“You shouldn’t have to.” He jumped to his feet. “I need something more than coffee. You up for a smoothie?”
Chapter 8
From the passenger window of her mom’s Volvo, Oceanside had passed in a blur. Summer didn’t care enough to look deeper. By foot, and with Bastian by her side, it became something entirely different. Infinitely more. More colorful, more vibrant, more crowded. The chilly morning had warmed with the rising sun to reach that perfect balminess she’d come to recognize as fall in Southern California. Flowers spilled from every nook and cranny, bits of green surfacing through cracks in the sidewalks and clinging to brick-faced buildings.
“This is so Stepford,” Summer said, trailing behind Bastian’s longer strides.
“Seriously. This entire town is in denial that we’re actually in LA. No urban decay up here in the hills.”
“I’ve lived in rundown beach towns my whole life. This is like a movie set.”
“Still, we make awesome smoothies.” He pushed open a glass door into a tiny, orange juice-scented shop. The cool air shocked her lungs and the fresh-scrubbed stainless steel everything hurt her eyes.
“You don’t have any allergies, do you?” Bastian asked, peering at her through his thick glasses.
“Dust.”
“Mmm. I guess you should avoid the library special then. Dust and musty paper. Very high in fiber but terrible for allergies.”
She laughed. “What else is good?”
“Vega.” The slight, dark-haired girl behind the register leaned toward them with a twinkle in her black eyes.
“You remember Dolores from school, right?” he said.
“Sure.” Summer smiled at her lunch mate. “Sorry I missed the game last night. Homework.”
Bastian’s brow furrowed, but he said nothing.
“No worries. There’s one every week. Although I got an amazing shot of this giant linebacker taking out Jake Moreno.”
“You’re a photographer too?” Summer asked. They hadn’t spoken more than a few words, but that had more to do with Abby’s ability to monopolize a conversation than anything else. Still, a small taste of inadequacy squeezed her, firmly cementing her as “other.”
“Oh, God. Not like Vega.” Dolores dismissed the comparison with a wave of her hand. “I do photojournalism. Glorified snapshots. Vega is an artist who paints with light.”
Summer’s cheeks heated up. Because Dolores was right and because she had no business hanging out with someone like Bastian. Someone who saw beauty where she just saw a surface to carve up with her board. Someone who created, who added to the world instead of sucking things out of it.
He glanced sideways at her and straightened, flashing Dolores a smile. “Okay. Two Mango Tango Twists?”
“Sure thing.” Dolores leaned a little over the counter, the sun catching the red highlights in her black hair. “Don’t tell my boss but I’m giving you the employee discount.”
Summer stepped away from the counter, staring at a sign for a juicer instead of facing the others.
“So.” Bastian settled against the shelf, posture relaxed.
“So.”
“You know my friends are actually pretty cool. You might like them if you gave them a chance.”
“No.” She risked a brief look at his face. “I get that. I’m just . . . not.”
He laughed, a low, steady rumble in his chest. “Sure. The skater girl with the pro surfer dad and an infinity tattoo on her hip is definitely not cool.”
“You saw that?”
“Just a quick glimpse.” He scuffed the floor with the toe of his shoe.
“That was Tobey and Lola’s idea.” She straightened the sign for the juicer. “I’m not . . . smart or, like, artsy or anything. I don’t know what to say to girls like Bria or Dolores. I don’t even know what to say to you.”
“But Abby is okay?”
Summer rolled her eyes. “Abby never lets anyone else talk. Of course she’s easier to hang out with.”
“Fair enough.” He tilted his head to meet her gaze square on. “You know I wouldn’t hang out with you if I didn’t think you were worth hanging around.”
That awkward heat washed over her again.
“Order up,” Dolores called from the other side of the store.
“You ready for Oceanside’s greatest claim to fame?” Bastian asked, holding his smoothie aloft.
“I thought that was Ben,” Dolores said. “God’s gift to football.”
