I nodded. “Okay. Fine.”
I heard the jangle of Julia’s keys as she walked to the door.
I turned my head. “Thank you.”
Julia didn’t look back at me. “No problem, Aira.”
She was gone and I was home alone.
In a new house. A strange house. A very small house.
I didn’t want to be that kind of person though. I didn’t want to be like my parents and judge people based on their cars or houses or any of that stuff. Even still, this place was crammed. And it had a dusty smell to it.
My comfort quickly became the window.
I stood there again and swung my dark purple bag from my shoulder to the floor.
I unzipped the bag and saw the clothes I had packed. Well, the clothes I had bought to pack to come here. I dug through all the supplies I had too. All the woman stuff I needed. From mascara to tampons, I felt like I was running away. Packed up, ready to stick my thumb out, or maybe just call an Uber to take me somewhere new.
My hand started to shake again as I opened the front pouch. There was a secret pocket and I had a small cloth bag in there. Believe me, it wasn’t drugs. In some ways, maybe I wished it was drugs.
I opened the cloth bag and had to gently reach into it. I didn’t want to cut my fingers. That would have been too obvious.
I sucked in a shaky breath and looked forward.
I gasped when I saw someone down at the beach.
Walking along the edge of the water, barefoot in ripped jeans and a long sleeve black shirt. Even from the distance I was at, my mind and heart drooled the same thing.
Muscles. Muscles. Muscles.
I slowly stood up, forgetting about the cloth bag and what was inside.
Instead, I put my hands to the glass and gawked like I was staring through the window of a store at a dress.
I watched the beach breeze throw his sort of long, black hair in any and all directions, fighting against the sunglasses resting on his head.
I caught myself almost swaying as I watched him continue his walk.
He then froze.
He turned and looked right at me.
I stepped back, not sure if that would take me out of his view.
But that fraction of a second of his eyes to mine made me forget everything I knew in life. It sort of felt good.
Then again, it was Weslee.
The wild bad boy who had stolen my heart once before.
We were just kids then.
So much had changed between then and now.
I looked different.
My body was different.
Very different.
So was his.
But his eyes… that stare…
Maybe I was better off dealing with the flames in my burned down bedroom.
* * *
I wore shoes down to the beach which was kind of stupid to do.
I kept looking back to the house, thinking about my bag on the floor. Not that I cared that I left it on the floor. But just what was inside it. What I had been waiting so desperately to do.
The moment had come and gone.
Just like Weslee on the beach, too.
I wasn’t sure if he even remembered me.
It had been a long time ago.
I had braces at the time. And my hair was short, barely past my ears. It was the worst hair style of my life, one that my mother had so me and her matched. I always had to wear fancy dresses and stuff too.
I stood in the sand and looked left to right.
To my left I saw two girls running on the beach. In shorts that were too short to actually be shorts. The girl on the left had a sports bra on that was doing its job, keeping her in place. The girl on the right though was unable to control her chest. For me, I was smack dab somewhere in between. Which was sort of good and sort of bad. I didn’t get instant attention to my chest for its size, yet at the same time I didn’t get picked on for having mosquito bites, as the assholes in my old school used to say.
These girls had legs that went on for miles and I just stood there in jeans and a hoodie in the beach sun, feeling myself warming up by the second. I had large, black sunglasses on my face and as they closed in on me, I realized something.
I knew the girl with the small chest.
I pointed at the exact second she pointed.
She turned to face me and somehow kept her balance and stride.
“Aira!” she cried out.
The other girl turned her head and tripped over her own two feet and went down into the sand.
That’s what you get for having such a perfect chest, bitch.
“Holy shit,” I cried out as I chased away that nasty thought.
“Charlotte!”
Next thing I knew, I was crouched down, helping the girl I didn’t know - Charlotte - up from the sand.
Kailey was the girl I knew.
She had Charlotte’s other hand.
“Ohmufuckinggod, I lost my balance,” Charlotte said.
She stood up, taller than me, and I saw sand all over her chest.
“You have some sand on your… uh…”
She looked down. She groaned. She wiped at her chest. “Hate these things sometimes.”
“Flynn doesn’t,” Kailey said. “He’s learned to be quite the sailor as he motorboats you every single day.”
“Ew, stop,” Charlotte said. “It’s not like that.”
“Oh, it’s totally like that. And then some.”
Kailey made a gesture with her hands that made Charlotte blush.
“Can we stop talking about this?” Charlotte asked. “And not to be rude, but who are you?”
Charlotte looked right at me.
“That’s Aira,” Kailey said. “She used to live here.”
“Used to?” Charlotte asked.
“I live here again now,” I said.
“You moved back?” Kailey squealed. She jumped up and down. Her chest didn’t. But her long blonde ponytail did. “When?”
“Like an hour ago,” I said.
“In the middle of the year?” Charlotte asked.
She had ditz written all over her forehead. I wondered if she had to write breathe in and breathe out on the palms of her hands.
