

I remind myself to keep smiling and ask Vin
if I can have a minute. He nods and gestures toward the office,
leaving Miles and Logan in the main room. I lean back and semi-sit
on the desk, but Vin stands.

“I’m sorry,” he says immediately after he
closes the door. “I’ve been swamped here, and I know that’s no
excuse. It’s just tough here during the summer.”

When I try to interrupt, he holds up a hand
to let me know he’s not through talking. I hate to tell him, but I
really don’t give a damn about his distance right now. We have
bigger things to worry about.

“Once we open a second store, it’s going to
get crazier,” he continues. “I don’t want you to think I’m ignoring
you on purpose or that I don’t want to talk to you or see you. It’s
just that Drenaline Surf isn’t going to slow down any time
soon.”

“Hey, it’s alright,” I say, pushing off of
the desk. I run my hand down his arm and pull him toward me. “Shark
would be proud of you. He’d be so proud of how much you’ve done for
this store and to grow Drenaline Surf into something more. It’s
totally okay.”

Vin pulls away and walks over to the desk,
sits in the spinning chair, and shakes his head. That smirk from
last summer when we first met sneaks onto his face.

“If Shark was here,
he’d
be the one
dating you instead,” Vin says. He then hits ‘play’ on the answering
machine to listen to the first of nine new messages.

I have no idea what that little remark was
supposed to mean, but I decide to just let it go and take it as a
compliment. If I’m worthy of Shark McAllister, then I can’t
complain too much. The automated female voice announces the next
new message, and another reporter mumbles through his message about
an interview regarding Colby’s parents. Shoot! Colby’s parents! I
need to have this conversation with Vin before Drenaline Surf opens
today.

I wait impatiently as Vin scribbles down
names and phone numbers onto a notepad. Miles knocks on the door
and pokes his head inside between message six and seven. He
whispers the word ‘training.’ Vin nods and waves him away with his
hand. I follow Miles back into the store.

Miles grabs his surfboard from behind the
front counter and says that he’s heading to the gym to meet Theo
for a cardio session. As he pushes his way through Drenaline Surf’s
entrance, Colby makes his grand entrance. My oxygen is ripped away
the moment he steps inside.

Colby’s face is the exact what-the-hell
expression I expected. He stands in front of the door, looking
across the room at Logan as if he were a sea creature that somehow
learned to survive on land.

“Taylor!” Vin barks from the office door.
“You’re late. When I tell you to be here for a business meeting, it
means be here on my time, not whatever magical surfer time zone you
live in, got it?”

Vin crosses the room toward Colby, motioning
Logan to follow. I open my mouth to speak, to let Vin know that
Colby was here on time, but my words are instantly swallowed.

“This is Logan Riley,” Vin says. “You’ve
probably heard of him. He’s as big on the east coast as you seem to
be out here. Except he doesn’t come with a package of drama, lies,
and secrets. What you see is actually what you get.”

Logan extends a hand toward Colby. “Looks
like we’re both going to be surfing under the Drenaline Surf logo,
huh?”

Colby shakes his head. “I don’t have time for
this,” he says.

Vin folds his arms across his chest. “And I
don’t have time for your attitude. If you can’t do your job and
make Drenaline Surf look good, then it’s up to me to do my job and
find someone who can.”

Colby glances from Vin to me and then shakes
his head. He spins around and slams his palms against the glass
door, forcing it open in a fast swing. As quickly as he’s outside
and onto The Strip, I lunge forward to go after him. Vin’s arm
catches me.

“Let him go,” Vin says. “It’s not worth it.
He’s not your responsibility anyway. If he wants to act like a
fool, let him. There are more important things going on than to
worry with him.”

He asks Logan to wait just a minute for him,
and I follow Vin back into the office.

“I need your help with something, if you have
time,” Vin says.

As much as I want to chase after Colby, to
reason with him or try to come up with a plan of action, I can’t
deny the excitement bubbling in my heart right now. I wouldn’t even
mind setting up the Drenaline Surf tent and unpacking T-shirts
again if it means actually getting to have a conversation with my
boyfriend. In the one day that I’ve been back, I feel like I’ve
seen everyone more than I’ve seen Vin, and he’s the one I should be
seeing the most.

