Chasing Forever Down (Drenaline Surf Series) (11 page)

There’s no way he forgot about this. If it’s a yearly get together of the richest guys around, it’s probably marked on the calendar with a huge dollar sign since the last time they got together. He knew this was today, and that’s why he invited us
jet skiing. He has another plan.

“
So I’m a third wheel then?” I assume, even though I don’t know how that’s supposed to run me off. Linzi can suck face with Alston while I find a way to legally trespass onto Colby’s property.

“
No,” Reed says. “I wouldn’t do that to you. A.J.’s going to fill in for me, but he’s fun. Life of the party. You’ll love him.”

Life of the party is probably translation for wild party boy who is going to do everything he can to scare me away. I can see the stolen photo perfectly even though it’s sitting on the hotel’s nightstand. Blonde hair, messy surfer shag. Brown eyes. Five o’clock shadow. Beer in hand. At least his wild ass is gorgeous.

Alston fills Linzi in on the best spots for jet skiing, making mention of the cove and how awesome it is to jump waves on a jet ski. Reed jumps in rambling about speed and adrenaline, and Linzi is bouncing in her flip flops in a matter of seconds. All of their words run together until the bell over the front door announces the arrival of a tattooed Mexican guy in a white muscle shirt.

“
Strick, man, if I die today, make sure they name a cell after me over at county, alright?” he says, walking under the fluorescent lights toward us.

“
Fucking moron,” Alston mutters. “You can’t stay out of lockup, can you?”

“
Nah, let me tell you what happened,” the guy says.

He stretches his arms out over the counter, stretching the turquoise dragon on his arm too. Its orange eyes watch me.

And his story begins. “I was taking down all those election signs near the cove. All that conservative bullshit everywhere, all around Taylor’s house, so I ripped that shit up. Then Deputy Jackass Pittman hauled me in for vandalizing government property. Government property my ass. It’s fucking cardboard.”

He pushes his sunglasses up into his messy black hair. His eyes are bloodshot; he either hasn
’t slept or he’s high...or possibly both. He turns around, propping both elbows behind him against the counter. A skull carved into a crescent moon is tattooed just under his shoulder on his upper arm. It’s surrounded by little black stars. This guy is one of the last people I’d expect to give in to the crescent moon gimmick, but then again, he
is
wearing one of those stupid white shell necklaces.

“
Damn, I need a cigarette,” he says.

“
You can smoke on the beach,” Reed says, pointing to the back door.

Tattoo Guy pulls a
pack of cigarettes from the back pocket of his shorts and heads toward the back door, but Reed grabs his arm and pulls him back.

“
Hold up,” Reed says. “You’ve gotta meet them. That’s Haley...and Linzi.” He points to each of us as he says our names. Then he looks at me. “Haley, this is A.J. Gonzalez, your right-hand man for the day.”

My guts
transform into a pack of crazed bats flapping around and beating my ribcage in attempts to break free. I could seriously throw up on this waxy white floor.
This
is A.J. – freshly out of jail, tattooed, nicotine-addicted A.J.

It takes a good chunk of my strength and self-worth to force a smile, espe
cially after seeing that glazed-over, mangy dog look in A.J.’s eyes. I’m just another little lamb out on the beach for his crazy coyote instincts to rip apart and splatter over the sand. And I’m the stupid little lamb who is going to fight back.

We follow Reed outside and around the building to a giant storage unit that I can’t believe I haven’t noticed before. The colors of the
jet skis pop out like those of the paper stars sitting on the counter back inside. Reed explains that most of the bigger boats are in a storage unit down near the dock for easier loading. I think I’m the only one listening to him. Alston and A.J. are eyeing today’s transportation while Linzi hangs onto Alston’s arm and his every word.

“
This one!” A.J. calls out.

He climbs on top of a yellow
jet ski, that sporty yellow color that looks super fast flying down the highway even at speed limit. He stands over the jet ski, straddling it and jerking back and forth with the handlebars, like a mechanical bull is underneath him rather than a jet ski. His attitude is better suited for a bull ride.

