A Bluewater Bay Collection

by Witt, L. A.

  “Everything okay?” Violet asked.

  “Just need to find a babysitter for tonight.”

  She grimaced. “Go ahead and take a few minutes.”

  “Thanks.” I moved into the back and started scrolling through my phone. I tried texting a few people, but the answers were the same.

  Sorry man, gotta work.

  I’m in Oregon this week—sorry!

  Can’t—my kids are sick.

  The shop’s front door jingled. Shit. I needed to get back to work. Violet was counting on—

  “Is Zafir around?”

  Brennan. Damn. We were supposed to get lunch, but there was no way I could drop everything and go while this was up in the air.

  Sighing, I went back out front.

  When he saw me, he smiled. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” I frowned. “I’m gonna have to bail. I’m sorry. I need to find a babysitter stat, and I’m not having any luck.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “What happened?”

  “My babysitter bailed at the last possible second. Leyla’s not available.” I raked a hand through my hair. “Shit. If I can’t find someone, I’m going to have to call in to my second job.” I could already hear my boss ripping me a new one over it, and cringed at the thought of losing that paycheck. Quite possibly permanently.

  Brennan cleared his throat. “Maybe . . . maybe I could watch him for a few hours.”

  I turned to him. “What?”

  “I’m off work tonight.” He shrugged. “Don’t have any plans.”

  Gnawing the inside of my cheek, I hesitated. “You really wouldn’t mind?”

  “Of course not. I mean, I don’t know if I’d trust me with, like, a toddler because I don’t know how toddlers work, but . . .”

  I laughed. “Hey, if I managed to keep a toddler alive, anyone can.” Turning serious, I said, “I hate to impose, though.”

  “Impose?” He waved a hand. “Come on. He’s nine, and he digs skateboarding. We’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, but . . .” I pulled out my wallet and offered him a few twenties. My last few. “Here’s some cash if you guys want to get something to eat and—”

  “Zafir.” He closed my fingers around the money and pushed my hand back. “It’s okay. My apartment’s right down the road. We can even order from Old Country so you can come by and check on him.”

  I held his gaze. “Are you . . . are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.” He smiled. “You know, I could give him one of those skate lessons we’ve been talking about.”

  I gulped. My skin wanted to turn inside out at the thought of Tariq stepping onto a skateboard without me there to keep an eye on him, but I’d promised myself a million times not to be that oppressively protective.

  “Okay,” I croaked. “Yeah. Um. Just . . .” Be careful? Really? If you have to tell him that, you’d better not be leaving Tariq with him at all. No, I trusted him. He was a good guy, and he was good with Tariq, and Tariq would have a blast with him tonight.

  I slowly released my breath as I rolled my shoulders. “You’re a lifesaver. Seriously.”

  “Don’t mention it. Do you need me to pick him up somewhere, or—”

  “Shit. The booster seat. Your truck’s a two-seater, do you know if it’s okay for—” I shook my head. “You know what, I have no idea. It might be easier if we just switch cars.”

  Brennan’s eyes widened. “You’d trust me with your car?”

  “I’m trusting you with my kid, Brennan. If I didn’t trust you with my car, I sure as hell wouldn’t let him go with you either.”

  “Point taken.”

  “I’ll pick him up from school. Should I just meet you by the skate shop, and we’ll switch cars?”

  “That works.” He raised his eyebrows. “And you’re sure you don’t mind if I take him to the skate park? Just to give him a few pointers?”

  I mulled it over again for a minute. Brennan knew what he was doing on a skateboard, and he wasn’t a reckless idiot. I didn’t have any illusions of him sending Tariq down a huge ramp with no helmet on, though the mental image did make my stomach turn.

  “It’s fine.” I gulped. “Just, um, be careful, all right? He’s still at that age where he thinks if something looks easy, it is easy.”

  “Don’t worry.” He chuckled. “My boss says skateboards are the great equalizer—everyone thinks they’re the next Tony Hawk until they actually get on the board and see how hard it is. He’ll crawl before he runs. We all do.”