“I think the smoothies are better,” Bastian said. He handed a waxed paper cup to Summer and headed for the door. “Have fun at work, Lor.”
Dolores muttered something under her breath that didn’t quite sound like a real curse.
“Did she say son of a biscuit?” Summer asked.
“Probably. Lor has her own weird moral code.” He held his cup toward her. “Cheers.”
She bumped her cup against his before taking a sip through the wide, orange straw. “Pretty good.”
“Pretty good? Best smoothie ever.”
She crinkled up her nose. “Is the bar really set that high?”
He took a huge slurp. “Probably not.”
A farmer’s market opened up in front of them as he led her around a corner. Cinnamon and butter warmed the air, something finally strong enough to overwhelm the ever-present ocean scent. She ambled beside him, watching the easy way his arms and legs moved, the way he held his head and how the sun pulled out a touch of golden-brown in his otherwise black hair.
“You know you don’t have to wait for me to talk,” he said.
“I’m observing.” She stepped around a hot pink, patent leather leash attached to something white and fluffy.
“But if you’re quiet, I’m going to keep talking to fill up the silence and I’ll end up totally embarrassing myself. Silence is scary.”
“You were quiet this morning. On the beach.”
He took another long drag of his smoothie and she did the same.
“Sunrise is sacred,” he said at last.
She ducked her head down under the guise of taking another sip. Through her lashes, she studied his face, his eyes, searching for something to tell her if he was serious or just making another joke.
“What?” He kicked at a dandelion puff sprouting up from the sidewalk and it scattered in a million directions.
“It’s hard to know what you’re thinking behind all your hardware,” she said.
“Hardware?”
“Your hair, your glasses. The plugs. It covers you.”
“Ah.” He caught her hand, winding his fingers through hers. “Doesn’t seem to work on you.”
With their hands tangled together, her shoulder brushed against his arm and she smiled up at him, relishing the little cluster of butterflies dancing in her stomach. Never mind he was hedging again. Never mind it probably meant more to her than to him.
“So.” She tossed her mostly empty cup into a trash can. “Smoothies. Photography. Pretending you care less than you do. Tell me more about the enigma that is Sebastian Vega.”
“Enigma? I wish. Bria got into Pratt before deciding she wants to go into accounting instead. Abby is going to some exclusive theater school in London. Lor is dating an honest-to-goodness rock star. I am far less interesting than everyone else I know.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Do you hang out with anyone who isn’t a hopelessly cool girl?”
That curling smile came out again. “No.”
The butterflies went from waltzing to moshing. “You’re deflecting again.”
“So you can read me through the hardware?”
“Maybe.”
His thumb slid across the back of her hand, setting off a shiver. “Most of my friends were in my brother’s grade and they all graduated last year.”
“That sucks.”
“Kinda. This year got infinitely better recently.”
She was about to ask why when the realization struck her and she had to bite her lip to keep from
grinning again. “You are a flirt, Sebastian Vega.”
He laughed, that warm, deep laugh that rumbled up from his chest and made her want to press herself against him to feel it. “No one—I mean no one—has ever accused me of that before.”
“There’s no way I’m the first girl to notice how charming you are.”
“Yeah . . . In Oceanside at least, the sickly, nerdy, awkward thing isn’t really all that hot.”
“Sweet and artistic always win.”
“Again, not usually words used to describe me. Not when everyone’s seen you get hauled out of gym on a stretcher after taking a basketball to the face.”
Summer paused to look at him. “Are your bleeds that bad?”
“God, no. It just took a while to stop and an overzealous teacher was afraid I’d pass out. Now most of the school looks at me like they might catch it if I get too close.”
“Their loss,” she said, quiet enough she wasn’t sure he’d hear. Or if she wanted him to hear.
“Most people are either morbidly curious or they ignore it in that really obvious, uncomfortable way,” he said. “You’re the first person I’ve met in a long time who hasn’t freaked out about it. That means a lot.”
