I cover her with a blanket and take a moment to look at her peaceful face before leaving her to find some sleep of my own.
After two hours of sleep in a tangle of feet, knees, arms, and hair, the coffee I picked up to help with my disposition sits on the counter inside Stray Charlie’s Pedal Pushers, with two sips and a spill missing from it.
Stray Charlie’s, located at the north end of Milagro Beach’s boardwalk, sits just off the sand beside the wooden pier that hosts fishing, an ice cream parlor, boat rentals, and sweeping views of the Pacific and the lighthouse that guided in Milagro Beach’s savior.
We’ve only ever had two steady jobs in our entire lives. One at the Fractured Bean, a coffee shop a half-mile from our apartment in L.A. we leave every summer as sales decline to head up to our summer job in Milagro Beach at Stray Charlies, where sales pick up.
Bristol and I have been renting out beach cruisers, tandem and Surrey bikes, paddleboards, and the occasional beach skimmer for four summers now. It pays a few bills and keeps us afloat through summer. And bonus, it’s not far from The Seam.
Halfway through our four-hour shift, it feels like a Black Friday at Walmart. I think every cheerleader within a fifty-mile radius rented something with wheels today. During a break forced upon us due to lack of inventory, Bristol and I sit on a bench outside of Stray Charlie’s to steal some sun.
Normally, I’d watch the foot traffic on the boardwalk, but today I can’t find any curiosity for it. Eyes closed, chin pointed at the sun, I sigh, relaxing for the first time since we arrived back home. Knowing that it may be the last uncomplicated moment of summer, I bask in it. Toolbag Carl, Bristol’s only sexual experience to mean something and the only guy I know who works out more than he shits, got home this morning, the last of our close friends to arrive from college. It won’t be long—two days, tops—before the gang is back together and summer kicks into full gear.
Just as they were rented out, the bikes return in back-to-back transactions, and we’re soon busting our asses again. I’m sweating through my shirt and my hair has slipped loose of its ponytail when Bristol shouts for me.
She sounds grouchy, but I chalk that up to lack of sleep, work abuse, and her sandals rubbing the inside of her arch raw. I finish filing the last of the waivers and slip the file box beneath the counter.
I step outside the small office, more like a shack or kiosk than an office building, and stand beneath its flapping orange and white striped awning. Bristol, eyes shaded by her hand, is standing beside the boardwalk talking to someone I don’t immediately recognize until I hear the distinguishable witch cackle.
My heart stops, and it’s not from the two sips of coffee, lack of sleep, or from thinking about Vance, which has stirred more than a few skipped heartbeats. Tiffany Langley, the carrier monkey of the gossip that made our life hell throughout the last half of high school, stands front and center before Bristol. She is the quintessential Barbie doll, if Barbie were a brunette. She even has the itty-bitty waist of Barbie, and also the plastic boobs and useless vagina. She’s nothing more than a showpiece, dressed in designer clothes with a Gucci handbag hanging off her arm and a pair of bug-eyed Snooki sunglasses. She auditioned two years in a row for American Idol and has since crowned herself “the biggest celebrity to come out of Milagro Beach.”
I can’t stand her. After she blabbed Bristol’s deepest, darkest secret to everyone, Bristol was the topic of every major conversation at school. You can’t tell a two-faced bitch that you lost your virginity to a college guy and not have it make the rounds throughout high school. Never mind that it wasn’t completely consensual. That portion of the truth never quite made it to the cafeteria conversations, but it defined Bristol nonetheless, to the point she believes the rumors herself.
I stand a bit longer beneath the flapping awning and mess with my hair, too far gone to really make a presentable change, but I have to do something while I decide how to handle this. I want to approach with guns blazing, but Tiffany rarely makes it fun.
I inhale a deep, bitchy breath, and I’m not quite sure yet if it’s to fuel me or to save Tiffany, but we’ll soon find out as I head her way. Before I come to a stop at Bristol’s side, just shy of Tiffany’s Jimmy Choos, I let loose. “Daddy’s going to be pissed if you parked your broom in his city council spot again.”
