Rough Waters (2 page)

And that’s when I hear it. Screaming. Crazy,
fanatical screaming. Enchanted Emily rolls her eyes and mutters the
word ‘fangirls.’ Reed nods and A.J. laughs, but I don’t buy it. I
push off of the tailgate and glance around. Fangirl screams are the
kinds you’d hear at a Spaceships Around Saturn concert. This is
more of the kind of scream you’d hear if someone in the boyband
Spaceships Around Saturn was murdered.

A rush of media cameras sprint toward the
Drenaline Surf tent. Camera flashes spark like lightning around
them while microphones dance over the reporters’ heads, hoping to
catch a few words. And then there are more screams.

Reed and A.J. jump to their feet, joining me
on the sand. Whatever media frenzy this is has nothing to do with
surfer fangirls. A middle-aged lady cries out, and then there are
shouts that “it’s really him.” More cries. Then sobbing. And her
face comes into view. She’s ghostly pale, like she’s just seen the
walking dead. A man close to her age helps her stay balanced.

“Wow,” Reed says. “Who knew Colby appealed to
an older audience? She’s probably his oldest fan.”

My throat catches when I try to speak. I’ve
seen her before – in the corporate yearbook. Page twenty-seven.
Burks.

“She’s not a fan,” I say. “She’s his
mom.”

“He’s alive!”

The words ring out and echo across the waves.
It’s like a bad beachy remake of Frankenstein. His mom grabs her
chest, like she may enter cardiac arrest, and his dad holds her
hand. His other hand rests on her back as he helps her walk
forward. They can’t be any older than fifty, if that, but they
creep along like decrepit senior citizens approaching their
ninetieth birthdays. His mom cries out again – no words, just
dramatic sobs and moans.

“Fucking hell,” A.J. says. “This is like a
bad Lifetime movie…but you know, real.”

The reporter from Shaka Magazine is the first
to see the crazed lady stumbling toward them like an
overly-emotional zombie. Colby and Vin turn around in what I swear
is slow motion. If confidence is what Colby wears on the billboard,
this expression is the right opposite.

“It’s him! Oh God, it’s really him,” his mom
screams out.

She turns toward the surf paparazzi, bringing
a hand to her mouth as if she were a damsel in distress who was
just spectacularly rescued by a soldier in the night. She sobs and
heaves forward a few times, pretending to mutter, but her words are
clear and well-rehearsed.

“I thought we’d lost him forever,” she says.
“But our son is alive!”

The reporters sprint under the tent, hovering
around their drama queen as she lunges for her long lost son. But
no one touches the surf star. My boyfriend stops them.

Vin says something to the media along the
lines of ‘no more interviews’ and how Colby is through for the day
‘until this matter is resolved.’ He waves to a security guard, who
promptly joins him under the tent, and then he jerks Colby away as
quickly as the cameras swarmed in on them. Reed nudges me and nods
toward the tent. A.J. and I follow him closer to the media
spectacle that is still underway.

“Three years,” his mom says, nodding to a
camera. “We’ve searched for so long. We never gave up hope that
someday we’d bring our boy home. We ask for privacy at this time as
we try to rebuild our family.”

Seriously? She has the nerve to ask for
privacy? She’s the one who invited every reporter, journalist, and
surf paparazzi to follow her through a crowd of people to the
Drenaline Surf tent just to make a scene. She knew what she was
doing the minute she stepped onto the sand. I bet the tears weren’t
even real. This wasn’t about finding her son. This was all for
show.

“This is bad,” I say, keeping my eyes on the
woman in the sunhat. She even dressed for the occasion. No wonder
Colby died and reinvented himself.

“Way to state the obvious, Haley,” A.J. says.
“This woman is loco.”

“No kidding,” Reed says, shielding his eyes
from the sun. “I’m going to the store. I figure Vin’s probably
flipping out, and he may need someone to intervene. You guys
staying?”

I nod. I came to watch Miles surf, and from
the looks of things around the Drenaline Surf tent, I may be the
only one actually watching. I’ve followed his career over the last
year from across the country, from magazine articles to internet
chats to photo shoots, but I’ve yet to witness a live event. I
wouldn’t call myself a surfer fangirl when it comes to Miles
Garrett, but I’ve earned this moment.

