We don't leave the hotel until after Linzi has modeled all three of her bikinis and decided which one will look best flying through the air on a jet ski. I've told her it doesn't matter and that the lifejacket will cover it, but that doesn't faze Linzi. Her final decision is the hot pink one with the shimmery silver flowers. She hauls our beach bag into Strickland's Boating for safekeeping while we're out on the water. Alston is waiting in his bright orange swim trunks, but Reed is dressed in khaki shorts and a white polo work shirt.
"Reed forgot about the annual old man sailboat club," Alston says after kissing Linzi hello.
"The what?" Linzi asks.
Reed props his elbows on the counter. "All the old dudes around here get together and go sailing and talk about business and mistresses and brag about who has what," he says. "I have to be here to grant their every boating wish."
There's no way he forgot about this. If it's a yearly get together of the richest guys around, it's probably marked on the calendar with a huge dollar sign since the last time they got together. He knew this was today, and that's why he invited us jet skiing. He has another plan.
"So I'm a third wheel then?" I assume, even though I don't know how that's supposed to run me off. Linzi can suck face with Alston while I find a way to legally trespass onto Colby's property.
"No," Reed says. "I wouldn't do that to you. A.J.'s going to fill in for me, but he's fun. Life of the party. You'll love him."
Life of the party is probably translation for wild party boy who is going to do everything he can to scare me away. I can see the stolen photo perfectly even though it's sitting on the hotel's nightstand. Blonde hair, messy surfer shag. Brown eyes. Five o'clock shadow. Beer in hand. At least his wild ass is gorgeous.
Alston fills Linzi in on the best spots for jet skiing, making mention of the cove and how awesome it is to jump waves on a jet ski. Reed jumps in rambling about speed and adrenaline, and Linzi is bouncing in her flip flops in a matter of seconds. All of their words run together until the bell over the front door announces the arrival of a tattooed Mexican guy in a white muscle shirt.
"Strick, man, if I die today, make sure they name a cell after me over at county, alright?" he says, walking under the fluorescent lights toward us.
"Fucking moron," Alston mutters. "You can't stay out of lockup, can you?"
"Nah, let me tell you what happened," the guy says.
He stretches his arms out over the counter, stretching the turquoise dragon on his arm too. Its orange eyes watch me.
And his story begins. "I was taking down all those election signs near the cove. All that conservative bullshit everywhere, all around Taylor's house, so I ripped that shit up. Then Deputy Jackass Pittman hauled me in for vandalizing government property. Government property my ass. It's fucking cardboard."
He pushes his sunglasses up into his messy black hair. His eyes are bloodshot; he either hasn't slept or he's high...or possibly both. He turns around, propping both elbows behind him against the counter. A skull carved into a crescent moon is tattooed just under his shoulder on his upper arm. It's surrounded by little black stars. This guy is one of the last people I'd expect to give in to the crescent moon gimmick, but then again, he is wearing one of those stupid white shell necklaces.
"Damn, I need a cigarette," he says.
"You can smoke on the beach," Reed says, pointing to the back door.
Tattoo Guy pulls a pack of cigarettes from the back pocket of his shorts and heads toward the back door, but Reed grabs his arm and pulls him back.
"Hold up," Reed says. "You've gotta meet them. That's Haley...and Linzi." He points to each of us as he says our names. Then he looks at me. "Haley, this is A.J. Gonzalez, your right-hand man for the day."
My guts transform into a pack of crazed bats flapping around and beating my ribcage in attempts to break free. I could seriously throw up on this waxy white floor. This is A.J. – freshly out of jail, tattooed, nicotine-addicted A.J.
It takes a good chunk of my strength and self-worth to force a smile, especially after seeing that glazed-over, mangy dog look in A.J.'s eyes. I'm just another little lamb out on the beach for his crazy coyote instincts to rip apart and splatter over the sand. And I'm the stupid little lamb who is going to fight back.
We follow Reed outside and around the building to a giant storage unit that I can't believe I haven't noticed before. The colors of the jet skis pop out like those of the paper stars sitting on the counter back inside. Reed explains that most of the bigger boats are in a storage unit down near the dock for easier loading. I think I'm the only one listening to him. Alston and A.J. are eyeing today's transportation while Linzi hangs onto Alston's arm and his every word.
"This one!" A.J. calls out.
He climbs on top of a yellow jet ski, that sporty yellow color that looks super fast flying down the highway even at speed limit. He stands over the jet ski, straddling it and jerking back and forth with the handlebars, like a mechanical bull is underneath him rather than a jet ski. His attitude is better suited for a bull ride.
Alston debates back and forth between a blue jet ski and a red one, but the red wins out, something about it being the color of love and passion. Linzi swoons like a lovesick idiot.
"Load us up, Strick," A.J. shouts out. He waves an invisible lasso in the air with his free hand while still rocking back and forth on the jet ski.