Alston debates back and forth between a blue
jet ski and a red one, but the red wins out, something about it being the color of love and passion. Linzi swoons like a lovesick idiot.

“
Load us up, Strick,” A.J. shouts out. He waves an invisible lasso in the air with his free hand while still rocking back and forth on the jet ski.

I follow the Alston-Linzi love fest back inside the boating store in search of lifejackets. Linzi throws her T-shirt aside and pulls her jacket over her head to try it on for size. God forbid it hide too much of her bikini. I stare at the Great White photo above the register. Unlike photographer Jake McAllister, I won’t be facing sharks
in the ocean. I’ll be facing a greater risk to my life – bodyguard number three, the party boy – A.J.

The thought of
“party boy” takes me back to the stolen photo. If the beer-drinking blonde isn’t A.J., then who is he? The only option left is the jerkoff mechanic. And according to Enchanted Emily, even Colby isn’t worth that kind of torment. Emily doesn’t realize that I’m on a forever-chasing mission, though. It changes everything. I mentally say goodbye to Jake McAllister’s shark photo in case I never see it again and walk outside. Reed is leaning over A.J.’s shoulder, most likely giving him instructions on how to send me back to North Carolina.

A.J. runs over to me and throws an arm around my shoulder, leaving Reed to take the yellow
jet ski to the water for us.

“
This is gonna be the most badass day of your life,” A.J. informs me. I smell his cigarette lingering on each word. “Jumping waves on a jet ski is one of the best adrenaline rushes ever. If you hang on pretty tight, you shouldn’t wipe out.”

It doesn’t take a surf genius to know what wiping out is.

“You’re such a show off,” Reed hollers out, looking back at us. “You just picked yellow so you could be seen. No one drives a yellow vehicle unless they want to be noticed.”

“
Damn it, Strick,” A.J. says, unwrapping his arm from me and dropping the butt of his cigarette onto the shoreline. “You know damn well that the fastest cars are the bright ones. You’re the speed junkie, not me.”

A.J. pushes Reed away with his shoulder and climbs aboard. I fiddle around with the buckles on the lifejacket as Reed turns into a dot moving back up through the sand toward the store. A.J. waves me over to him. His sunglasses hide his eyes again, which eases my nerves just a bit. I can pretend he’s not stoned or sleep deprived or whatever the hell he is.

“Whoa!” Alston yells out.

I look back
. His lips keep moving, but I can’t hear anything over the roaring of A.J.’s jet ski.

“
– the hell!?” is all I catch. I throw my arms into the air and shake my head as Alston moves toward me.

“
What the hell are you doing?” he asks once he’s within earshot. He motions at A.J., but I know he’s talking to me.

“
Jet skiing,” I say. “You know, most people wear lifejackets. I thought that was normal.”

He points at A.J.
“You’re seriously getting on that with him? Are you crazy? No one has ever ridden with A.J. Well, except that one time Reed did. He still has the scar to show for it.”

My blood boils as hot as this raging summer sun. This whole
jet skiing with A.J. deal was a ploy, just like I thought. He’s probably rocked his mechanical bull moves on that yellow jet ski for a thousand girls. I bet he blew cigarette smoke on them and wrapped his arm around their pretty tan shoulders and told them how wave jumping with him would be the most badass experience of their lives. And at that point, the girls decided to take turns riding with Alston or they found another chiseled beach bum to waste their time with. None of them ever dared to get on the back of Jailbird Gonzalez’s jet ski.

But I do.

I stare at Alston’s blank expression trying to find the words to say ‘fuck you’ without being so harsh. I settle for “Let’s do this” and set my sights on my right-hand man for the day, wild eyes, jet ski, and all. I grab on to A.J.’s skull-tattooed shoulder and pull myself onto the jet ski. He turns around and looks at me.

“
You’re serious?” he asks. His voice isn’t so smirky now. His reckless smile isn’t wrapped from ear to ear, and I wish I could see behind his sunglasses to read into him.

