Documentary (32 page)

             
“Wes, you are about two seconds away from being Jeremy’ed.” Dylan couldn’t fight her smile. She gave him a light push to the chest and walked to the large windows. The cool glass spiked a chill through her when she pressed her palm to it. Orlando could get fairly cold at night in the winter.

             
“I knew that would make you laugh, but you’re hot when you’re angry.”

             
“Jesus, Wes. I’m sure everything’s hot to you.” She spun around and leaned against the wall.

             
Wes stood and walked to the hotel room desk. “Yes, I think women are hot! Is that so wrong?” He picked up a
Scrabble
box and brought it back to the bed.

             
“Not at all. But we have brains too. We make good conversation. A lot of us are nice and compassionate and loving and funny.” She watched as he lifted the board from the box and opened it flat over the bedspread. Dylan didn’t know a lot about him, but Wes didn’t strike her as an avid board game player, much less a
Scrabble
player.

             
“Yes. I’m pretty sure you’re all of those things. I know women are humans, Dylan,” Wes said with minor frustration. He held up the small maroon drawstring bag containing the letters and shook it. “I have a lot of sex with y’all, so I would know. I love women. I love that we’re outnumbered. Your gender makes up more than
half
the population.” Wes’ lustful eyes flashed as he drew his tongue across his top lip. “That’s a lot of—”

“Whatever you’
re about to say, remember your mom, aunts and grandmas have it, too.”

Wes pretended to gag.
“My point is I want to know as many of you as I can. I’m glad we’re hanging out now. Susan from last night was cool too. Hanging out. Screwing. Whatever. I just like spending time with women.”

             
“I see.” Dylan gave him a subtle and skeptical roll of her eyes when he looked away to put the tile holders at opposite ends of the board.

             
“Don’t take my desire to
spread
my seed
, so to speak, to mean I want to degrade women. It’s quite the opposite. I just want to make sure every lady who wants
all of this
for a limited time knows that it’s
very
available, and can get it.” He shook his head and sighed, looking a little defeated. “Monogamy is overrated. Promiscuity is a misunderstood state of being.”

             
“Wes, you have sufficiently disturbed me for the rest of my life.” She joined him on the bed. “So we’re playing
Scrabble
for real?”

             
“Yeah!” Wes pierced her with squinted, incredulous eyes. “What did you think we were gonna do? Unless you’re chicken…but I’ll try to go easy on you.” Dylan snatched the pouch of tiles from him and stuck her hand in to retrieve her first one. He softly brushed the top of her hand when she handed the bag back to him. “And, plus, you look like you want to talk.” They went back and forth until each had filled their racks.

             
“I don’t want to talk,” Dylan said as she rearranged some of the letters into an intelligible word. Except she did want to talk, and as usual, her first reaction was to reject the offer. “So, how did you get into
Scrabble
?”

             
Wes went first and spelled out HINTED on the board. “Abel and I grew up on the North Shore in Oahu and all we ever wanted to do was surf. When we were fifteen, we wanted to completely focus on surfing—like drop out of school and focus—but our parents wouldn’t let us, so they got us a tutor.”

Dylan added the letters necessary to spell out BANE using the N from Wes’ word.

“Me and Abel aren’t exactly the ‘sit down for very long’ type, and we’re really competitive with each other, so our tutor decided to make us play
Scrabble
on some days.” He marked down their scores and they picked up more letters. “Whoever won got out early to surf, and we couldn’t play words we couldn’t define. So I spent a lot of time reading in preparation before tutoring, and I guess we ended up getting smarter without even knowing it...I think. Abel and I still play when we’re traveling together.” Wes spelled HOUSE.

“I never would’ve guessed that,” she said, happily surprised. Dylan pressed RACE down to the board.

              “I’m
not
a walking dick, Dylan.” Wes exaggerated his indignation and shock. “Well, not completely. So, what’s up with you and my boy? Are you in love with him?” Wes asked nonchalantly, as he rubbed his chin and stared with a creased brow at the hidden letters on the tile rack. “You guys fight like a couple.”

