“I knew it,” he says. “I could see it on your face from across the room at that party. You could escape, you know. This could be your life too. You’ve just gotta get the right people on your side, and then carry a little leverage on them. It’s easier than you’d think, especially when you have idiots like Alston and A.J. using you as their lifeline.”
He faces the ocean again, watching the whitecaps roll over under the glow of the moon. My teeth pierce the inside of my mouth to keep from screaming…but also to keep from crying. He doesn’t know the first thing about A.J. He doesn’t know the guys who watch out for him and lie for him. He doesn’t give a damn either. I fake a yawn then pretend that I’m trying to fight it.
“It’s late, I know,” Colby says. He laughs and stands up, dusting the sand off of his shorts. He reaches his hand out to me, pulls me up from the pier, and nods back toward his truck. “Long day tomorrow,” he says. “Competition time makes everyone crazy around here.”
Part of me wants to tell him it’s not the competition that makes them crazy...or makes him crazy. This whole whirlwind of lies and the secret life of Colby Taylor is what makes everyone crazy.
“Hey, Saturday night…Sunday morning–midnight, meet me here?” he asks. “I swear, this time I mean it. None of that no-show paper star mess. For real. Will you meet me here?”
I’ll be long gone before then. I plan on bailing as soon as competition gets underway. I don’t want to leave, but it takes so many days to drive back across the country.
“Why didn’t you show?” I ask, crossing another question off my mental list.
He shrugs. “I got scared,” he says. “I didn’t mean to be a jerk about it like that. I was afraid you’d figure out who I was or someone else would see me. I bailed before I could get caught. I’d hoped you’d find the star, though.”
I nod as he explains he left it there as a good luck token for me. I wish I had it right now. I need some luck. And I seriously have to get away from Colby Taylor.
“So you’ll meet me here? This very spot?” he asks again. He counts the tiki torches. “Third torch from the end?”
“Definitely,” I lie. “I’ll be here.”
The night is as dead as the guy who was once Spence Burks, and I’d give anything to hear the roar of Vin’s motorcycle or even that dying cat shriek of A.J.’s car. For a clear cove night, the air is thick with disappointment. The stars mock me from way above, looking down on me and laughing. They make me feel like I’m back in junior high and not cool enough to hang with the popular girls because my hair is too frizzy and my makeup isn’t heavy enough.
Red Christmas lights flicker on the hill above where Colby’s truck is parked. Their time with me is short-lived before the restaurant’s owner flips them back off and heads home for the night. But those words – those words painted in red on a wooden sign with a silly red crab painted next to them – give me hope. Solomon’s Crab Shack. His light has found me on the far side of the cove.
“Oh shit!” Colby yells. He grabs my arm, and we pummel back toward the wooden floor of the pier. “Get back!” he hisses.
We duck down behind a garbage can that smells like bananas and onions. Headlights whirl around the parking lot, near his truck, and in the vicinity of where we’re hiding. I don’t think he’s even breathing. In the moonlight, I can see his wide eyes, but he’s a statue.
“That was close,” he finally whispers after the car is far gone.
I hate admitting that Vin was right. But he was so right.
Colby Taylor is never going to change.
I keep my best smile painted on my face through the first DVD Colby shows me of his surfing competitions from last summer. He falls asleep during the second DVD, the one where Alston is mock interviewing him about surfing and what it means to him. It was filmed not long after Shark died, before Colby lost all of his heart. He has a spark in his eyes and a light in his voice that reminds me of Miles and the way he talked about “getting it” and how Dominic never would. If this forever-chasing path leads to what Colby’s become, then the gods of forever can have forever back.
I grab his cell phone off the coffee table and slip outside. I carry my flip flops so they won’t make any extra noise. His contacts are very few, so it’s easy to spot the name I need. I press the “send” button and wait until I hear his voice.
Then I whisper, “Hey, it’s me. I need your help.”