  I slowly released my breath. “Okay. You’re a lifesaver. Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He inclined his head a bit. “So does this mean you don’t have to bail on lunch?”

  I laughed, relief still working its way through my veins, and nodded. “Yeah. It does. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 11

  Brennan

  “Do I have to wear all of this?” Tariq scowled at all the pads I’d put on him. “I’m not a hockey goalie.”

  I laughed. “No, you’re not, but yes, you do. And this too.” I held up a helmet.

  He huffed and rolled his eyes, but let me put on the helmet and adjust the strap. Some of the guys skated with the chin strap dangling to their knees, but Zafir would skin me alive if I let Tariq do that. Not that I would anyway—I’d seen one too many of those idiots regret it. And I’d had a nasty concussion myself even with a helmet.

  So . . . Tariq was wearing a fitted helmet with a snug strap and about seven hundred pads on his various extremities. He’d thank me the first time he fell and didn’t come up bleeding.

  Once he had all his safety gear on, I grabbed my board and one for him, and we walked from the shop to the park. It was a fairly busy afternoon, with probably two dozen people skating, but they were on the more advanced end of the park. Tariq wouldn’t be going near those ramps and half-pipes for a long time.

  We found a section of flat pavement away from everybody else so I could run him through the basics. I would’ve preferred to do this in a parking lot somewhere, away from the distraction of other skaters—especially the ones showing off—and without the risk of someone clobbering him, but Bluewater Bay wasn’t all that skateboard friendly.

  We let you have a park, the attitude seemed to be. No need for you to skate anywhere else.

  Whatever.

  Tariq looked around at the other skaters, then shot me a glare. “How come they don’t have to wear all this?”

  “Because if they fall and break something, your dad won’t kill me.”

  He groaned as only an exasperated kid could groan, but didn’t argue.

  “You ready to get started?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Okay, so it’s going to be a little boring at first.” I put my board down and rested my foot on it. “You’re just learning how to balance and how to stop.” I nodded toward the other guys. “That comes a bit later.”

  He frowned, probably disappointed he wouldn’t be doing the really fun stuff right away, but he shrugged and put the board down at his feet. Mirroring me, he put a foot on it, and without a word, he looked up at me, the helmet shading his eyes as he waited for his first lesson.

  The basics were pretty boring, but he hung on every word as I showed him how to balance and how to stop. Before long, he could start and stop without wobbling. He’d skate away from me, go about ten feet, then turn around and come back. Slow and easy.

  Not far from us, a couple of intermediate skaters were doing ollies.

  “Can I learn how to do that?” Tariq asked, watching the guys jump off the ground, boards and all.

  I shook my head. “Not yet. Not till you’re just a little more comfortable on the board.” And not until you’ve fallen a few times. It was always better to learn to fall during the easy stuff. Bones didn’t usually start breaking until the tricks with more speed and more air. An ollie was one of the most basic tricks, but this was his first time ever on a board, so he was a little too green for that.

  He
sighed. “Okay.”

  “We’ll get to the fun stuff, don’t worry. Once your balance is good and you’re steadier, then we can start doing ollies.” I gestured at the other skaters. “And once you get the hang of those, then you can start learning how to do things like kickflips.”

  “What’s that?”

  I stood on my board, tipped it up with one foot and, as I jumped up off it, spun it with the other so it flipped under me. I planted my feet on it in midair, and put it back down on the pavement, exactly where I’d started.

  “Whoa!” He flashed a huge grin. “Is that hard?”

  “It takes practice, but once you get the basics down, you’ll get the hang of it.”

  His lips formed a silent O, and he looked at the board under his foot. I knew that look. Every skater I’d ever taught had had the same epiphany—and so had I—when they realized why they had to do all the stupid, boring basics. When they realized it opened the door to a bunch of cool tricks, suddenly it wasn’t such a horrible thing to have to practice dumb things like starting and stopping. If he was anything like me, he was imagining himself jumping off railings and doing kickflips and all the crazy tricks my buddies were doing at the other end of the park.