The media leaves shortly after Reed ascends
the hill of sand back toward The Strip. I’m sure Colby’s parents
are holed up at the Crescent Inn giving exclusive interviews to the
highest bidder while they await the reappearance of their son. I
debate texting Vin to tell him that Colby needs to be entered in a
witness protection program, but that’s pretty much where he’s been
for the last three years. How in the hell did they find him?

“Did Colby throw a fit and break something
under the tent?” Topher asks from behind me.

I spin around in time for Kale to grab me in
what would’ve been a sneak attack had Topher not opened his
mouth.

“No, his parents showed up,” A.J. says.

Kale’s reunion hug with me is cut short. “His
parents? Like his real parents? The ones he had before he was Colby
Taylor? Like when he had his birth name, before he ran away?”

“Yeah,” A.J. answers. “All of the above.”

Never did I think I’d see a moment when both
Kale and Topher were silent. But the two Hooligans in front of me
remain quiet, shocked. Finally, Kale turns toward the water and an
air horn signals the next heat. Miles paddles out to the
lineup.

“I can’t believe this,” Topher mutters. “This
is the biggest competition Miles has surfed in, and my brother
isn’t even down here because he’s playing damage control for Colby
again. Where the hell is the media?”

I scan the area behind us, but the flock of
cameras has dissipated. A few stragglers remain, snapping photos of
what might be the next cover of Shaka Magazine. Maybe Miles will
make the cover after Colby’s story fades from the headlines.

I’m able to persuade Topher that Miles needs
him right now, and we join Theo, Jace, and Emily back at Jace’s
truck. Aside from a few cheers here and there for the good waves,
we’re a somber bunch. No one speaks until Vin walks over and leans
against the side of the truck.

“What happened?” Topher asks, swapping
glances between his brother and his best friend in the water.

“We’ll talk later,” Vin says. He nods toward
the ocean. “Let’s focus on Miles right now.”

I glance back at the heat. Miles leads. The
other guy needs an 8.73 to take the lead, and as Topher has said
more than once lately, the swell pretty much sucks. The opposing
surfer will be lucky to get a decent wave at all, much less one
that can knock Miles out of the competition.

My phone buzzes in my hand. One new message.
From Vin Brooks. I shoot him a sideways glance and open the
message. He needs my help. Why couldn’t that wait until this heat
was over? I push off of the tailgate yet again and motion toward
Vin when Topher’s eyes inquire where I’m going.

Vin slips an arm behind me and leads me back
under the Drenaline Surf tent. He’s quiet for a moment, still
semi-focused on Miles’s performance. Then he looks at the sand and
shakes his head.

“Strick took Taylor home for me, so I could
get back down here,” he says to the particles on the ground more
than to me. “This is about to blow up in ways that I can’t even
handle.”

That’s a given. He and the guys have spent
three years keeping Colby hidden from anyone who may leak his
secret back to his parents – that he’s alive and well and living a
new life. For three years, only one person has been able to
penetrate the four-man wall built around the surf star – me – and I
sure as hell didn’t leak the info to his parents. As much as I
detest the person Colby Taylor has become, I still understand why
he did it and I respect him for it.

“His parents have a press conference
scheduled for later tonight,” Vin says. “Crescent Inn has set up
the entire thing in their lobby. That’s where all the media is now,
just waiting to ask questions and get a story.”

That’ll be one hell of a story.
Surf Star
Colby Taylor Faked Death. Parents Find Him Alive.

Then I remember the text. “What do you need
my help with?” I ask.

Vin exhales and turns to me with pleading
eyes. “I need you to talk to him,” he says. “He hates me, and I’m
not exactly his biggest fan. Nothing I say matters at this point.
But you’ve gotten through to him before. Maybe you can talk him
into at least meeting up with his parents, explaining his side of
things or whatever.”

I doubt anything I say will make a dent in
Colby’s mind frame. There’s not a living soul on this earth who
could talk any sense into that boy right now. Everything he’s
worked for, that he
died for
, has been stripped from him in
a matter of seconds. There is absolutely nothing I can say to fix
this or ease his mind or calm him down. Nothing.

“I’ll try,” I say. “But I need a game plan
and I’m taking reinforcements.”

