by Nikki Godwin
Chapter Thirteen
Topher stretches out on his orange beach towel and pops a sugar cube into his mouth. Seven hours ago, this very sand swirled through the air and created a tornado of salt water and beach particles. You’d never know by the looks of the sandcastles, surfers, and the scorching sun. I glance behind me for A.J. He left a few minutes ago to get bottled water and left me with the Hooligan. Apparently Topher has to surf in the cove due to the jellyfish clean up in Horn Island.
“Taylor’s crazy, you know,” Topher says in between chews. “Going out in that storm to surf. He’s going to die for real doing that.”
He knows more than he lets on. Why else would he have called Vin this morning? I’m beginning to doubt that he needed a mechanic. Still, I don’t press for any juicy tidbits. He’s not telling me anything I don’t already know. He tugs at the loose strands of his swimming trunks and readjusts his sunglasses before popping up as quickly as he would on a surfboard in the water. Miles waves at us from a distance, dragging two surfboards and leaving his mark through the sand. He looks less than thrilled to be here.
“Will you be the keeper of my cubes?” Topher asks. He looks back down at me and shakes his bag of sugar cubes.
A.J. snatches the bag from over my head. “Go on, surf star wannabe,” he says to Topher.
That’s all it takes for Topher to jet off toward the water to meet Miles. A.J. drops down to the sand, stretches out on Topher’s towel, and hands me a thick roll of blue tickets, like the ones you get at high school basketball games.
“Vin wants you to sell these,” he says. He twists the lid off of his water bottle.
I spin the tickets around and wonder how in the hell I’ll be able to sell one thousand tickets before this weekend’s surf competition. The guys were talking about it last night, how Drenaline Surf is a sponsor. I’m pretty sure Vin is hoping I’ll be back in North Carolina before then. He’s probably protective of his dead best friend’s old store, even if I still don’t understand the hostility he has toward Colby. But there’s one thing I’m more curious about.
“Vin? He actually wants my help?” I question. I can’t imagine him trusting me with anything Colby-related.
“Damn it,” A.J. says. “Strick, not Vin. I just saw Vin. Sorry. But no, Strick – he wants you to sell them. A dollar a ticket for a chance to win a custom Drenaline Surf surfboard. We try to help Shark’s dad out as much as we can. Oh, and he said to tell you just to sell tickets to guys, no girls. Strick and Alston can take care of that.”
I shake my head and keep spinning the roll from its center with my index fingers. “There’s no way,” I say.
“He said you would have them sold in no time because you’re hot and guys will buy from you…but not to tell you he said that,” A.J. blurts out.
“Reed said that?” I can’t imagine him actually thinking A.J. wouldn’t tell me.
“Uh…yeah. Strick said it. Don’t tell him I told you.”
A.J.’s stammers aren’t the truth, but I know he’s not going to tell me much more. The tickets fall in between our towels as I lie back and pull my shades over my eyes. When I talked to my mom mid-afternoon, she told me that a water pipe in the kitchen burst so they’d be in a hotel for a few days. She also said that Linzi and I needed to enjoy ourselves, so “take a few days away from this college search and sightsee, live a little.” Oh Mom. If you only knew.
But thanks to that ruptured pipe, I’ll have plenty of time to sell raffle tickets and extend my trip long enough to see Colby Taylor compete on the waves just once, if nothing else. Maybe seeing him chasing his forever down and living his dream will be enough to motivate me.
“I can help you, if you want,” A.J. offers, pulling me away from my thoughts.
“What?” I ask. I prop up on my elbows to look at A.J.
“With the tickets,” he says. “I can help you if you need me to.”
“Right,” I say. I scan the water for Topher and Miles.
A.J. sits up next to me, but I don’t face him. I see him watching me from the corner of my eye. He doesn’t know thanks to these cheap five-dollar sunglasses.
“Alright Haley, what’s up?” he asks. He leans over, staring into me to the point that I can’t ignore him. The truth is there’s so much on my mind that I can’t even sort it out.
“Can we walk?” I ask, nodding toward The Strip behind us.
A.J. is to his feet almost instantly, sliding his flip flops back on. I drop the blue tickets into my beach bag while A.J. throws both mine and Topher’s towels over his shoulder. He pops a sugar cube into his mouth from Topher’s bag then chokes and spits it out.
“I don’t know how in the hell he eats this shit. It’s like eating sand,” A.J. says when we reach the pavement.