I follow the Alston-Linzi love fest back inside the boating store in search of lifejackets. Linzi throws her T-shirt aside and pulls her jacket over her head to try it on for size. God forbid it hide too much of her bikini. I stare at the Great White photo above the register. Unlike photographer Jake McAllister, I won't be facing sharks in the ocean. I'll be facing a greater risk to my life – bodyguard number three, the party boy – A.J.
The thought of "party boy" takes me back to the stolen photo. If the beer-drinking blonde isn't A.J., then who is he? The only option left is the jerkoff mechanic. And according to Enchanted Emily, even Colby isn't worth that kind of torment. Emily doesn't realize that I'm on a forever-chasing mission, though. It changes everything. I mentally say goodbye to Jake McAllister's shark photo in case I never see it again and walk outside. Reed is leaning over A.J.'s shoulder, most likely giving him instructions on how to send me back to North Carolina.
A.J. runs over to me and throws an arm around my shoulder, leaving Reed to take the yellow jet ski to the water for us.
"This is gonna be the most badass day of your life," A.J. informs me. I smell his cigarette lingering on each word. "Jumping waves on a jet ski is one of the best adrenaline rushes ever. If you hang on pretty tight, you shouldn't wipe out."
It doesn't take a surf genius to know what wiping out is.
"You're such a show off," Reed hollers out, looking back at us. "You just picked yellow so you could be seen. No one drives a yellow vehicle unless they want to be noticed."
"Damn it, Strick," A.J. says, unwrapping his arm from me and dropping the butt of his cigarette onto the shoreline. "You know damn well that the fastest cars are the bright ones. You're the speed junkie, not me."
A.J. pushes Reed away with his shoulder and climbs aboard. I fiddle around with the buckles on the lifejacket as Reed turns into a dot moving back up through the sand toward the store. A.J. waves me over to him. His sunglasses hide his eyes again, which eases my nerves just a bit. I can pretend he's not stoned or sleep deprived or whatever the hell he is.
"Whoa!" Alston yells out.
I look back. His lips keep moving, but I can't hear anything over the roaring of A.J.'s jet ski.
"– the hell!?" is all I catch. I throw my arms into the air and shake my head as Alston moves toward me.
"What the hell are you doing?" he asks once he's within earshot. He motions at A.J., but I know he's talking to me.
"Jet skiing," I say. "You know, most people wear lifejackets. I thought that was normal."
He points at A.J. "You're seriously getting on that with him? Are you crazy? No one has ever ridden with A.J. Well, except that one time Reed did. He still has the scar to show for it."
My blood boils as hot as this raging summer sun. This whole jet skiing with A.J. deal was a ploy, just like I thought. He's probably rocked his mechanical bull moves on that yellow jet ski for a thousand girls. I bet he blew cigarette smoke on them and wrapped his arm around their pretty tan shoulders and told them how wave jumping with him would be the most badass experience of their lives. And at that point, the girls decided to take turns riding with Alston or they found another chiseled beach bum to waste their time with. None of them ever dared to get on the back of Jailbird Gonzalez's jet ski.
But I do.
I stare at Alston's blank expression trying to find the words to say 'fuck you' without being so harsh. I settle for "Let's do this" and set my sights on my right-hand man for the day, wild eyes, jet ski, and all. I grab on to A.J.'s skull-tattooed shoulder and pull myself onto the jet ski. He turns around and looks at me.
"You're serious?" he asks. His voice isn't so smirky now. His reckless smile isn't wrapped from ear to ear, and I wish I could see behind his sunglasses to read into him.
Nodding my head is all I can handle. Those crazy bats in my stomach flutter like they're jacked up on caffeine, and A.J.'s mad scientist laugh echoes across the ocean. He punches the throttle, and salt water splashes up around us.
"Hang on, darling!" he shouts back to me. He glances over at Alston and Linzi then yells back to me over his shoulder. "Let's show them how it's really done!"
*****
After two hours on the sea with A.J., I'm still alive and definitely not a pro when it comes to driving a jet ski. I've been splashed with just enough water to cool off but not so much that it can't be sucked back up by the sun in a matter of two seconds. And most shocking of all, A.J. has actually been fun. Or at least until the blur of a blue jet ski zooms by. It sends a spray of water over the four of us. Alston curses under his breath.
"Son of a Hooligan bitch!" A.J. screams out.
I squint my eyes to see the guy as he blasts back through a wave. Sunlight pours over him, blinding me, until he makes a loop past us and takes off again at reckless speed. It's the brunette Hooligan – Dominic.