  As long as it kept him practicing the simple stuff . . . fine.

  “All right.” I nodded toward his board. “Let’s have you go a little farther this time, and just a little bit faster.”

  He got on the board and pushed off. My heart skipped—I said a little faster, Tariq!

  But if I called out to him, I might startle him and make him wipe out, so I just cringed and watched.

  At the other end of the stretch of concrete, he stopped. It was a rough stop, but he stayed upright, so I kept my mouth shut. Then he turned around and started back to me. Again, he went faster than I wanted.

  About halfway back, he wobbled a bit, the board fishtailing under him, recovered . . .

  And toppled onto his hands and knees.

  Panic shot through me even as the hard plastic smacked on concrete, reminding me that he was encased in the best armor a skater could buy.

  I hurried to his side and crouched so I could touch his shoulder. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” As he started to get up, I gently held his arm and helped him to his feet.

  “And that,” I said as I checked the pads to make sure they were still on straight, “is why you have to wear pads and they don’t.” I gestured at the other skaters.

  “So when I get good like them, I don’t have to wear these?”

  “Uh . . .” I cleared my throat, making a mental note not to let him see me skating in shorts with no pads. “We’ll take that up with your dad. How about that?”

  “Okay.”

  We kept practicing, and after another hour or so, he wasn’t tired and he wasn’t bored. He was getting pretty good too—well-balanced, confident in his stops and starts, and taking some wide turns without much trouble. Even when the other skaters sometimes went barreling through—two of them narrowly missing him—he stayed steady on his feet. He started throwing wary glances toward the show-offs at the other end, but that was probably a good thing. Being aware of the other skaters was important.

  After he’d made another trek around the flat area, I asked, “You want to try a really easy ramp?”

  His eyes lit up. “Yeah!”

  I led him to the gentlest ramp. It wasn’t much—just a few degrees of incline on either side. Not enough to get him going too fast or out of control, but enough to teach him how to stay balanced when the ground wasn’t perfectly flat.

  “Okay, here’s how you’re gonna do it.” I stood on my board on top of the ramp. “You just lean, and let your body weight move the board forward, and let gravity do the work.” I demonstrated, going down the tiny slope and up the other side, then back to where he was standing. “You’ll probably eat it a few times, but that’s why you have pads on. Got it?”

  He nodded. By now he’d fallen quite a few times, so he knew how to land, and he knew the pads would absorb most of the impact. He’d also smacked his butt on the pavement hard enough to know he wasn’t invincible. He was developing just the right amount of caution for a beginning skater—he was protected from most scrapes and bruises enough to take some risks and try new things, but falling still wasn’t fun and kept him from doing anything reckless or stupid.

  At the lip of the ramp, he set himself up the way I had, though he had his arms out, and shifted his weight. The board didn’t move for a second. Then it did, startling him, and he panicked, but I caught him as his board rolled lazily down the ramp.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We all do that a few times. You want to try again?”

  He nodded and set up his board. The second time, he fell again, but the third time, he went down the ramp and up the other side without any trouble. He hadn’t gained enough speed to come back up to where I was standing, but still, he’d done great.

  “Awesome!” I grinned at him as he picked up his board. “You’ve got it.”

  “Can I do it again?”

  “Of course. Do it as many times as you want.”

  He set himself up again. He stood for a moment, probably steadying himself, then started down the ramp.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the flash of a blue shirt and a red helmet. In my mind, I saw the collision before it happened.

  And in a split second, it did happen.

  Sven came barreling around a turn, going horizontally across the ramp Tariq was just about to climb. I didn’t even have time to shout a warning before they collided. The sickening thud. The grunt of a boy hit way harder than he was expecting. The curse of a guy who knew he was going down.

  They tumbled ass over teakettle. Boards went everywhere—I was pretty sure one tripped somebody else, but I was too focused on Tariq to even look.