CHAPTER 20
The headlights of my car sweep around the curve in the street and stop short of Colby’s mailbox. My flip flops smack the pavement as I hurry around to the passenger side. Warmth and safety radiate from the orange lights of the dashboard, soothing me in a way that the pier’s tiki torches couldn’t.
“Are you okay?” Vin asks from the driver’s seat.
“I’m fine. Just drive,” I say.
We retreat to silence as he drives out of beach house central and back to the far side of the cove that tourists aren’t aware exists. I hope to God he’s not driving back to that pier. I don’t question his intentions, just as he doesn’t question my night at Colby’s house, but I know he wants to know. He wants to know what happened, whether Colby was everything I thought he would be.
“Go ahead and say it,” I finally say. My voice cracks just slightly, and I know I can’t stop the tears descending from my eyes. “You told me so.”
He taps the brakes and slows to a stop in the middle of the street. “I wasn’t going to say that,” he says.
He puts the car in park, reaches over and brushes my hair out of my face, and stares at me in the glow of the dashboard. “I was going to say that I hate that you had to see it for yourself. I wasn’t trying to be a jerk when I told you about him. I was just trying to protect you.”
“I should’ve listened. You know more about him than I do. I just had this idea that he...” I can’t even finish the sentence.
Every idea I had about him was wrong. He isn’t the carefree dreamer or forever chaser or fearless warrior I thought he was. He’s a coward who is scared of the freedom he’s bought himself. If manipulation and lies are his way to freedom, I’ll take another route.
“He’s not what you expected,” Vin says, summing up all of my conclusions so simply.
I nod. “Exactly.”
Vin pulls the gear back into drive and continues forth into the night. He veers onto one street then turns onto the next, and I don’t think I could find my way back to the condo if my life depended upon it. We park next to a small business that’s dark and lonely.
“C’mon,” he says. “Get out. I want to show you something.”
I grip the door handle but hesitate. I’m not really up for trespassing or any other crazy A.J.-like adventure tonight. Seeing Colby again was enough adventure for me. I still can’t believe I chased him across the country just to find out everything I thought was dead wrong. I’m almost glad his parents think he’s dead. They wouldn’t recognize the person their son has become.
“Haley?” Vin leans back into the car. “Are you waiting for the apocalypse? Because I don’t think it’s going to happen tonight.”
I push the door open and step onto the pavement. An oval-shaped metal sign hangs over the entrance, but I can only see the side of it bulging out toward us. I follow Vin to the front door, and the silver letters are all too familiar. Jake McAllister Photography.
“He had an actual studio?” I ask. “I thought he just shot underwater.”
Vin unlocks the front door and drops his keys back into his pocket. He twists the doorknob, reaches inside, and flips on a light. But he doesn’t go in.
“I rarely come here. I think I’ve been inside twice since he died. Topher comes out here about once a month and flips the lights on and runs the water in the back, just to keep this place from dying,” he says.
He pushes the door open, and the room bursts with color. Surfboards, palm trees, waves, and tropical fish. More sharks, a few dolphins, and the most amazing snapshot of Topher and Vin
that seriously melts my heart. I hate to ask how long these pictures have been hanging on the walls, how long they’ve hidden in this dark studio rather than being seen by the world. Shark had a gift, even if it was “just a job.”
“But yeah, to answer your question,” Vin says, “he did have an actual studio.”
There’s a shot on the back wall of Colby riding a wave. It’s one of those perfectly captured moments with the water curled around him and his board, defying gravity for a split second. I wish I could pull him out of the photo and replace him with Topher or Miles.
“People ask me all the time where they can buy his work. I just give them my business card and ask them to check back with us, that it’s a work in progress. Sometimes they call back, but most times they’re just tourists who want it then or never,” Vin says from behind me.
I turn my focus to a picture that was taken in between leaves of a palm tree. The sunset is a blend of ice cream sherbet reflecting off the ocean. I wonder if Vin would let me take it home with me.