An hour later, after fighting competition
traffic, I pull into the driveway at 2311 Dolphin Point. Dexter
rushes around the side of the house, barking and jumping with
excitement to see someone.

“I can’t believe you dragged me along for
this,” A.J. complains from my passenger seat.

“Oh shut it,” I say. “You beat me to the car
when I told you where I was going.”

Colby’s truck sits in the driveway,
surfboards sticking out of the bed. For a second, I worry about
them being stolen, especially in the midst of this news outbreak,
but I doubt Colby Taylor gives a damn about a few boards that he
can most likely have replaced in a few hours. I get out of the car
and walk around to the back patio.

A.J. peers into the window. “Looks like all
the lights are out,” he says. “Hang on. I’ve got a key. That
motherfucker had one made for me after I broke his window.”

He fiddles with the keys for a second before
finding the right one for Colby’s patio door. He slides it back,
pushes the curtain aside, and steps into the beach mansion. I
follow him inside and flip on the closest light switch.

“Well, he didn’t trash the place,” A.J. says.
“Taylor, you here?”

A nearly-full Gatorade bottle sits on the
kitchen counter. “It’s still cold,” I say, wrapping my hand around
it. “He was just here.”

I put the bottle back in the refrigerator and
follow A.J.’s voice as he searches the house. But nowhere in this
three-story mansion do we find Colby.

“He couldn’t have gotten far on foot,” I say.
“Maybe he went for a run to clear his head. You know he’s
health-conscious and all that. Should we wait?”

A.J. nods and sits on the couch. “We’ll give
him thirty minutes. If he doesn’t show, we’ll send out a search
party.”

I wonder if the Guinness record book has a
record for the most search parties held for one person. If we
started with his initial disappearance three years ago and counted
every time the guys had to search for him when he went missing
around here, I’m sure he would hold the title.

I settle onto the couch with A.J. and grab
the remote from the side table. I may not know Colby as well as Vin
thinks I do, but I’m certain he’s subscribed to SurfTube. I tab
through the menu until the channel pops up. I’m almost scared to
click it.

Mrs. Burks fills Colby’s HD flat-screen. She
dabs her eyes with tissues, careful not to smudge her makeup. “I
just want to bring my boy home,” she says to the lenses.

“What a crock of shit,” A.J. says. “She came
here to get her fifteen minutes of fame. She’s probably pissed as
fuck because her son let her believe he was dead just so he could
get the hell away from her. Taylor’s a crazy fuck up, but I don’t
blame him.”

We spend thirty minutes watching the footage
from earlier today at the beach. A red marquee bar at the bottom of
the screen announces the time for the press conference with Colby’s
parents. No one mentions the local competition or that Miles
Garrett won his heat and advanced to tomorrow’s finals.

The blast of my cell phone startles me.
Topher’s name pops up on the screen.

“Where are you?” he shouts through the
earpiece, without so much as a ‘hey’ when I answer.

“Colby’s house. Where are you? What’s all
that noise?” I ask.

“Crescent Inn,” he hollers out. “This place
is a madhouse! Kale is with me. We’re here to report the
situation.”

I crack up at his choice of words. I’m sure
his big brother sent him there with that very mission, to “report
the situation.” I decide to humor him.

“So what’s the situation?” I ask, turning on
the speaker phone so A.J. can hear.

“Well, all the surf media is here. We’ve got
blue lights outside, security guards inside. It’s insane. Oh, and
we’ve got two emotional, camera-hungry parents. What have you got?”
he asks.

A.J. turns off the TV, and I report our
not-so-good situation.

“We’ve got one missing surfer.”

While Crescent Inn hosts the press conference
of the year, I drive toward the lesser-known parts of Crescent Cove
– past the Azalea Living Center and down to the fancy pier that
tourists are unaware exists. The sun grows lazy and tucks itself in
between the waves for a good night’s rest. Colby’s silhouette forms
between two tiki torches.

“What are you going to say to him?”A.J. asks
as our shoes hit the wooden floor of the pier.

As I walk the plank to my death, I wish I was
creative enough for famous last words. Sadly, mine would be
something clichéd about chasing dreams and Colby Taylor. So I shrug
instead of responding.