Ohgod, stop judging people, Aira…
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“We have time,” Kailey said.
“I’m done running,” Charlotte said. “I just ate sand.”
“You went down pretty hard,” I said.
“That’s what Flynn said,” Kailey jabbed.
Charlotte snarled her lip. “At least I didn’t lose my virginity under the bleachers.”
“Oh, damn,” I said.
“So what?” Kailey asked.
I shook my head.
Last time I saw Kailey she was in a dress with her hair done nice. Even wearing white gloves to look all proper because we were at some fancy dinner. She had been so quiet and innocent. But now…
I caught myself grinning.
Kailey wrapped her arm into mine. “What the hell are you really doing back here?”
“Just catching up,” I said with a laugh.
“I have an idea,” Charlotte said. “Let’s take our shoes off and dip our toes into the water. Cool down and then get a smoothie or something.”
Smoothies, huh? How about a pepperoni pizza and a bottle of vodka?
“That’s a plan,” Kailey said. “Come on, Aira, let’s go.”
Kailey fell to her knees and started to pull at the white laces of my shoes.
I stepped back and resisted the urge to kick her in the mouth for touching me.
That kind of instant reaction maybe wasn’t good to have, but it was how I kept myself protected.
“I can do it,” I said.
Kailey looked up at me, squinting her eyes. “So where did you end up?”
She stood up and stepped out of her shoes.
When Charlotte tried to do the same she jumped, squealed, and needed to use
Kailey’s shoulder for balance.
I didn’t answer Kailey’s question right away.
I took my shoes and socks off and rolled my jeans up enough so they wouldn’t get wet.
Kailey and Charlotte were already in the water, shoulder to shoulder, talking.
I was the new kid all over again, even if I knew some of the people.
Kailey looked back and smiled. “Come on!”
I stepped from the dry sand to the wet sand and then into the water.
It wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be.
My mind suddenly had a million memories of this ocean. So much to think about.
Kailey hooked her arm into mine again. “You have to tell me everything, Aira. You were here and then gone right at the end of school that one year. Now you’re back? For real?”
“For real,” I said.
“That’s so cool,” Charlotte said. “I mean, coming back to where you’re from. Are you excited?”
“I’m tired,” I said. “It’s been…”
I lost my words as I looked beyond Charlotte.
There was a pier not too far away.
And standing there, leaning over it with his sunglasses still back on his head, his hair still ripping with the wind, was Weslee.
“You okay?” Charlotte asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just saw something…”
They both looked.
It wasn’t even a second of looking before they jumped to block me.
The look on their faces was a mix of fear and flustered.
“What?” I asked. “I know who that is.”
Kailey touched my shoulder. She shook her head. “Trust me, Aira, you don’t know who Weslee is right now.”
“And him looking at you…,” Charlotte said.
Kailey cut back in. “That’s not a good thing at all.”
Chapter 3
Wes
There’s no fucking way it’s possible. She moved away a long time ago, man. She took off into the night. Her parents ripped her away from me. I painted WHORE on the town sign to make damn sure I had her full attention. But she always had my full attention. And I ran from the cops for the hell of it. I eventually stopped and gave myself up. That was all part of it. To be the guy that escaped from the law to find my girl and kiss her. That first kiss was going to the one she’d never forget. I wasn’t her first kiss. I never would be. That was taken from me. Fuck that though. I was going to have the best first kiss of her life and that was that…
I strummed an E minor chord on the guitar and watched the smoke dance from my cigarette.
“Hand me the fucking wrench or I’ll smash your head in,” Leo growled as he sat next to the chrome shell of a motorcycle.
“Damn, bromie, you need to chill,” Flynn said in a smooth voice.
He flicked his surfer boy hair out of his eyes and walked a big ass wrench to Leo.
You could always tell when Flynn got his hands on Charlotte’s wickedly nice body because he would act like a kid on a sugar high. And he would say stupid stuff like bromie.
“Hold this for me,” Leo said.
Flynn crouched down and together, they worked on the frame of a ride that would be fixed up and shipped out.
Everyone in the town of Hidden hated us.
That was part of our appeal, though.
They hated that Pop refused to dish out his land to developers, who wanted to slap in some more houses and condos to be close to the beach. They hated that we were rough and tough and scruffy. They hated that we would never tell the truth about whether we had criminal ties to a high powered motorcycle club.
Hell, some of that shit I didn’t even know about myself.
I kept strumming the same chord as I thought about what I saw on the beach.
Aira?
What was she doing back here?
I mean, it wasn’t uncommon for her to pop in here and there for a visit. I had heard rumblings about it a few times but nothing like this. Standing in a window, alone, staring at me. Then standing with Charlotte and Kailey in the water.
Something was way off base here.
“You going to work today or what?” Leo asked me as he tightened a bolt.
“I’ll work on your mom later,” I said.
Flynn busted out laughing.
Leo threw a punch with his hand holding the wrench. He cracked Flynn in the nose. Flynn’s head snapped back.