She pinches her orange lips together, smirks, and tilts her head to the side, “It’s nice to see you too, Brenna.” She digs in her purse, and considering it’s the size of a suitcase, she’s quick about retrieving the piece of paper.
“Made your way through the college guys already, huh?” She looks around, dramatizing the neck cranes since her emotionless eyes are hidden. “I guess you had to come back to Milagro Beach to see if there was fresh meat.”
I seethe beneath a calm exterior, too proud to let her see me rattled. I’ve lived too long with the effects of Tiffany Langley’s tactics to break beneath them now.
“Well, I haven’t had your boyfriend yet.” Bristol’s quick response makes me laugh, and while I’m still giggling, she’s just getting started. She shrugs, smirks, and finishes strong. “But since he’s been with you, I wouldn’t necessarily call him ‘fresh.’”
Tiffany’s demeanor changes. Her more-arrogant-than-confident stature goes rigid, and she stiffens her back to a righteous level of bitchiness. “I’m not worried. He doesn’t take out the trash.”
We could insult each other all day, but I don’t want to, so I jump in. “Why are you here, Tiffany? Plastic melts in the sun.”
She sneers, flexes attitude, and replies, “Mrs. Dixon said you’re going to be doing the Miracle Days fliers.” She addresses this comment to me, leaving Bristol out completely. She’s even maneuvered her body to face mine, giving Bristol the cold, detached shoulder that in high school was reserved for the Robotics Team, and now that we’re older, anyone with a blue collar. I worry for a second she’s going to pull her family’s weight and yank the job out from under me. I need the money more than ever with Bristol’s scholarship under review, but I won’t beg Tiffany Langley for it no matter the stakes, and I don’t think Tracy’s mom would fire me anyway. “Personally, I think she’s crazy,” she adds, flipping her dark hair over her shoulder, “but let’s see if college has taught you something other than swallowing.” I feel the degrading humiliation that came with each rumor she spread about us all over again. As much as I’d like to say it didn’t affect me, the red creeping up my neck says differently. “Oh, relax Brenna. I came to give you the check to have them printed. Langley Law is sponsoring the fliers amongst other things this year, like, oh, your meager fee. You’re not going to have to blow anything for it this time.” She preens, her jab meant to be insulting, but I just roll my eyes. I hate to admit the relief I feel at the offering presenting itself from Tiffany’s hand, but it’s there for the world to see in the exhaled breath I release.
I take the check, not as a grateful girl should, but as a cornered girl does. Actually, I snatch it before she can change her mind, but she isn’t paying me for the last word. “Bristol, be sure to tell her daddy thank you when you’re with him tonight.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Done with our first workday of summer, Bristol drops me off at The Seam, honking the horn of the Silver Stallion as she drives away. I don’t bother waving. She’s already looking ahead, and anything in her rearview mirror is history. I find The Seam virtually empty. The muted television above the bar is tuned to ESPN, and the ancient stereo sitting on a shelf is playing something from the sixties.
Eating a burger in one of the fruit leather booths, Uncle Rodney waves, trying to choke down his bite so he can say hello. I head right for him, slipping easily onto the bench across the table from him. I steal a fry off of the Burger Baron’s wrapper he’s laid his food on and take a bite, and then another before the first is finished.
“Eat as many as you want, love. I’m done,” he tells me between bites. “And your mom’s laptop is in the storage r
oom.”
It’s the whole reason I’m here. I need some pictures off of it, and for reasons known only to her, she keeps it here at the bar. I steal another fry as he finishes his burger. “It’ll just take me a sec to email the pics to myself. I’ll be out of your hair in no time.”
“You’re never in my hair. There’s no rush.”
Two more fries disappear from his paper wrapper, and I grin at him, unapologetic.
He rolls his eyes at me and says, “Finish them. I’ll get the laptop.”
He produces the laptop minutes later along with a glass of soda for me, to go with his fries. It takes me thirty minutes to find the pictures I need for the fliers and not the hours Bristol predicted when she refused to wait for me.