She shrugged. “Why would it freak me out?”
“Anyway, not a lot of flirting in my past, unless you count a notoriously bad game of spin the bottle.”
They’d wound all the way around the farmer’s market, making a neat circle around the downtown shopping area of the city and ending back at the smoothie shop.
“Hey.” Dolores stepped out of the shop and grinned at them, her eyebrows lifting slightly at their linked hands. “Back for more already?”
“They’re not that good,” Bastian said. “We just lapped downtown.”
“But there’s ever so much to see,” Dolores said, widening her eyes.
“It’s still bigger than most of the places I’ve lived,” Summer said, pushing her lips into a smile. Making an attempt.
“Skate park, smoothie shop.” Dolores ticked them off on her fingers. “I assume he showed you Denny’s and the theater? That’s about all we do here.”
Summer exchanged a look with Bastian. “We just went through the market.”
A knowing smile twitched at Dolores’ mouth. “Right. I should let you guys go or I’m going to miss all of my break, and working at a smoothie shop on an empty stomach sucks.” Dolores skipped off toward the market, then turned. “Have fun.”
Bastian waved at her retreating back. “Believe it or not, she’s the quiet one.”
“Is it lunchtime already?” Summer said, reaching for her phone and coming up empty. “I forgot my phone at home.” Okay, forgot was an understatement.
He let go of her and tucked his hands into his back pockets. “I should let you go.”
The protective bubble of privacy surrounding them popped. Summer wrapped her arms around herself. “Yeah. I’m kind of on thin ice with my mom.”
The distance between them grew without either of them moving an inch.
“Sure.” He twisted his mouth into a smile. “Next time I’ll show you the theater and Denny’s. Promise.”
She forced an answering smile. “Sounds great. I . . .” She jabbed her thumb toward the skate park behind her. “Gotta grab my board.”
“Bye, Summer.” He turned and wandered down the street, with a quick glance back that finally set her in motion.
Panic flared through her body. In their few, brief moments together, Bastian had managed to get under her defenses faster than the boys who’d chased her most of her life. Boys she’d kissed. Boys she’d partied and skated with. Boys whose names and faces were lost in the haze of bad choices. He’d dragged things out of her that she didn’t admit to anyone, while keeping his own secrets wrapped so well.
Nothing good could come from letting him get any closer.
Chapter 9
Summer kicked up the corner of Grandma’s welcome mat and dug out the spare key to let herself in. The house was eerily quiet—the kind of quiet that drives normal people to madness, but settled her nerves. A pile of mail lay on the floor, where it had slipped through the mail slot. She picked it up and hurried into the kitchen, where the dishwasher provided enough of a hum to drown out her thoughts.
Thoughts of Bastian and the feel of his palm against hers, of the way he’d looked at her, like he might actually care about who she was instead of what he could get from her.
She plucked an official-looking letter addressed to her from the stack and sat down to open it with a nauseating combo of dread and relief.
“Oh, good,” Mom said, throwing open the back door and practically dancing into the kitchen. “You’re home! I stopped by this little shop after my open house and I think I found my dress!”
“Oh. Great.” Summer forced a smile through her rising anxiety.
Mom kept talking, gushing about the bodice and the way the skirt hung, like they were girlfriends instead of mother and daughter with a barely functional relationship. Like they hadn’t had a blowup over the wedding only hours before.
Summer cleared her throat and set down the letter. “What’s the date?”
“November 25, the day after Thanksgiving.”
The vice grip on her throat loosened enough that she could whisper. “That’s so soon.”
“It feels like forever.” Mom practically beamed. “I mean, Pete and I have talked about this for so long. It hardly seems real.”
It didn’t seem real. Mom bringing someone else into their family, changing every aspect of each of their lives. Forever giving up their beautiful, Bohemian wanderings to settle down like everyone else. Destroying any chance that she would ever change her mind about Dad and they could be a real family again.