The water slices as he forces through the waves, whirring like a bullet as he passes. He continues – back, forth. Back, forth. His silent taunts fuel their testosterone, like he's challenging the guys to take him on. Linzi shakes her head a few times and rubs her hands up and down Alston's arms. Her sweet talking wins him over in a matter of seconds. But A.J. revs up the jet ski before I can talk him into letting me off. I hook my fingers around the straps of his lifejacket and pull myself as closely to him as I can. There's no turning back now.
The wind blends into the buzz of the jet ski. I squeeze into A.J.'s lifejacket and bury my face into the back of his shoulder. Waves slosh over the sides of the jet ski, stinging my legs as we fly faster than earlier today when we raced Alston and Linzi. The world is a blur of ocean, sky, and sand, all running together like a child's watercolor painting. A streak of blue rushes past us, and A.J. spits out a few four-letter words.
Seconds later, the world flips upside down. My eyes are flooded with sunlight and blue skies, and then a million needles pierce my body. Salt stings my eyes, and everything around me is murky green. I gasp for air but gather a mouthful of ocean and seaweed instead. The waves toss me around, and I fight for the surface until I see the sky again then inhale the west coast ocean air. A.J. pops out of the water about ten feet away, choking on the sea.
"What the hell?" I shout out at him.
"We flipped!" he shouts back.
No kidding! Our yellow jet ski bobs on the waves behind me, still buzzing after our flip. A.J. swims over to me, apologizing while also bitching about losing his eighty-dollar sunglasses in the water. I unhook the buckles of my lifejacket and hurl it toward the jet ski. Slimy strings of green seaweed tangle with my hair. Oh God.
"Dude," A.J. says. He shakes his hair out of his eyes. "You've got this badass sexy swamp creature look going on."
Now I want to sink to the bottom of the ocean for eternity. Forget the taste of sea water. I'd rather adjust to that than have anyone see me looking like a swamp creature. He pulls me up onto the jet ski. Dominic is gone, probably bragging to his Hooligans that he raced A.J. and kicked his ass because A.J. flipped in a wave and lost his sunglasses. Oh yeah, and "Reed's friend" was with him. Stupid girl.
A.J. drives us back at record slow speed. Alston is stretched out on a beach towel tugging at the Frisbee in Dexter's mouth. Linzi rushes over to the edge of the water to meet me.
"Are you okay?" she shouts before I even get off the jet ski. "That looked awful!"
I leave my abandoned lifejacket with A.J. and return to shore, drenched, with mascara running down my face and my hair crinkling into its natural wavy mess. So much for the thirty minutes I wasted with a flat iron this morning. You'd never know now.
"I'm fine," I tell her. "Let's go."
I grab her arm and drag her back through the sand with me, leaving Alston and A.J. to fetch the jet skis, lifejackets, and Dexter on their own.
"That's why people don't get on a jet ski with A.J.," Linzi says, as if she knows all about A.J.'s past experiences on the water.
She probably does. I'm sure Alston informed her of everything A.J. has ever done on a jet ski and assured her that I wasn't coming back alive.
The sliding back door of Strickland's Boating is cracked open. Reed is behind the counter, alone, when we walk in.
"What in the hell happened to you?" he asks.
I push past him, ignoring the water, sand, and seaweed I've tracked in with me. I pull my T-shirt back over my head and watch the water seep through the fabric. Linzi crams everything she owns into the beach bag, and while I'm sure she doesn't want to leave Alston just yet, she doesn't argue.
"She went jet skiing with A.J.," Linzi tells Reed.
And speak of the devil. A.J. and Alston follow through the back door. Alston drops the lifejackets behind the counter and slides the glass door shut behind him and Dexter. Reed grabs A.J.'s arm and pulls him behind the counter.
"Are you trying to kill her?" Reed yells. "What the hell were you thinking? I told you to scare her, not drown her!"
"Strick, man, listen – it was an accident. We flipped," A.J. says.
I wrap my untamed hair into a clip and dig into my bag for my keys. "It was an accident," I repeat. "It's okay, Reed. Don't worry about it."
All I want is to get out of here before I see my own reflection and realize that swamp creatures cannot be sexy, despite what A.J. thinks.
Reed ignores my attempt to smooth things over. "You went too far," he says to A.J.
"She didn't have to get on there," A.J. says. "And it's not like I tried to flip it. I was trying to outrun Dominic. She was just there."
Reed continues verbally slaughtering A.J. as we head for the door – around the counter, past the paper stars, a step over Dexter, and three feet to the sliding glass door. Linzi heads down the sidewalk, a few steps ahead of me, and I hear the last words A.J. may ever say.
"You're the one who set up this stupid play date to begin with!"
I almost want to stop right here on the sand-covered sidewalk and listen for Reed's reply, but I keep walking with my head down so the group of people up ahead won't see my makeup-stained face. The sound of flip flops comes up on me, like a shark on a sea lion, but I don't look back. I'd rather not face the person who is determined to run me over.
"Haley! Wait!"