             
Dylan gulped down. “Um…uh…” she stammered. “Nothing’s going on, and Nina says we can’t do anything.” She didn’t sound compelling at all. “We’re just having a little disagreement.”

             
“Are you in love with him?” Wes repeated. Was she? With certainty, she could say that she cared about him. There was something else too. Kai had stirred up deep feelings within her. Love was too big of a word though.

Wes still hadn’t played, but he looked up at her with amusement in his eyes. “Oh shit. He’s got you.”

Dylan turned her gaze to the headboard, feeling heat swirl around her face. “I’m not in love with him,” she whispered. “We haven’t known each other that long.”

“Yeah, but you’re on tou
r, together day in and day out…it’s, like, months in reality.”

Dylan reached over and flicked his nose. “I’m
not in love, dammit. Just play. Quit stalling,” she said, trying to deflect his attention back to the game.

Wes chuckled. “All right, all right. But
whatever
it is you feel, Nina is standing in your way…”

“In a really complicated way,” Dylan said in a timid voice as she absently shifted
her letters around. Wes sat up looking concerned, and pushed the board toward the foot of the bed. His eyes got inspective as he raised his brows. “Nina promised me the rights to the web series if I found out why Kai really beat up Jeremy that night. He doesn’t know about the web series deal, but I think Lek told him I was still sniffing around about the fight even though Kai asked me not to. I feel terrible because he thinks I don’t really care for him, and that my motives have been impure this whole time.”

             
He stood up and walked across the room to the wall. “Are they? Have they been?” Wes asked in a protective tone. She knew that he was looking out for his friend, but she was ashamed when his gaze turned suspicious. She had never seen Wes with such a grave expression, and she had probably tarnished her image in his eyes. 

“I’m not pretending to care about him! I do, a lot,” she said, growing defensive. There was no denying that her feelings were genuine. She lay back on the bed and closed her eyes but re-opened them when Wes started speaking again.

“Because I know for a fact Kai would cut off his nuts and toss them in the ocean to be with someone like you. To be with
you
.” Wes pulled out his cell phone and exhaled loudly. “Guess you’re not the only one sharing secrets today. He’s going to kill me if he ever finds out I’m reading this to you.” Wes scrolled his screen. “Me:
‘How’d the show go?’
Him:
‘Great. Hung out with Dylan after.’
Smiley face. Smiley face, Dylan!” Wes’ disbelieving expression made her burst out laughing. “Him:
‘Dude, she just killed it in Call of Duty.’
Smiley face. Another fucking smiley face. It’s been like this for weeks. Remember that night in L.A. at the Lava Surf party? He pretty much told me to stay away from you because he knows me. I wouldn’t have been serious about you, and he was crushing really hard.”

             
She flashed a huge grin. “I like him, too, Wes. I just wish I knew more about what happened between him and Jeremy. At least if I knew what I was dealing with, I could figure out how best to protect him from it. It’s not even about using it for any gain.” That’s what mattered to her, getting Kai out of this mess. Dylan sat up, ready to implore Wes to give her information. She walked straight up to him and pressed her palms together, needing him to understand that she was being sincere. “Kai is drowning in something, something big, and he’s dealing with it all by himself. I just want to help him.”

“I really don’t know
, Dyl. Kai shut me out of that.” Wes ran his hand over his head, and his shoulders dropped when he sighed sadly. “The only thing I really know is that things got all weird at the end of the Thailand trip.”

“We
ird how?” Dylan walked backward and sat on the bed.

Wes shut his eyes tight like he was trying to jog his memory. “For one thing, Erica…
Evigan—she used to work with Kai—didn’t come back with all of us on the flight. She was supposed to, but she didn’t. Me, Kai, Abel, Jamie, Erica…the Philippines group…” He tapped each name on his finger. “Lek, Zave and Heath, Jeremy, Seth and Odette… the group that met us in Thailand. We were all supposed to fly back to Oahu together, and she didn’t show up.”