I snatch the sugar cubes from him and secure them in my beach bag before A.J. finds a trash can to toss them into. We stroll along past the fresh fruit stand, and I dread walking past the sunglasses rack that A.J. demolished the other day. He walks around me to avoid eye contact with the vendor as we pass. I watch the sidewalk and make shapes out of the sand that washed over the pavement from the storm.
The storm is what’s bugging me. And Vin. I’ve never seen anyone so worked up over thunder, lightning, and rain. Sure, it was bad, and there was need to be concerned, but there’s more to this. Vin even said he wasn’t concerned with Colby’s life. If it’s not that, then what the hell was he worried about? He obviously cares about something – or someone.
“Do you guys always panic like that?” I ask. “When it storms?” I add for clarification.
A.J. runs his hands through his hair and pulls his sunglasses away from his eyes. It’s rare that he’s ever so serious. It’s actually scary.
“Vin panics,” he says. “We used to, all of us, but Vin won’t sleep. He doesn’t do anything until he locates Colby. And then he flips the fuck out on him and they don’t speak for a few days until Strick or Alston smoothes it over.”
He continues along The Strip, kicking at clumps of sand and watching them burst apart as they come in contact with the toe of his flip flop. I replay last night in my head – Vin not leaving the couch. Vin watching the water. Vin standing up in the Jeep because he had to have the perfect view. Vin’s unanswered phone calls. Vin flipping out on Topher for no apparent reason when he called. And Vin walking away in the rain, alone, after he said, ‘Fuck you,’ and threw his phone into Reed’s backseat. Why did he tell me to get out while I can? Out from what?
I take a deep breath. “Is he scared something will happen like…like Shark?”
“Kind of,” A.J. says. He steps off the sidewalk onto the sand and watches the ocean, wave after wave toppling over the sand and washing up toward the tourists and locals alike.
I wish I could pull the photo montage out of his mind and see it for myself, to know what A.J. is thinking about. Maybe he’s remembering Shark’s memorial, everyone in a circle in the water on their surfboards with Shark’s dad speaking about his son’s love for the ocean and how he’d always be a part of it now. Or maybe he’s remembering Vin standing on the pier watching them pour Shark’s ashes into the sea, not stepping foot into the same water that claimed his best friend’s life. I feel like I can see it myself just from hearing Reed talk about it last night after we got back to the condo, while everyone else watched the weather.
“Colby already died,” A.J. says so quietly I have to ease closer to him to hear. “Back in Florida, that spring break trip. Who’s to say he won’t do it again? What if he gets bored with this life or decides he’d rather be someone else again? Every storm is a chance for him to bail.”
His words slice through me like Reed’s Jeep sliced through the orange barricade. And everything somehow makes sense. The secrets, the disguise, the lies, the bodyguards. If Colby decides to just up and leave this life for a new one as well, it’d leave these four guys completely screwed. Vin is the only one of them to realize it.
“Str
ick says he won’t do it, that he isn’t that kind of person, but Vin doesn’t trust him,” A.J. continues. “And really, Vin has a point. Colby Taylor’s name is on the mortgage. We live the high life because we keep him hidden. Shark’s store keeps going because Colby’s name is all over it. He’s our lifeline, Haley. And he could cut it off at any time.”
My throat runs dry, but I couldn’t speak even if I knew the words to say. All it takes is a storm. All it takes is one night, one moment, and he could be gone. He could hop a train or hail a taxi or just ride his board across the ocean. Then Reed and Alston would move back in with their parents, and A.J. would...be homeless.
“Where does Vin live?” I ask, pushing away the thought of A.J. in a cardboard box holding up a ‘Will work for food’ sign.
“Horn Island, same apartment he’s been in since he got kicked out,” A.J. says. “I crash on his couch sometimes when I’m out that way. Or whenever he bails me out. Colby offered him better, but he won’t take it. Vin does just fine on his own.”
A.J. nods down the sidewalk, and I follow along down The Strip. He doesn’t say much else, and I don’t dare ask. I don’t need clarification. His point was made quite clearly. If Colby’s secret is ever revealed, their lives will crash and burn right in front of them. And the only threat is someone from Colby’s other life. Their only threat...is me.
My mind flashes through scenes from their would-be future – moving boxes, Drenaline Surf shutting down, and A.J. living on the streets – and I know the answer is simple.
I can never see Colby Taylor again.