  And Sven landed right on top of Tariq, flattening him facedown on the pavement.

  I was halfway to them before they’d fully landed.

  “Shit!” Sven scrambled up onto his arms. “Oh shit. I didn’t even see him!”

  I ignored him. I could chew him out later but . . . Tariq.

  The kid let out a sob. At least he was conscious—that was a plus.

  “Hey. Hey.” I put a hand on his back to keep him from coming up too fast. “I’m right here. Let’s have you sit, okay?”

  Arms shaking as he cried, he let Sven and me help him shift position. Tariq kept one arm close to his side and covered his nose with the other. I glanced at the spot where he’d landed, and the blood on the concrete made my stomach lurch.

  Then he lowered his hand, and I realized the blood wasn’t just coming from his nose.

  And right there, front and center in the poor crying kid’s mouth, was a gap where his front tooth used to be.

  Oh shit.

  “Tariq.” I swallowed. “Hey, buddy. I want to make sure you’re okay. Can you tell me where it hurts?”

  He pointed at his face.

  “Anywhere else?”

  “My arm,” he whimpered, sending a drop of blood and spit down his scraped chin.

  “Oh! Here’s the tooth!” Sven picked it up off the pavement and stood. “Let me go get some of that salt solution to soak it, and then you can take him to the ER and see if they can put it back in.”

  “Good idea.” It was a blessing in disguise that we were so prepared for people to lose teeth. The shop kept some Hanks’ Balanced Salt Solution on hand for exactly this kind of thing. If a tooth wasn’t too badly damaged and we put it in the solution quickly, the dentist could usually put it back in the person’s head.

  Usually.

  Oh God.

  Zafir is going to kill me.

  “I’m gonna take you to the doctor, okay?”

  Tariq’s eyes welled up all over again. “The doctor?”

  “Sorry, kiddo.” I touched his chin and turned him toward me. “I’ll be right there with you, though. I promise.”

  “I want my dad!�
�

  “I’m gonna call him. Okay? Sven’s going to take care of your tooth, and we’ll put some ice on you, but I’m calling him . . .” I took out my phone and held it up. “Right now. All right?”

  He sniffed, pressing his swelling lips together, and nodded.

  Even as I was pulling up Zafir in my phone, I turned to my friends. “Kim, go grab a couple of ice packs from the shop. Renee, can you get some damp shop rags?”

  They took off running, and sent the call.

  As the phone rang on the other end, I watched Sven carefully take off Tariq’s helmet.

  “Good thing you were wearing this, kid.” Sven held up the helmet, revealing a nasty scrape across what would have been Tariq’s forehead.

  The kid’s eyes got huge, and I swore I could feel the fresh panic rising in him.

  “Tariq. Tariq, look at me.” When he did, I softly said, “You’re okay. We’re gonna get you cleaned up and take care of your tooth.” I squeezed his uninjured arm gently. “Just take a couple deep breaths, okay?”

  He watched me, and slowly pulled in a breath.

  On the phone, the call kicked over to voice mail.

  “It’s Zafir—you know the drill.”

  I took a deep breath. “Hey, Zafir,” I said as calmly as I could. “Tariq had a little mishap at the skate park, so I’m taking him to the ER just to make sure he’s okay. I mean, he’s fine.” Sort of. “But just to be safe. So, um, give me a call back.”

  After I hung up, I cringed. Great. That was exactly what he needed to hear when he checked his voice mail. Should I have told him about the tooth? No, that would’ve made him panic even more. Nothing said “your kid’s okay” like “. . . except his front tooth.” Might as well save that part until he made it to the ER. It wasn’t like he could do anything about it either way.

  “He didn’t answer?” Tariq asked softly.

  “He’s probably driving,” I said. “He’s at work, remember?”

  Tariq’s shoulders sagged, and his chin quivered, but then he winced. He reached for it, but I gently stopped his wrist.

  “Your chin’s kinda scraped up,” I said. “Probably better to keep your hand off it.”