“What else would you call them?” She picks up a stack of bills and sorts through them quickly.
“Lunatics. Psychos. Desperate, lonely weirdos.” She gives me a hard, annoyed look. “If it helps, the good out-weighs the bad.”
“It comes with the job, Summer. You know that, and add in serial killers and a true crime angle and everything gets a little weirder.”
“I just want you to be safe.”
“I am. I promise. I’ll look them over and any that stand out I’ll forward to my agent, okay?”
Now that she’s looked over her bills, seen the store still standing, and assessed her fan mail, I can see the exhaustion finally taking over. “Come on, Mom, let me get you back home. I’ll drive.”
She smiles at me. “I know it’s only been a few months since I saw you at Easter, but you’ve really grown up.”
“No thanks to these guys around here. They have me surfing, eating ice cream and going to skate parks. If I keep hanging around them, I’ll never grow up.”
She walks around the desk and wraps her arm around my shoulder. “Don’t be in a rush—my adolescence was cut short by Gaskins. It’s one of my biggest regrets.”
“I’ll try.” Which is easier said than done. Life and decisions and relationships and everything else loom ahead. I want to talk to her about Vanderbilt, but it was the dream for so long. Would I be cutting my options off by changing tracks? I guess that’s her point though, vacation is for taking a break from the big stuff. She stopped coming to Ocean Beach after Gaskins’ attack. I didn’t need to stress about the big stuff. Not now—all of that will be waiting in the future.
With my mother safely at home and the party under control, I agree to go with the boys to one of their out-of-the-way local joints to hang out. The last time we did something like this, Mason followed me and all hell broke loose. There’s no reason to worry about a repeat of that, but these townie outings make me a little uneasy. Mostly because I’m completely out of my comfort zone.
The scent of fried seafood hits me the instant I get out of Nic
k’s truck. The boys wait for me in the parking lot, Anita and Bobby are here, too. Maggie and Ivy are coming later.
“So what’s so special about this place?” I ask. The sign on the door says “Dusty’s Den.”
“It’s a landmark,” Nick says, taking my hand. “When we all got our fake IDs, this is the first place we went.”
“I need an ID?” I’m only nineteen.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small laminated card. I take the card and see a recent photo taken of me and a list of false details. “You made this?”
He shrugs. “We have our sources.”
It’s the little things like this that do make me feel like one of them; it’s the little things that bring me one step closer to feeling like this is my home, these are my people.
Anita helped pick my outfit. “Sexy, but casual,” she said, back at the trailer. We’d barely both fit into it with her giant belly. “You definitely don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard—the other locals will notice. But you do want to look hot for the guys.”
“Looking hot for the guys is not always my main priority,” I said.
“Of course it’s not, but you still want to make them a little weak in the knees. Trust me, there’s nothing more powerful than driving a man wild. You just get to do it times four.”
I decided on high-waisted jeans and a bright yellow, halter crop-top. I finally have some color on my skin and it looks nice against the yellow. I add a pair of sandals and let my hair hang loose.
Nick picked me up and kept his hand on my thigh the whole way over, sending little currents of desire across my skin. He smells amazing in the enclosed cab and I can’t help but think about being in here with him last time. What we did. How he felt and tasted. I stare out the window, trying to will those thoughts away.
When I get out of the truck and the boys see me, I feel their eyes roam over my body. Anita’s right. I do feel powerful knowing the boys of Ocean Beach are here with me, but overwhelmed too; how do I keep them all satisfied?
They all look amazing, tanned and dressed to suit their personality. Pete’s curly hair dips in his eyes and his loose, torn jeans fit like a glove. The black Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt pulls snug across his shoulders. Justin’s grown a bit of stubble on his face again, the shadows highlighting his jaw and cheekbones. He’s wearing shorts and a light blue button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. Whit’s wearing a striped tank and shows off his muscular arms. He looks a million times better than a few days ago.
The bouncer barely glances at my ID, obviously knowing all the guys and waving them in without much of a look. The inside of Dusty’s is pretty standard beach décor. Surfboards hang on the walls along with Christmas lights looped from the ceiling. There’s a long bar in the back and a lit-up jukebox playing old-timey music and a space cleared to dance. We join Anita at a table, already piled with plates of steaming seafood and pitchers of beer. There’s no doubt I feel ushered into a different world—one that I desperately want to belong to.
The bar fills up and the music gets louder. The lighting is dim, other than the twinkling small bulbs hanging from above. Justin and Nick go play pool, while Whit lingers at the bar talking to some locals.
The door opens and a familiar face walks in, well, two familiar faces. Avery and Shay.
“That’s an unlikely pair,” Pete says, eyeing the couple.