“Oh, fuck,” Flynn groaned.
“Oops,” Leo said. “My hand slipped.”
I laughed as I jumped off the table and put the guitar face down.
I took a deep drag of my cigarette and flicked it into an old coffee can. There was water in the can and my smoke sizzled as it died.
Speaking of sizzling…
I curled my lip, not wanting to think about Aira.
Christ, of course she’d show up wearing fucking jeans and a hoodie.
I never got the chance to watch her develop.
Hell, I hadn’t wanted to actually watch her develop… I wanted to be all over it. Each step of the way, rounding those bases one by one, waiting for the home run hit, if you get what I’m saying.
But that wasn’t life.
Fuck my age because I knew how life went sometimes.
The office door opened and Pop lumbered out wearing his classic black jeans and black t-shirt tucked in. His beer gut hung lower by the day. His face hung lower too. Even still, when his eyes met mine, they were cold.
If there was one thing known about us… you never fucked with Pop. Or the shop.
Weaz Auto was named for myself and my brother.
Damn.
More memories started to attack me.
“We get those two shipped out today?” Pop asked me.
“All done, Pop,” I said. “Tony took the truck and Rhyno for muscle.”
“They better not eat the profits on the way back with burgers and pussy,” Pop said.
I laughed.
Tony loved women. Rhyno loved burgers.
“We’ll track ‘em down, Pop,” Jett said as he walked out of the office next.
He was the only person who could touch Pop.
I really never knew where Jett came from. He had been a punk kid like me and grew up tough and found the shop and for whatever reason, he stuck around. Pop liked him enough. And Jett was like a father to me. He was only nine years older than me. When I was a kid, he had long hair, a fast car, a loud motorcycle, and slept with the hottest chicks I’d ever seen, he became my damn idol.
“Those two are going to run us out of business,” Pop said. “And you two assholes too.”
He nodded to Leo and Flynn.
Flynn stood up, red faced. “Pop, what did I do?”
“Came from your old man’s cock,” Pop spouted. “That fucking prick.”
“Okay, Pop,” Jett said. He turned Pop around. “Go back into the office. I’m sure there’s some gunslinger movie starting soon enough.”
“I’ll make a man outta all of you if I don’t die first,” he grumbled.
Jett shut the office door and looked at me, winking. “He’s in a good mood today.”
“At least he didn’t throw something at someone.”
“You remember that guy, Jackie? The one with the toupee?”
“Yeah. It was like a sleeping raccoon on his head.”
Jett laughed. He still had his nose ring. And it was still fucking cool as hell. His arms were top to bottom covered in tattoos and my plan was to eventually catch up to him. Of course, times were different now. The edge Jett walked back years ago wasn’t the same I walked on.
“Yeah, well, Pop threw a phonebook at him,” Jett said.
“What’s a phonebook?” Flynn asked.
“Fucking youth,” Jett said.
“What did Jackie do?” I asked.
“He walked out,” Jett said. “He’ll be back. He wants his motorcycle tuned up. You know, he cashed out of his company, left his wife, got a rug on his head, so now he
wants to ride free.”
“Hey, whatever works,” I said.
A wrench slammed to the concrete floor. “Fuck!”
Leo stood up and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Need some muscle, kid?” Jett asked.
Leo turned and looked ready to take on Jett.
Bad call, bromie.
“Shit day,” Leo said.
“Going to get shittier now,” I said.
“Why’s that?” Jett asked.
“Look who just pulled in.”
I pointed and when Jett saw the police car, he whispered, “Fuck.”
There was one thing I knew for sure.
The police didn’t stop by the shop just to say hello.
* * *
Dusty was almost as old as Pop. He was tall and skinny and had the biggest cliché cop sunglasses I ever saw. He used to wear a cowboy hat, but thankfully that phase ended. Now he had some scruff on his face, and if it weren’t for the uniform, he’d look homeless.
The first thing he always did was touch his gun. Just gently, fingertips grazing it, reminding all of us that he was the law. We weren’t above the law. But that didn’t mean we had to respect it either.
I think the one thing that really got under everyone’s skin was that Pop (and the shop and land and everything else) was as loaded as the richies who lived right off the mainland in their massive houses. Hell, we could probably buy up their fucking land and knock their houses down just for fun.
“Big bad Dusty,” Jett called out.
Dusty took off his sunglasses as he stepped into the garage.
We all just stood there, waiting for Dusty to drop a bomb on us or have other cops show up.
“Got a minute?” Dusty asked.
“For you?” Jett asked. “I’ve got a minute and a beer.”
“No drinking on the job,” Dusty said.
“Since when?” Jett asked.
“Since they started fucking putting cameras on everything.”
“Even in this town?” Jett asked.
“Heard it’s coming soon.”
“I think he can’t handle his booze anymore,” Jett said, looking at me. He then looked at Leo and Flynn. “You two. Head out back and start cleaning the parts.”
HIDDEN CREEK SECRETS: a hidden creek high novel Page 2