Nodding my head is all I can handle. Those crazy bats in my stomach flutter like they’re jacked up on caffeine, and A.J.’s mad scientist laugh echoes across the ocean. He punches the
throttle, and salt water splashes up around us.

“
Hang on, darling!” he shouts back to me. He glances over at Alston and Linzi then yells back to me over his shoulder. “Let’s show them how it’s really done!”

After two hours on the sea with A.J., I’m still alive and definitely not a pro when it comes to driving a jet ski. I’ve been splashed with just enough water to cool off but not so much that it can’t be sucked back up by the sun in a matter of two seconds. And most shocking of all, A.J. has actually been fun. Or at least until the blur of a blue jet ski zooms by. It sends a spray of water over the four of us. Alston curses under his breath.

“
Son of a Hooligan bitch!” A.J. screams out.

I squint my eyes to see the guy as he blasts back through a wave. Sunlight pours over him, blinding me, until he makes a loop past us and takes off again at reckless speed. It’s the brunette
Hooligan – Dominic.

The water slices as he forces through the waves, whirring like a bullet as he passes. He continues – back, forth. Back, forth. His silent taunts fuel their testosterone, like he’s challenging the guys to take him on. Linzi shakes her head a few times and rubs her hands up and down Alston’s arms. Her sweet talking wins him over in a matter of seconds. But A.J. revs up the
jet ski before I can talk him into letting me off. I hook my fingers around the straps of his lifejacket and pull myself as closely to him as I can. There’s no turning back now.

The wind blends into the buzz of the
jet ski. I squeeze into A.J.’s lifejacket and bury my face into the back of his shoulder. Waves slosh over the sides of the jet ski, stinging my legs as we fly faster than earlier today when we raced Alston and Linzi. The world is a blur of ocean, sky, and sand, all running together like a child’s watercolor painting. A streak of blue rushes past us, and A.J. spits out a few four-letter words.

Seconds later, the world flips upside down. My eyes are flooded with sunlight and blue skies, and then a million needles pierce my body. Salt stings my eyes, and everything around me is murky green. I gasp for air but gather a mouthful of ocean and seaweed instead. The waves toss me around, and I fight for the surface until I see the sky again then inhale the west coast ocean air. A.J. pops out of the water about ten feet away, choking on the sea.

“What the hell?” I shout out at him.

“
We flipped!” he shouts back.

No kidding! Our yellow
jet ski bobs on the waves behind me, still buzzing after our flip. A.J. swims over to me, apologizing while also bitching about losing his eighty-dollar sunglasses in the water. I unhook the buckles of my lifejacket and hurl it toward the jet ski. Slimy strings of green seaweed tangle with my hair. Oh God.

“
Dude,” A.J. says. He shakes his hair out of his eyes. “You’ve got this badass sexy swamp creature look going on.”

Now I want to sink to the bottom of the ocean for eternity. Forget the taste of sea water. I’d rather adjust to that than have anyone see me looking like a swamp creature. He pulls me up onto the
jet ski. Dominic is gone, probably bragging to his Hooligans that he raced A.J. and kicked his ass because A.J. flipped in a wave and lost his sunglasses. Oh yeah, and “Reed’s friend” was with him. Stupid girl.

A.J. drives us back at record slow speed. Alston is stretched out on a beach towel tugging at the Frisbee in Dexter’s mouth. Linzi rushes over to the edge of the water to meet me.

“Are you okay?” she shouts before I even get off the jet ski. “That looked awful!”

I leave my abandoned lifejacket with A.J. and return to shore, drenched, with mascara running down my face and my hair crinkling into its natural wavy mess. So much for the thirty minutes I wasted with a flat iron this morning. You’d never know now.

“I’m fine,” I tell her. “Let’s go.”

I grab her arm and drag her back through the sand with me, leaving Alston and A.J. to fetch the
jet skis, lifejackets, and Dexter on their own.

“
That’s why people don’t get on a jet ski with A.J.,” Linzi says, as if she knows all about A.J.’s past experiences on the water.