“What’s that letter?” Mom said, finally coming out of her wedding planning haze enough to notice her surroundings.
“I have to see the judge on November 28th,” Summer said. “With proof that I completed counseling and started my community service hours.”
Mom sat on the chair across from her, her movements heavy and stiff. “Oh. That’s okay. Cody or Grandma can take you.”
“I’m sorry, Mom.” She knew better than to drink and drive. She’d been taught better. She just hadn’t cared. She hadn’t had any reason left to care.
Mom picked up the letter. “You need the results of your drug tests too.”
“That’s fine.”
Mom shifted her eyes to meet Summer’s. “Are you sure?”
“Of course.” Summer blinked a few times. “Do you think it’s not?”
“I don’t know.” She sounded so weary, so defeated. “I don’t really know what you do all day. I know you say you’re at the ramp, but I don’t know your friends or what might happen after school or while I’m at work. I just know the choices you’ve made before.”
“I’ve never done anything harder than weed and I haven’t even done that since . . .” Her words failed, arrested by the pain and distrust in Mom’s eyes.
“If your probation is revoked, you’ll end up in jail. If you do anything—anything—that violates your terms . . .”
“Don’t you think I know that?” She jumped up, hurt and anger and defensiveness making her twitchy. “I’ve been waiting for this hearing since April. It has to go right or I’m out of the qualifier again. I’m not risking that.”
“Not everything is about skateboarding. There is a lot more at stake for us than the X Games.” She set down the letter.
“For me. More at stake for me. This is about my life.”
“And I’m your mother. It is my job to guide you.”
“But it’s not going to ruin your life if I screw up.”
“I can’t let that happen. I need to know where you are, who you’re with, and what you’re doing at all times.”
The panic rose up again. “But I can still skate in the mornings, right?”
“I don’t know. How do I know that’s all you’re doing? Who you�
��re with?”
“You could trust me.”
Mom shook her head, her gaze unflinching. “You haven’t earned that. Not yet.”
“Fine.” Summer crossed her arms. “What can I do to earn permission to skate? Do you want to give me a breath test every time I come back? Have me pee on a stick? Put a GPS tracker on me? I skate alone every single morning. Because I can’t trust the boys at the park to treat me like a human being.”
Mom winced, but kept her jaw clenched. “If you’re late for school, even once, that will be the last time.”
“Fine.” Summer picked up the letter. “I’m going to my room—alone—to make plans with Dad for the hearing. I assume you’ve checked it for contraband?” Mom pressed her lips into a tight line.
“Oh my God!” Summer tightened her hands into fists. “You searched my room?”
“Of course I did. I’m scared to death of something happening to you. I’m doing my best.”
“So am I! I’m clean and sober and I actually got an A on my first English quiz! I haven’t even unpacked and you’re digging through my stuff?”
“That’s the other thing.” Mom cast her eyes down and picked up her phone. “I want you to unpack. You live here now. Not in boxes.”
Summer laughed. “You are unreal,” she said, marching up the stairs and slamming the door shut.
The empty walls of the room closed around her.
Mom had painted them pink and furnished the room to match the rest of Grandma’s shabby chic decor.
She hadn’t liked pink since sixth grade, when she went to live with Dad, but Mom wouldn’t know that because she’d never asked. She’d never bothered.
Pink. In a room she’d only be in until the wedding. Like pink and an antique quilt were supposed to make it feel less temporary. Like it showed Mom cared. Like she wasn’t totally in over her head and overcompensating by being a hard ass.
The walls were bare, the shelves empty, the dresser and desk devoid of any personal touch.
Summer tossed the letter on the desk and opened the box closest to the door.
Of course the first thing on top was a framed photo of her with Tobey and Lola, arms wrapped around each other and waves at their feet. Underneath the frame lay a hoodie she’d stolen after losing hers to some random hookup. Kai? Brandon? She remembered the hoodie better than the boy.
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