In that time, Uncle Rodney has muted the sixties music in favor of baseball on the television, while the seats around the bar have filled in with some locals who take their beers in bottles and their baseball loud.
I hand off the laptop and wash my glass. “Thanks for the meal,” I say, kissing him on the cheek, and just before I get to the door to leave, I wave over my head to the regulars. “Shalom.”
My mom, entering just as I reach for the handle, already has her standard response to my farewell. “You’re not Jewish, Brenna. That’s offensive.”
I roll my eyes, kiss her on the cheek, and whisper, “Only if you take it that way.” I’m out the door with plenty of sunshine left to walk home in.
I’m half a block away from The Seam when my phone whistles a text.
Bristol: I’m on my way. Be there in 10.
Me: I’ll wait out front.
With me waiting at a table out in front of The Seam, Bristol surpasses her ten minutes by another ten, so when the motorcycle pulls into a space in front of me, I’m there to offer a smile to the hot guy straddling it.
Vance lifts his sunglasses to the top of his ball cap; his eyes are striking blue and full of mischief. “They kick you out?”
“Waiting on Bristol,” I offer, standing to move closer to him.
“Seems to be a pattern with you two.”
I shrug a shoulder, agreeing more or less. “What are you doing here?”
“Came for a beer.” His strong legs maneuver to set the bike solid.
“Careful, or you’re going to end up a regular, and the only thing you should ever want to be a regular in is a Ferrari dealership.”
He crinkles his face, lifting his chin. “So save me from myself and show me around Milagro Beach instead.”
I point at my chest with four fingers. “Me? Even after the whole dress thing and all the drama?”
“Especially because of the dress thing and drama.”
My cheeks heat, a rarity until I met him. He has no idea what he’s in for with me. I come with a lot of baggage, one piece of which weighs one hundred fifteen pounds and is ten minutes late. With that thought, I decide Bristol can wait on me for a change and agree to show him Milagro Beach.
“Take me to your favorite place.” It’s a suggestion he offers after I inform him that Milagro Beach, for all its beauty, is boring.
I climb on the back of his bike, and the familiar scent of his cologne draws a smile. My phone won’t fit into the shallow pockets of my khaki work shorts, so I clutch it and him before he pulls away from the curb.
On Ocean Avenue, I have him make a U-turn and we head south toward Grundy Beach where we met. Down a side street, past Grundy, a small parking lot covered in sand and suitable for maybe five cars brings the street to an end. Opposite two other cars, Vance parks the bike with the front tire in a hedgerow of bright pink Indian hawthorn.
Weathered wooden stairs with two small platforms surrounded by a hand railing zigzag down to the beach, and I lead us down to the first platform. The front half of the hand railing facing the ocean is gone and only a battered center post remains. I plop down, dangling my feet over the edge, and gesture for Vance to join me. He sits beside me, the center post pressed against his left shoulder, feet dangling over like mine.
“Snuggle in. It’s the best place to watch the sunset.” I have no doubt he’ll agree when he sees the unobstructed view of the fading sun. Oil rigs, piers, and harbors are all out there as eyesores in either direction, but from here, none of them are visible.
“Do you spend a lot of time here?”
“Not as much as I’d like. I spend more time at Grundy.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s the beach where we met. It’s technically part of Milagro Beach, but some time ago the locals dubbed that section Grundy because of the return of the grunion.”
“Return? Don’t they have some sort of predictable cycle?”
“Short version, yes.”
“Long version? I sense a story.”
“Long version is they quit spawning here a hundred years ago, and then the fishing industry tanked, or so the story goes. They returned years later along with all the other fish after a ship with two priests and thirteen religious refugees landed on the beach on the heels of a storm. It’s said they left a blessing on the beach as payment for their safe arrival as well as the kindness of the remaining townspeople. The grunion returned on the next full moon, two days after the priests’ departure. The beach, and then the town, where they landed became Milagro Beach, meaning Miracle Beach. The wooden pier by Stray Charlie's on the boardwalk is supposed to be the best fishing pier between L.A. and San Francisco, but we keep that pretty close to the vest.”
