by Nikki Godwin
Cross Me Off Your List
by Nikki Godwin
***
Copyright © 2015 Nikki Godwin.
All rights reserved.
First edition: April 27th, 2015
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
For the ones who’ve been told to quit, to give up, or to find another dream.
Don’t listen to them.
I didn’t – and that’s why you have this book.
Thank you for lending so much of your magic to this story.
Chapter One
Right now, I should be wrapped up in a fluffy white blanket on a huge bed at Holiday Inn in Los Angeles. My entire being would sink into the mattress, letting the bed engulf me in soft, luxurious sheets and a perfect night’s sleep. The city would be alive outside of my window, splashing colors of spring break across the night. It’s supposed to be the eve of our big adventure, the official spring break bucket list.
But instead of soaking up the moonlight and hoping to catch a glimpse of at least one A-List celebrity, I’m standing in the lobby of a hotel at three o’clock in the morning, in some boring surf town that no one has ever heard of, wishing the ice machine would start spitting out some cubes.
The Pepsi machine hums close by, and the light in the snack machine flickers over a row of Doritos and M&Ms like an awful junk food horror flick. I watch it dim out and spark on, dim out and spark on, imagining the Doritos fighting against the Ruffles to see which could work its way down the vending machine and through the dispenser first. You know you’ve been awake for far too long when you’re envisioning potato chip wars in your mind.
I blink a few times, wishing I’d washed this mascara off earlier. It cakes my eyelashes and clumps them together, like little pieces of Oreo flakes dancing around my eyelids. I ram the bucket harder against the machine, and a few ice cubes jump around inside. I wish they’d had an old school ice machine with the metal scoop. I could’ve dug an arctic grave to throw Erin into and gotten out of Crescent Cove while I had a chance. If she hadn’t been jumping around like a complete moron, she wouldn’t be in need of ice right now, and I could be sleeping.
But she is the only one who took my side and abandoned Operation Bucket List in LA.
Ice shoots out of the machine quickly now, like it needed a few minutes to wake up at this time of the night. It’s eerily quiet in the lobby until a group of guys come through the entrance, laughing a bit too loudly for this hour.
I glimpse over my shoulder. A pretty boy blonde, a tattooed brunette, a Cuban muscle man, and a shorter brunette wearing possibly the tightest skinny jeans I’ve ever seen on a guy enter the lobby. I bet they’re here on spring break. It already looks like they’re having more fun than I am. I turn my back to them and hurry to the elevator with a full ice bucket.
Erin was excited, I remind myself. She rarely gets to go anywhere because of her strict parents. It’s spring break. We’re graduating in two months. This is her first taste of freedom. I sigh. This is pointless. She’s an idiot for jumping on the hotel bed in the first place. What are we – six? She was bound to land incorrectly, and she was destined to sprain her ankle. But at least she “christened room 322” as she put it.
The elevator door dings and opens. I step in, hit button three, and watch the silvery door slide shut, but an arm pops in and the door slides back. The tattooed brunette smiles and steps inside. He punches the button for the top floor – the expensive penthouse level – and leans against the wall, holding a gallon jug of strawberry milk. He’s probably one of those dumb rich kids maxing out his dad’s credit card. But he’s holding pink milk which makes him slightly less cooler than me.
I don’t mean to crack up, but the laugh escapes before I can catch it and pull it back in.
“Something funny?” he asks. His eyes squint at me, but his voice is carefree, not harsh or condescending like I imagined it’d be.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I was thinking I looked dumb carrying a bucket of ice at three A.M., but the guy in the elevator has pink milk.”
Maybe he’ll think I’m sleep-deprived or completely drunk and goofy. Why else would I be carrying an ice bucket around a hotel in the middle of the night?
He eyes me, like he’s pondering his epic reaction. The more I look at him, the more I think he’s sober and I’ve completely mistaken him for a drunken college boy.
“Don’t hate on the milk,” he says, hugging the jug to his chest. A burst of shooting stars are inked into his arm. “It’s what makes my party worth going to more than yours.”
He doesn’t have to convince me of that. Erin’s sprained ankle, a busted spring break plan, and this sleepy little town certainly don’t add up to a party.
“Oh, I’m sure,” I tell him. “Believe me – I’m definitely not heading back to a party. My friend twisted her ankle…or sprained it. Who the hell even knows? Hence the ice. Some spring break, right?”
He shrugs. “Eh, I’m here on vacation,” he says. “If you’re up for a party later, come on up. I’m in 413. I’ll be here all week. Don’t worry. We don’t bite.”
The elevator stops on my floor, but he blocks my way before I can step into the hall.
“I’m Noah, by the way,” he says.
“Marisol,” I say. I’m glad I left this flaky mascara on now. All those rules about how you never know who you’ll meet are legit. I’m relieved I didn’t go to the lobby makeup-less in pajamas. Definitely not the first impression I’d want to make.