“We’ve got this big sale coming up in honor
of Logan’s sponsorship,” Vin says, digging through a box next to
his desk. “I’m going to take him out today, show him around
Crescent Cove, help him get settled in and all.”

Then he finds the stack of papers he’s been
digging for. Flyers. Neon-colored paper kind of flyers. I think
this is even worse than when I had to sell those tickets last
summer to win a surfboard, which Kale ended up winning and the
whole thing looked rigged.

“You think you could pass these out around
The Strip or something and help spread the word for me?” Vin
asks.

Oh, of course. I’d love to spend my day
plastering this town with neon paper while you play Mr. Drenaline
Surf and show Logan Riley all around town. I have nothing better to
do with my life than pass out flyers to celebrate the guy who
probably just set Hurricane Colby into full-blown storm mode.

“No problem,” I say instead. “Consider it
done.”

“I feel like such a traitor,” I say as I hold
up the bright pink flyer and analyze it in the living room.
“Colby’s about to blow, Vin only talks to me when he needs help at
work, and now I’m stuck with a stack of colored paper to hand out
to tourists.”

A.J. laughs and jerks the flyer away from me.
“You’re not a traitor. And I’ll help you, like I always do,” he
says.

I sigh and lie back on the couch. “I so don’t
want to waste the day handing out flyers on The Strip. Those people
won’t even be here by the end of the week. They won’t care about a
Drenaline Surf sale this weekend.”

“Hey, Alston’s going to a party tonight,”
A.J. says.

I force myself to sit up, but A.J. continues
his thought before I can question its relevance.

“We’ll take the flyers there,” he says. “It’s
more of our target audience anyway, right? We can mix business with
pleasure. It’s at some fancy beach mansion across town. Rich
people, so obviously they have money to spend.”

I glance at the flyers and back at A.J.
“Since when did you start thinking like a businessman?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Since I needed an excuse to get
into this party.”

Bikinis, beer, and bass thumps can only mean
one thing – a party. A.J. crawls out of the backseat of Alston’s
tiny sports car. The dark SUV that pulled up behind us empties a
load of sunkissed teenage girls, one of whom shouts a racial slur
at A.J. He flips her off, and I tug him closer to me to keep him
out of trouble. I find it odd that no one ever mentions Alston’s
ethnicity, but I guess being adopted by rich white people makes you
white, even if you’re really Asian. At least that’s Alston’s case.
Plus, he’s hot, so that works in his favor.

I lock arms with A.J., and he mumbles
something about Hispanic boys always getting the short straw. Some
guys exit the mansion as we enter, shouting something about more
beer. Alston had suggested checking out the crowd before taking the
flyers in, but this is definitely the audience for Drenaline Surf’s
big celebration sale – rich kids looking for fun with money to
blow.

The DJ blasts some rap song that repeats the
phrase ‘big booty’ twenty times over. Bikini-clad girls grind
against half-naked boys, and someone yells about spilling a beer.
I’m not sure who’s throwing this party, but their parents would die
if they knew their expensive Greek goddess statue was being fondled
by a drunken teenage boy.

“Do people just show up drunk to Cove
parties?” I ask, more to Alston than A.J. “There’s no way these
people got drunk this fast.”

Alston follows my gaze toward Greece. “Oh,
that kid?” he asks. “Yeah, he didn’t drink or party in high school.
Probably his first time to ever have a beer, truth be told. So
yeah, he probably did get drunk that fast.”

I follow Alston through the foyer, into a
small dining room, and eventually into a massive party room. The DJ
sits in the corner, and the music vibrates through the hardwood
floors.

“Well, it’s about that time,” A.J. shouts to
us over the music.

“What time?” I shout back.

“Time for a beer!” A.J. replies. He leans
closer to my ear. “Let’s find the kitchen.”

Alston waves us on as he checks out the
crowd. I dig my fingers into A.J.’s arm as not to lose him in the
sea of partygoers. I hear the guy’s voice before I ever see his
face. I should’ve known he’d be here.

Kale looks up from a cooler and shouts
“Gonzalez!” when he sees A.J. He hands him a bottle of Corona
before he spots me. Instead of his usual tackle hug, Kale stares,
much like how Colby stared at Logan.