“Wow. That’s a lot of knowledge for one girl.”
I laugh, “Sorry, I’ve had to brush up on my Milagro Beach history for Miracle Days. And I’ve just spared you five bucks and an evening at the museum.”
“Frugal. I like that. What’s Miracle Days?”
“It’s an annual festival held at the end of June to celebrate our good fortune. You should come. It’s usually a good time. There are vendors galore, religious ceremonies that may or may not include consummations on the beach, bake-offs, beach volleyball tournaments, paddle boarding. Lots of things.”
“Hmm, sounds fun.” He looks out across the sand where there are a few straggling surfers heading in from the surf. They’ll strip off their wetsuits, dig their boards in, and watch the sun sink in the waves before leaving for the night.
“I promise I won’t let my reputation rub off on you.”
“You seriously have a reputation?” He seems genuinely surprised, a refreshing change of pace for me.
This could take a while, and he clearly didn’t think it through when he questioned me on it. “It happens when you lose your virginity in the back seat of a Volvo. Well, I think I lost my virginity. The jury is still out.” I sweep some sand off the platform with the tips of my finger while Vance absorbs what makes me me.
“Are you being for real right now?”
I snort with embarrassing proficiency. “I wish I were making it up. I think girls have had better experiences with their vibrator.”
“Ouch!” He cranks his head to the side and scrunches up an eye as if trying to ward off pain. “Poor guy.”
“Poor guy? I’m the one who doesn’t know if I’m a virgin. His virginity is wrapped in a sweaty gym shirt he found under the front seat.”
“So, is that all it takes to get a reputation and your own bio on a bathroom wall?”
“No.” I snort-giggle again. “Bristol exploring half the high school with her mouth did that.”
His eyes widen, and he does that head-shake thing again. “Wow! Wasn’t expecting that. How does Bristol’s mouth get you a reputation?”
“One of the hazards of being an identical twin.”
He shakes his head, and I shove him in the shoulder, pushing his athletically muscular body away from me. “What?”
Without looking at me, he replies, “Nothing.” He takes on a more serious look. “I just think we’re in similar boats, and I’m fascinated by how differently you row yours.”
“Similar, how? You mean you lost your virginity in the back
seat, or you gave a lot of blow jobs?”
He choke-laughs. “Neither. Damn.” And it takes him a minute to regain his train of thought, which, if I’m not mistaken, has shifted. “So, what do you do when you’re not defending yourself, waiting on Bristol, or taking rides with strangers?”
“I told you where I lost my virginity. That makes us friends, not strangers.” Technically inaccurate since the confession came after I took a ride, but no one but God is keeping track. “I’m studying graphic design in L.A.,” I answer, prouder of that than anything else in my life, other than successfully mastering a childproof lighter. “But right now, I’m working at Stray Charlie’s down on the boardwalk for the summer, hence this lovely tank.” I pinch my Stray Charlie’s tank top and tug, watching his eyes drop to my chest and then move back up to my face.
“Is that the place down by the pier?”
I nod, grabbing hold of my hair as the wind blows it across my face.
“What are your plans for after college? What do you do with a graphic design degree?”
“Well, there are lots of options, but I plan on designing book covers and print logos for entrepreneurs starting their own businesses or established ones trying to rebrand. Bristol planned on designing websites for those same businesses so we could combine our efforts, but shit happens and her plans had to change, so now I don’t know what we’re doing. How about you?”
“Well, I lost my virginity in my girlfriend’s bedroom.”
I laugh, touching his arm. “I was asking about what you do for a living, but I’ll let you run with virginity.”
“I know. I just figured it was a lot more fun to talk about.”
“Are you certain you’re not a virgin? It happens, you know?” I point at myself for emphasis.
“Definitely not a virgin. She had to talk me into it though.”
Rumor Has It (Jock Star Book 1) Page 4