“Well, now you have to come up and hang out with me,” he says. “Marisol is the kind of name that sounds like fun.”
I wrap both arms around my ice bucket and smile. He steps aside, still holding the elevator door back, and lets me through. His green eyes sparkle in the hallway light.
“413,” he repeats. “I’m not kidding. My friends are cool. You seem cool. No big deal, okay?” He steps back and releases the door, strawberry milk still resting in his other arm.
I try to cleanse my face of this stupid grin before I walk back into the ankle-twisting chaos of room 322. The last thing I need is Erin hobbling around on the penthouse floor searching for the green-eyed brunette with tattoos and strawberry milk.
“Oh, thank God,” Erin says when I swipe my card and walk into the hotel room. She stretches her arm toward me, reaching for the ice bucket. I hand it over gladly.
“That looks painful,” I say, sitting on the end of her bed.
Her ankle is purple and swollen. She wraps a few ice cubes in a towel and presses it to her skin. She won’t even be able to walk tomorrow.
“It’ll be okay. Once the swelling goes down, it’ll just bruise. I don’t think I did too much damage,” she says. “What took so long? I was going to call you, but you left your phone on your bed.”
“Broken ice machine,” I lie. “It had to dial into Antarctica and request ice cubes, so I had to wait.”
Her face twists as she applies more ice to her ankle. I’m not sure if it’s from the cold or the pain. She better not ha
ve seriously injured herself. I can’t stay here Crescent Nowhere Cove, California, by myself. There’s no freaking way.
“I guess this is life outside of LA,” she says, pulling thoughts right out of my brain.
I wish we were in LA right now. I wish we were with our friends, preparing to cross items off our spring break bucket list. This week was a disaster before it even began, and now the only friend I have with me is injured.
“Get some rest,” I tell her. “We’ll see how you’re feeling in the morning.”
“I’ll be okay, I swear,” she says, rolling up the leg of her pink pajama pants. She studies her ankle, like she’s trying to convince herself more than me. “We’ll get started on the list tomorrow, even if I have to wrap my leg. We’re completing this mission, with or without them.”
As much as I admire her determination and pity, I don’t see this spring break panning out as I always dreamed it would. All I can hope is that Hilary’s week in LA is equally as miserable as mine. I’m above engaging in drama, but I’m not above wishful vengeance.
I move over to my side of the room and settle into the hotel bed. It’s not The Hilton, by any means, but it’s better than a roach motel. I plug my phone into the charger and leave it on the nightstand next to me. Once I flip off the lamp, I stare at the ceiling in the dark and wonder what’s going on upstairs in room 413.
Chapter Two
Erin whimpers like a puppy when her foot hits the floor this morning. She inhales sharply and then looks at me and smiles. She’s in pain. Maybe we should’ve gone to the emergency room last night, just to be on the safe side. Her ankle doesn’t look any better today. If anything, it looks worse.
I get ready for the day while Erin showers. I debate going down to the lobby to see if anyone from 413 may be lurking around, but I doubt they’re even awake yet. Once I’m dressed, I dig through my bag for the folded piece of pink paper from Hilary’s notebook. That cute little purple owl decorates the corner of the page. I sort of want to stab it right now.
It’s stupid, really. All of it. Maybe I should’ve been the bigger person or spoken up sooner or just not let it go as far as it did, but our friendship is broken over things that won’t even matter a year from now. This was the last big thing we’d get to do before graduation – before college and jobs and real life set in.
Every desire to be the bigger person fades away, though, when I think of Hilary and our other friends posing for pictures next to stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and strolling down Sunset Boulevard. They probably already have a jump start on the bucket list, crossing off adventures that I came up with. Ugh.
I stare down at the pink paper even though I already know exactly what the list says.
Meet a pro athlete
Get a tattoo
Meet a celebrity
Get into a VIP section
Crash a party
See a local band play live
Shooting stars
Buy a charm bracelet
Eat an insect
Jump off a pier
Ride in a limousine
Disturb the peace
Go thrift shopping
Buy a scarf
Watch a sporting event
Message in a bottle
Crazy color in your hair
Get wings
Dress like a star
Visit a far, far away place
A sigh heaves from my body as I scan the random things that were added. Get wings? Chicken wings, maybe? Who even added that one? Shooting stars is another one that makes no sense. That was Erin’s idea, though. “It could be seeing actual shooting stars, or maybe taking a picture of a celebrity – you know, movie stars, or maybe we’ll witness a rapper getting shot in a drive by. Get it, shooting stars?”
When Erin eventually stumbles out of the bathroom, mostly dressed and ready for the day, I can’t help noticing the limp in her step.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, tucking the list into the pocket of my jeans.
“Oh, I’m fine,” she says, wincing with each step. “It’s a little sore, but that’s expected. I should be fine in another day. By the end of the week, it’ll be like it never happened.”
