BAE BOY

32

First, if you click the video above, you'll see a little Adobe Spark trailer I just made, instead of just hearing the "theme song." That was a new experience. But...moving on to this chapter, someone you may have been missing is back. I'll be curious to find out how you "read" the "reunion."

"Surfer Girl" slept in the next day. A girl needs a rest after a long night of wave ridin'.

Okay, I know. Enough already. But she really did surprise the hell out of me. I mean, we went from me teaching her the basics to her teaching me some things you could do with those basics that I had never thought of.

I'm going to write Shakira a "thank you" note ASAP. For real.

Though I was sorely tempted to curl up right next to her for the rest of the day, I kept my promise to get up and out of the house early for Danny. May not seem like it, but I'd been thinking about him a lot.

In Mexico, when I felt that fear I told you about, I'd flash on how Danny was probably feeling something similar. That relentless dread. Juvie is treacherous. And Danny's easy prey.

As I was wrestling with our diabolical espresso machine to get a caffeine jump start for the road, I got a text from Rick that he was running late for reasons he'd explain later.

He wanted me to go get Wyatt, because he'd promise her a ride and he felt like she'd freak if he just sent the car. I was up for that for sure. I'd been thinking about her, too.

I haven't said anything about her in a while, either. Which probably seemed even stranger than me not mentioning Danny. But I'd been wondering why she just sort of vanished. The last time I'd seen her was that night at the church, chasing the DeGrazia boys who'd helped set those fires.

I'd been on a pretty wild ride since then, but I'd sort of expected to hear from her, if only about the guys she chased. But nothing. Not word one.

So I took the Boxter over, no big sedan or anything. She lived right where I thought she might. Kind of south of the downtown area, where they were just beginning to gentrify a little bit because it was still considered sort of a "bad" neighborhood by the kind of people who would normally come in and start renovating things.

So the houses were still kind of old and funky. A lot of artists and writers and musicians had moved in there first because it was affordably funky. And all the old carnicerias, farmacias, taco stands, restaurants and things that the original inhabitants owned were still there. So were a lot of the original inhabitants, but that would change soon.

Her house was an original adobe that was crumbling a little bit around the edges, but was sort of charming, actually. She'd just had it painted, it looked like. This warm, rusty red color. And the outside shutters and door were a deep sort of royal blue.

That's how they'd done things down our way for centuries. All the houses used to be painted bright, crazy colors so that each block looked sort of like a crayon box.