“I had a reason for bringing you here,” Vin says. “I thought you might want to help me with this place.”
“What?” I spin around on the heel of my flip flop to face him.
He walks around me to the back of the room and unlocks a filing cabinet drawer. “This,” he says, holding up a silver hard drive, “is Jake’s digital catalog. Every picture he ever took. And now it’s mine.”
Those pictures have to be worth something, even if just to the locals and surf community who know the story of the legendary Shark McAllister. Those are the same photos hanging in Drenaline Surf and Strickland’s Boating and the walls of Colby Taylor’s beach mansion.
“And what exactly were you thinking I could do?” I ask.
He walks back toward me, hard drive in hand. “Frame them.”
I open my mouth to ask a million questions, but he stops me before I can ask the first one.
“A.J. told me, and I just thought how I was letting this place die, and I shouldn’t because Jake was about so much more than just surfing, and…” he finally stops to breathe. “This was stupid. I’m sorry.”
“No,” I assure him, “it’s not. I just…I don’t know what to say.”
He brushes past me, sets the hard drive down, and leans against a nearby table. “Reed said you wanted to come out here for college, and I just let my imagination run wild,” he says.
I want to tell him to let his imagination keep running, but I can’t rationalize anything right now. I mean, it’s Vin – the same Vin who tried to sell me Honey Gold hair dye spray and protested my very presence after he learned that I’d made friends with the other bodyguards. And now he’s offering me my dream in the form of a studio and a silver hard drive?
“You still have to graduate high school,” Vin says. “You may not even want to come back out here by next summer.”
Oh but I will. That much I do know.
I start to defend my case, but his back is already turned to me. He locks Shark’s hard drive back in the filing cabinet, and I feel like all of my hopes and dreams were locked away with it. He can’t tempt me with forever then tuck it away under lock and key.
He brushes my hair back over my shoulder as soon as he’s within reach. “We’ll talk about it next summer, okay?”
I nod and follow him back into the parking lot, back toward my car, but I stop in between my headlights and pull him back.
“I am coming back next summer,” I say. “Reed’s already said I could move in with them. I can work part time at his dad’s store through college if my parents refuse to help me pay for it.”
Vin leans back against the hood of my car and pulls me toward him. “You have to come back,” he says. “You’re one of us now. And I kind of…like…having you around.”
My inner fountain of happiness rushes up and overflows. I throw my arms around Vin’s neck and hug him more tightly than I ever thought I would. His arms are warm around me, and I feel safe in a way I haven’t felt since I’ve been on this forever-chasing journey. I pull back to look at his face. The streetlights reflect in his eyes, and I feel like I’m right back in the sand watching Honey Gold soar through the air as Vin closes in on me. And Deputy Pittman isn’t here to interrupt.
But headlights sweep around a curve in the road and Vin retreats. The car turns onto another street and fizzles into the blackness. Damn them for ruining this moment. Unlike Colby, Vin’s breathing is steady, unfazed by the headlights. With Vin there’s no need to hide behind trash cans.
“We should go before all the old people out here call the law thinking someone’s trespassing. You have North Carolina plates. They won’t know it’s me,” he says. He pulls my keys from his pocket, and I surrender to the passenger side.
“Want me to walk you in?” Vin asks. We’ve been sitting in my car for a few minutes, right in front of the guest house. I don’t want to go inside. I don’t want to deal with Linzi asking questions about where I ran off to, and I definitely don’t want to talk about Colby Taylor tonight.
“Please,” I say.
I need to sneak past Linzi’s room without alerting her that I’m back. But the guest house is empty when we get inside. She’s probably cuddled up next to Alston in his bed. I can’t imagine that silly little argument from earlier stopping them from enjoying their last few nights together, even if they do know she’s leaving. Vin lingers in my room, like he’s waiting for me to tell him once I’m okay enough to be alone tonight.
“I don’t want to stay here,” I finally say.
“Want to stay at my place tonight?” Vin asks.