Reed runs around me and halts my journey toward the car. I motion for Linzi to go on. She hesitates for a moment but continues toward the parking lot.
"This is my fault," Reed says. "I'm the one who lied and sent you out with A.J. today. It's just...you've gotta understand. No one has ever ridden with A.J. Most girls don't come back around after they meet him, and if I'd thought for a second that you'd really get on there with him, I wouldn't have sent you out there."
"I'm not most girls," I say. I push him out of my path with my shoulder, but he spins around and stops me again.
"I know that. Most girls don't care about paper stars. I know there's more to it with you, but I can't do anything about it," he says.
This time I don't try to leave. I don't know what he knows about North Carolina or paper stars or Colby Taylor's trip back home to interrupt my boring little world, but he knows I'm here to find surfer boy.
"You're just doing your job, right? Keeping the naïve teenage tourists away from your guy? Well, you can tell Colby Taylor he needs to think about that before he drags a random girl off to watch cover bands and talk about chasing forever and then leaves paper stars behind because he's too damn scared to show up the next day like he said he would," I say.
The summer sun blazes through my veins again. Warmth burns my cheeks, and I bet I look like Medusa on fire with my snaky hair sprouting from its clip and my black swamp creature eyes pouring down my face. I'd turn and run toward the parking lot if I weren't afraid of tripping over my own feet and making a bigger fool of myself.
"Haley, I'm done," Reed says. His eyes go sad, like how I'd imagined Dexter's if someone stole that hot pink Frisbee. "You don't have to fight me anymore. If you can get through Alston and A.J. and – Get through the other guys then Taylor's yours. I'm not standing in your way."
If Reed is surrendering, I'm another guy down. Alston is so preoccupied with Linzi that I doubt he even cares about fighting me off. He's totally in this "just for the chicks." I think I've proven I can handle A.J. more than anyone thought I could.
"Who is the fourth guy?" That's the real question.
Reed inhales and looks past me. "You can meet him tonight. I owe you anyway. There's this really awesome diner on the edge of town. I'm paying. Meet us here at seven?"
"It's a date."
*****
Fighting the waves in my hair is like fighting the waves in the ocean – a losing battle. I decide to take the Colby Taylor route and ride with it. Linzi spends too much time checking her makeup in the mirror, and once she's somewhat pleased, I head for the car before she can change her mind about what she's wearing. Alston, Reed, and A.J. are hanging around Reed's dark blue Jeep when we pull into the parking lot behind Strickland's Boating. Alston meets Linzi at the passenger side door. Reed comes to my window, tells me to follow him to the diner, and heads back over to his Jeep.
"Heeeeeey," Linzi says in that 'best friend needs a favor' voice. "Is it cool if I ride with Alston?"
I know better than to complain. She'll just turn the tables on me saying how I made her leave earlier today during my swamp creature crisis and how she didn't put up a fight even though she wanted to lay around on the beach all day and make out with Alston. So I tell her it's fine, and she bounces over to the Jeep and into the backseat with her lover boy without ever giving me a second glance.
"Well, that was one hell of a fucked up thing to do," A.J. says as he slides into my passenger seat. "I'm riding with you. Alston can have the little bitch."
The words I want to say wrap around my tonsils and never escape my throat. A.J. changes the subject and the radio station and tells me about how he ran into Topher outside of Great White Surf this afternoon. Topher had already heard about our massive flip from Dominic, but A.J. assures me that he 'set the record straight' that we kicked ass and totally flipped it on purpose to show Dominic up. I doubt Topher bought it, but A.J. does make it sound more awesome than it really was.
We pull up next to Reed at a diner called Shipwrecked. The sign is a ship torn in half, wrapped up in the legs of an octopus. Reed asks for a booth for six, and Linzi and Alston slide in on one side. Reed sits next to Alston, and A.J. takes the wall seat on our side, leaving room for the mechanic a.k.a. bodyguard number four on the other side of me.
I leave my menu flat on the table because I'm afraid if I hold it up to read it, everyone will see my excitement and anxiety spilling from my pores and shaking hands. A.J. plays with a lime green and teal paper octopus that serves as table décor and offers to steal it for me when I say it's cute and I wish I had one for a souvenir. He bends its crinkled legs inward then outward, and I focus all of my attention on him while Reed orders so no one will see how desperate I am for the beer-drinking blonde to arrive.
Reed is between "extra ketchup" and "no pickles" when the world stops spinning. I look up from the paper octopus the instant I feel the weight of another body sitting on the red leather next to me. It's like all eight legs of the octopus have wrapped around me and forewarned me that they are about to squeeze the life from my body. This is how the crew of the Titanic must've felt the moment they saw that deadly iceberg.
"This is the man of the hour!" Reed announces.
But there's no need for introductions.
"Vin Number," I say.
His blue eyes still give me chills. "Sunshine," he says. "We meet again."