“But Jeremy was definitely on the flight?” Dylan reflected on Heath’s drug theory.
“And he was fine?”

Wes nodded. “Yup.
She was the only one not on the flight. The girls said she wasn’t in the hotel room and she wasn’t answering her phone when we all met down in the lobby, but all her stuff was still there. Kai started calling her frantically, and she texted him back to say she was all right. We were in another country, so none of us wanted to leave until we were absolutely sure that she was fine. Kai called again and finally she answered and confirmed that she was fine and for us to go on without her. Kai was reluctant but she insisted. He made her send him a picture to prove that she was okay, and she did. She said she had just decided to stay longer last minute. She’d suddenly decided to stay to work on something…an idea she had. Erica’s really fun and creative and spontaneous, so at the time, it kinda made sense.

“
Kai and Jeremy both called her from the airport and the plane, before takeoff. She said she’d see us back in the States.” Wes shrugged. “I don’t think Kai heard from
her again, even when she got back to L.A., where she was living at the time. When we go on those trips, she’d fly back to Oahu and hang out for a few days before she, Abel and me would fly back to L.A. I called her for days after Abel and I went home and got nothing. When I talked to Bryson, her ex- fiancé, or maybe he’s still her fiancé, he said when she got back, she packed up her shit and left him, called everything off. Then she quit working for Kai, and then she stopped talking to everybody. It’s sad because I miss her like crazy. She’s an awesome girl. I just want to know how she’s doing.”

“What happened that last night?” Dylan asked, perplexed. “Did something happen between her and Jeremy?”

“Same shit that happens every
last night
. We get shitfaced and party and then barely make our flight the next day. Erica doesn’t drink as much as the rest of us, but she would party her ass off.” Wes sighed. “Nothing was different as far as I could tell. She was goofing around with Kai and Jeremy most of the time in Phuket. Goofing around with all of us, like usual. When we were in the Philippines, she got us up early every morning to go do tourist stuff and for volunteering.”

Wes
shook his head, as if he was still struggling with what had gone wrong. “Kai’s album was coming out. Jeremy’s album was doing really well. Everyone was happy. That last night, we all partied together at one of the nightclubs on Bangla Road in Patong Beach, and eventually, the group split up. I left with some chick from Texas who was on vacation with her friends. We hit another club before we went back to her hotel. I didn’t hear anything weird from the boys the next day, except that she wasn’t coming with us.”

He smiled sadly.
“Anyway, the group just wasn’t the same after that, and I think Kai just took it hard when Erica...disappeared. He was on edge and really broken up about it for a long time. Still is, I think.” Wes shuffled through the liquor bottles on top of the bureau in the room and selected the bottle of
Ciroc
vodka
.
“Kai’s sensitive, especially with girls he cares about. Erica’s disappearing act and quitting her job were devastating for him. He wasn’t himself after that. Something like discussing music in an alley, especially with how weird his relationship with Jeremy was, could’ve set him off and made him smash Jer’s face in.”

“I’ve seen Kai
not hit
two guys—well, one not at all and one not right away—and they were really being jerks,” Dylan said. “I don’t think he just lost his temper in the middle of a conversation about music royalties.” She watched as Wes poured an anemic stream of alcohol into a red plastic cup, and then he splashed in a few juices before handing it to her.

“
Come on! It’ll make
Scrabble
more fun,” he said, goading her with a playful tone as he poured more alcohol into another cup. “I’ll make mine stronger. Think of it like a golf handicap, for you.” This time, the liquor rushed out as if from a geyser. “I’ve seen Kai hit plenty of guys, by the way. But maybe you’re right and his beef with Jeremy is
personal. Things could be intense between them,” Wes said in a grim voice. It made her shiver a little. “Evernight
didn’t break up the way everyone thinks it did. They made it out in the media like it was ‘strained,’ but it got bad toward the end. Really bad. It took a couple years for Jer and Kai to speak to each other again.”