My brain flips into montage mode, flashing all the pictures of Horn Island from my day with Miles. The dying, yellow apartment complex where Vin lives. The prisonlike barred window. The pit bull. The old liquor store. Ugh…the murky water and seaweed and collapsed pier that’s just rotting away in the ocean and poisoning the sea creatures. A night in Horn Island?
“Yes.”
Vin waits in the car while I grab the few things I’ll need for tomorrow – change of clothes, makeup bag, toothbrush, phone charger, the basic essentials. I grab that lime green competition shirt as a last minute thought and run for my car. No one will ever know I came back here tonight. And by tomorrow, maybe I’ll be ready to face the Colby Taylor questions.
I toss my beach bag full of junk over my shoulder and double check to make sure Vin locked my car doors. He glances around the parking lot then motions me to follow him.
“Topher must still be at Kale’s. He’ll be exhausted tomorrow for competition. The kid ain’t got his head in the right place, I swear,” he says. He points ahead. “Five-B.”
My head turns to Four-A when a dog barks. That chained up pit bull is on all fours watching us. I lock my fingers around Vin’s arm, and he stops en route to his apartment door.
“Sit, Rosie!” a voice calls out. The pit bull flops back onto the concrete outside of Four-A. “Sorry about that, Vin,” the man calls out. His porch light flickers on, and I see the wheelchair before I see him. He’s an older black man with two amputated legs.
“No problem, Luther. I know her bark is worse than her bite,” Vin says. “Come with me.” He grasps my hand and heads across the grass to Four-A.
The dew reaches up from the green blades and leaves its mark on my flip flops. Vin doesn’t let go of my hand until we’re under Luther’s porch light.
“Luther, this is Haley,” Vin says. “And this is my favorite neighbor, Luther. And Rosie.” He nods toward the dog.
He wheels closer to me and reaches out to shake my hand. His arms are buff, and his grasp is tight. Whatever happened to him didn’t steal his strength. “About time you found someone special,” Luther says. “Pleasure to meet you, Haley.”
“Same to you,” I say.
But ohmygod I can’t even think of anything better to say because he seriously thinks I’m Vin’s someone special, and three seconds have passed and Vin hasn’t corrected him.
“Sorry I woke you…and Rosie,” Vin says, reaching back over and taking my hand. “You know I’m usually not out this late before a competition.”
“No, no,” Luther says. “You know my arthritis keeps me up at all hours anyway. I haven’t hit the gym the last few days, and I’m feeling it.”
Vin laughs. “Have a good night,” he says. His fingers intertwine with mine.
“Same to you both,” Luther replies. He wheels himself backward on the wooden ramp, and his porch light flickers off.
We cut back through the wet grass and into Vin’s apartment. A note from Topher is taped to the wall just inside the front door. “At Kale’s. Don’t worry. I’ll sleep. See you soon. – T”
I try not to stare, but Vin’s apartment is everything I expected. Worn furniture, old appliances, and surfboards tucked into every corner of the free space. It’s small but I think it’s just big enough for him and Topher. The dim lighting from the kitchen spills over a small table and into the living room. There’s a huge picture of the collapsed pier hanging above the couch. I know without a doubt that Shark took it.
“You can have my room tonight. I don’t know when Topher will be home or if he’ll even come back tonight, so I’ll crash on the couch,” Vin says.
Aside from the pier photo, the place is null of any decoration. It’s definitely a “guy” apartment. Vin kicks some clothes aside in his bedroom and apologizes for the mess. He mutters something about never having company and “you should see Topher’s room” while he remakes the bed for me.
“I can sleep on the couch,” I offer. “I hate putting you out of your own room.”
“I’ll be damned,” Vin says. “I have better manners than that, Haley. Give me a little credit here.” He takes my bag from me and drops it next to the bed, closing the deal.
He shakes his head and laughs. “Have you realized every time you try to be nice to me you just end up insulting me?”
Chasing Forever Down (Drenaline Surf Series) Page 18