She sits on her bed and applies her mascara. She throws back two Tylenol, washes them down with a swig of water, and looks up with a smile.
“So, what’s the plan?” she asks. “We’re crossing off the list if it kills us.”
I decide we should take it easy today. There’s no way she can jump off a pier or crash a party with a jacked up ankle. Then again, I don’t know where we’ll find a party to crash or a celebrity to meet.
I grab my bag, sling it over my shoulder, and make the decision to cross off the easiest items first. If I mark off a few, I’ll feel like we’ve accomplished something, and the rest of the list will be less daunting. At least, that’s what I hope.
When we reach the elevator and I press the button, I secretly hope to run into Noah, but then again, I hope I don’t because Erin would kill me if she knew I met a hot guy and didn’t tell her about it. I scan the lobby when we get downstairs, but only a few grandparent-like figures hang around the continental breakfast. It’s definitely too early for the party boys of 413 to be up.
Most of what Crescent Cove has to offer sits right here around Crescent Inn. I’m sure they have to have back roads and a Wal-Mart somewhere around here, but the tourist traps are strategically placed in a string along the beach, accordingly called The Strip.
A mom-and-pop music shop is next to the hotel, and a pizzeria is within walking distance. We make our way down the sidewalk to the crosswalk and venture to the other side of the street, where the beach and The Strip await us.
I shouldn’t hate on Crescent Cove. It’s a gorgeous little place – white sand, the bluest water I’ve ever seen, and enough palm trees to make you feel like you had sufficient scenery if you’re here on a beach vacation. But when your heart was set on Los Angeles and Rodeo Drive, you can’t quite appreciate racks of sunglasses, fresh fruit stands, and Strickland’s Boating.
Erin glides over, ungracefully, to a small vendor selling shell jewelry. She pushes her sunglasses up into her blonde curls to examine the jewelry more closely. Maybe I can check off item number eight – buy a charm bracelet.
I slip into the space between Erin and the edge of the sidewalk to examine a different rack of jewelry – minus shells. These aren’t the kind of charm bracelets I’d imagined when we made the list. I envisioned a slinky silver chain that would jingle against my skin while I walked over to Keanu Reeves’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I’d even dreamed up the charms – a star fish, a coffee cup, a mini diamond ring with a cute little rhinestone, and something beachy, maybe a palm tree or seashell.
But these bracelets are less than the sparkly glam I’d intended on buying. Leather and suede cords replace the slinky silver chain from my daydreams. The charms are knotted into the small ropes, centering them in the cords. The charms literally hold the bracelets together. Chic? Maybe not. But I like the edginess. Plus, they’re unlike anything my friends in LA are buying right about now.
Erin settles on the purple braided leather with a rhinestone owl charm. I turn to ask her opinion on my narrowed-down choices, but she strolls away after paying for her bracelet and finds a seat on the edge of the sidewalk.
I turn my gaze back to the starfish charm. It’s cute and symbolizes our trip here in Crescent Cove. It has beach written all over it. It has Marisol Cruz written all over it. Yet everything in me wants the black suede bracelet with the anchor charm. I need an anchor right now. I need something to hold me to the planet. I need gravity.
So it’s settled. I quickly pay and clasp the anchor around my wrist. It may not be literal, and I’m sure it won’t hold me to this glistening white sand, but the symbolism is what matters.
I take a seat next to Erin and pull my sunglasses from my bag. The beach is cluttered with families and surfers. A mom wrestles a toddler back into her
arms to apply more sunscreen. Guys flirt with girls in bikinis that don’t leave much to the imagination. And on the shoreline, a Hispanic guy screams something about ‘that asshole Pittman.’
“Alright. Documentation time,” I announce, pulling my cell phone from my bag as well. I ease closer to Erin, have her cross her arm over mine, and I snap a bracelet selfie. I quickly upload the picture to Instagram so our friends in LA will see it and know we’re still tackling this list without them. “Where to next? You want to keep going down The Strip and see what kind of tourist traps we can get sucked into?” I ask.
Erin hangs her head and kicks at the sand with her good foot. “Can you just go without me?” she asks. “Not to be a pain or anything but it really hurts to walk. I can wait here and soak up the sun, though.”
I want to be a compassionate, understanding friend, but I also do not want to stroll along The Strip in a foreign town where I know absolutely no one and gawk at souvenirs like a tourist. The pink piece of paper burns into my soul, though, and I can’t ignore it. I came here with a mission, and I’m not bailing on it because Erin doesn’t know how to act her age and not jump on beds.
“Well, I wish you’d go with me, but I understand,” I say against my will. I try to add some sadness to my voice so she’ll feel guilty and come along, but it doesn’t seem to be working. “Okay then. I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’m just going to skim The Strip’s offerings.”
With that, I force myself up from the sidewalk, dust off my clothes, and push forward although this anchor bracelet really wants to hold me back where it’s safe. At least there are tons of people out today to hear me scream if someone mugs me.
