The Back Home Tour (BxB)

At the Beach | Years Ago: Hyde

Sitting under the stars out on the beach was my favorite place to be, let alone with my best friend, Dallas. Actually anywhere with him was my favorite place. He drove us out here from the city in his piece of junk hand-me-down Jeep that he named "Sometimes" as in sometimes it started and sometimes it didn't.

I loved a Friday night clunking along over the dunes of Pleasure Pines, a private beach we snuck into ever since Dallas had gotten his license. Dallas always came with some leftover liquor from his dad's stash.  I felt the chill of the cold sand on my toes as we shuffled to the picnic table that became "our place."

Passing the mostly empty bottle to me for the last swig, my hand rested on Dallas's for a moment. He let go and looked to the sky.

"Wow," he said. "It's like you can see every star out here."

When he looked back at me, I quickly stopped staring and chugged the rest of the fire water.

Dallas handed me one of his earbuds, the ones that were connected by a cord. I had stopped making fun of him for not getting a wireless pair. I liked the closeness that comes with sharing. Part of me hoped Dallas did too.

As I took it, he said, "I have the perfect playlist for us."

I had to scoot toward Dallas to make the cord reach me. The mix of Dallas's whiskey breath and the soft smoothness of the music in my ear intoxicated me. Losing my inhibitions, I leaned my head on my friend's shoulder and floated away into the dark waves washing up the shore.

Dallas must have been feeling it too because the police sirens didn't get our attention until it was too late.

We sprinted for the Jeep, but the cruiser pulled in with sand flying right behind it. The headlights caught us red handed. We were stuck.

Two hotshot cops jumped out of the car with their flashlights in hand.

"You kids, freeze," the driver side po-po commanded.

Dallas turned his head and shouted over his shoulder, "Jet, guys! You can outrun these slugs!"

"Go, Jameson!" the cop on the right directed his partner.

"I'm on it," the younger police officer said, taking off past us down the beach.

I laughed, surprised he fell for it.

"He will literally never catch them," I said to the solo officer.

This made Dallas burst out laughing.

"I wouldn't worry about him, boys. You are in a lot of trouble. This here is private property and you are trespassing," Hauss informed, pulling his gun on us. "Now there is only one of me and two of you. Either of you run; I shoot."

Doubtful, I thought, but I played along. There was no way I would run without Dallas, and I knew he felt the same way.

"So, which of you wants the handcuffs first?"

"How forward of you, sir," Dallas said, emphasizing his accent.

"You then, country bumpkin." He roughly grabbed Dallas and slammed him down on the hood of the cruiser.

He looked up at me and gave a cute wink as the officer read him his Mirandas.

The officer turned and carted him into the back of the cruiser.  

"Your turn, pretty boy," the cop said, pushing me down on the front of the car.

The next moment, I was plopping down next to Dallas in the backseat. With a slam of the door, it went quiet in the car. Until we looked at each and started cracking up.

"This is ridiculous," I said between laughs.

"Your mom is going to kill me," Dallas added.

"My mom loves you," I countered as our laughter started to die off.

Dallas raised his eyebrow in disagreement.

"Haha, she thinks I am corrupting you," he pointed out.

"Well, you are. Look you got us arrested," I teased, unable to hold back my smile.

The officer walked down toward the beach to look for his partner and this ignited our laughter again.

Maybe it was the whiskey courage or the buzz from the almost satiric situation or the blue lights reflecting off of Dallas's eyes making them look so full of life and mischief that led me to do it. I leaned right in and kissed him. I pressed my lips to his a bit more abrasively than I meant to, but after the initial shock, I felt him kissing back. Just as he pulled away, he softly bit my bottom lip as a send-off.

"Yeah, yeah. I get it. You like me," he said with a devilish smile.

I blushed, but I found myself coming clean.

"D," I started. "D, I more than like you--"

The front doors opened in synchrony and the two cops took their seats as they bickered about something.

  "Jameson, I don't want to hear it. You just aren't as fast as you once were."

This broke the moment Dallas and I were having in the back seat, and once again we found ourselves cackling.

"Okay, you two, what are your names?" the driver asked as he started the car and kicked it in reverse.

"I'm Dallas Burton, and my partner in crime here is Hyde Devonshire." Dallas barely got my name out before the officer slammed on the brakes and turned to look at us.

"You are Devonshire's boy? As in the late Police Chief Arney Devonshire?"

I would have rather been taken to jail than endured this conversation, and I could instantly tell that Dallas was sorry for not coming up with a pseudonym for me.

"Yes, sir. Arney was my father," I answered softly.

I had to have this conversation way more often than I ever wanted to.

"Hell of a man he was! A magnificent chief and a selfless individual. Him taking out that gunman at the mall. Wow. He is a true hero."

"Thank you for that, sir," I replied, hanging my head.

Dallas knew I didn't deal well with this situation when it happened. He knocked his knee repeatedly into mine. Bare skin on skin. His way of saying sorry.

Putting the car in park, the officer swung his door open and hopped out. Opening my door, he led me out of the car and unlocked my cuffs.

"I get it. You are just a teenager letting off some steam," he explained.

He let Dallas out his door and his cuffs.

"Now you two go directly home, and I don't want to catch you on private property again, or I will have to bring you down to the station."

"Yes, sir," we said in unison. 

As the cop's tail lights disappeared down the street, Dallas put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me in.

"Let's go home, buddy," he said with a squeeze.

Our way home was silent. My courage had worn off and, uncharacteristically, Dallas didn't seem to know how to restart the conversation. So we rode in silence. My hand out the window and his hair blowing in the night air.

I didn't see him the rest of that weekend. He said he was too busy cleaning his dad up after his bender. But I knew something had changed. That something was forever different. That I damaged something.

At school on Monday, my suspicions would be proven true. I would find out, via the grapevine, that Dallas asked Jamie Walker out Saturday night.