by Nikki Godwin
Then he starts to laugh. “Looks like Jules decided to drive without the bodyguard today,” he says. He nods to a black car sitting on the street in traffic.
A Jeep that’s parallel-parked on the side of the street eases out. The driver waves at Jules out the window, and SAS’s bad boy slips his rental car into the spot. Noah storms off before I even catch a glimpse at his reaction. I sort of feel sorry for Jules. He has no idea how much salt he constantly throws on Noah’s wound. Like that parking job – it’s not like he knows that Big Tony is scavenging the area right now to park our car.
I turn and hurry to catch up to Noah before Aralie and Jules spot us and ask us to wait up for them. Miles and Topher gave Noah specific instructions to look for the Drenaline Surf tent. Topher said it’s “blue and ginormous so you really can’t miss it.” He wasn’t kidding. An area is sectioned off in the sand, covered by a huge blue tent. I’m almost scared to approach it. It looks all serious and professional.
And that’s when the insanity begins. Even hiding behind his Oakley sunglasses and with a girl on his arm, Noah Winters cannot hide. It starts out with a few whispers of “Oh my God” and “Is that really him?” Then the squealing and giggling join in. It’s like some sort of crazy fangirl song. I wait for the piercing screams to break through like a guitar solo.
Noah steps aside to sign a girl’s cell phone and take a few selfies. He’s definitely the best with the fans – at least that’s what I’ve read online. He’s said to be the most likely to stop and engage. He feeds on their energy, and it shows right now while he’s pushing his Oakleys up into his hair to actually show those pretty green eyes to Pink Bikini Girl’s iPhone. More shrieks come from behind us, and someone screams Jules’s name.
“They’ll be fine!” someone shouts too closely to my ear.
I turn to my left to see Aralie. She shrugs. “Happens all the time,” she says loudly. “Big Tony will fix the problem whenever he gets here. For now, let the girls scream. C’mon.”
For half a second, I look back, a bit afraid to leave Noah and Jules alone in the crowd of pushing girls dying to get next to them. But I have no say in what he does, so I follow Aralie toward the Drenaline Surf tent. Emily waves at me from a distance.
A few coolers are loaded into the back of a big black truck. Emily sits on the tailgate and invites us up. There aren’t many vehicles on the beach. I wonder why they’re special enough to have one.
“Jace helped haul crates of T-shirts down here before dawn,” Emily says. “So he just leaves his truck for the competition. When things get crazy, it’s nice to have a highpoint to watch from.”
Emily explains that quarterfinals start today, and Miles is surfing in this round, so all of the Hooligans are here to support him. She speaks more to Aralie than she does to me. I guess she knows I’m not an official Saturn girlfriend or a famous Branson sister. I’m actually still on the fence about whether I want to be part of that world.
More loud screams come from our right. I immediately jerk my head to see who is being attacked – Noah or Jules – but it’s neither. It’s some blonde guy in a competition jersey and board shorts. He’s somehow worked a miracle that I dreamed was impossible. He’s taken the spotlight away from two guys of Spaceships Around Saturn.
“Okay. Hold up. Who is that?” Aralie asks before I can. She stands up from the cooler under us and stares at the guy walking up the beach.
“Colby Taylor,” Emily says, almost spitting the words like his name is a bad taste in her mouth.
Aralie glances at me, like the fact that I’m from California might mean I know something.
“What? Don’t look at me,” I say. “I live under a rock, remember? I didn’t even know who was in Spaceships Around Saturn.”
Emily laughs. “Colby surfs for Drenaline Surf. He was their first sponsored surfer, and he’s pretty much a huge deal in the west coast surf scene,” she says. “But he’s arrogant and has all these secrets. I don’t know the first thing about him, and none of the guys will spill, so I’m on the outside as much as you guys are.”
Theo walks away from his spot on the sand next to the truck. He steps under the Drenaline Surf tent, talks to some guy with spiky black hair, and the two of them dare to venture into the crazy girl-mob that has engulfed Noah, Jules, and this Colby guy.
A few moments later, Theo and the other guy come out of the crowd with the blonde surfer in tow. The spiky-haired guy looks behind himself and steps back into the insanity. He clears a path to allow Jules and Noah through, and then he uses himself as a human barricade to stop the girls from following them.
“I think Big Tony needs to be fired,” I say. “And whoever he is, hire him.”
Emily laughs. “Vin Brooks already has a job, and I would put money on it that he doesn’t even know who these guys are. Besides, he has experience keeping the Hooligans in line. Boybands are nothing.”
I’m just thrilled there’s one other soul on this planet who could look at Jules Rossi and Noah Winters and not know who they are. Aralie gets up and jumps onto the sand. She and Jules meet Theo and remain on the ground with him. Noah steals Aralie’s seat next to me.
“So how does a surf competition work anyway?” Noah asks, as if he didn’t just cause a fangirling riot on the beach.
Emily explains the quarter finals and how if Miles win this round, he’ll move on to semi-finals. Each round is made up of heats, and apparently all Miles needs to do is keep winning his. Then she says how the swell is small and Miles is more brutal with power surfing than small wave riding. She compares his surfing style to some Tahitian surfer. Noah listens, like maybe he’ll take up a second career in surfing, but I’m pretty sure I’ll become a Saturnite before I fangirl over Colby Taylor or Miles Garrett or that guy from Tahiti that Emily refers to as ‘the Spartan.’
Thirty-five minutes later, when Miles drags his surfboard out of the water, I’m ready to claim Saturnite status because this is the most boring sporting event I’ve ever witnessed. Emily swears that if the swell was bigger, we’d have seen a lot more surfing and it would’ve been much more entertaining. For her sake, I hope that’s true because if not, she has a lot of boredom in her future.
“I’m going to console the broken Hooligan,” Emily says. She hops off the tailgate and meets Miles at the shoreline.
I watch them interact for a few minutes, imagining the words of reassurance and positivity she’s spouting to him. He shakes his head and motions back at the water a few times. Then Topher joins their conversation, and Emily makes her way back toward us.
“Hungry?” she asks, leaning forward onto the tailgate. “Miles has to stay here and support Colby against his will, you know, because they have the same sponsor. Vin makes them do that. So I was thinking we could ditch the boys and have a girls’ lunch?”
Leave Jules and Noah alone? With a group of Hooligans? On a beach with fangirls? Is Emily crazy?
“Yes,” Aralie says. “C’mon, you too. It’ll be fun. The guys will be fine. They have security.”
She looks at me with wild eyes. She’s as crazy as Emily. Does she not know that her boyfriend and my…whatever he is…don’t get along?
“I don’t know,” I say, trying my best to hide my obvious hesitation. “I just don’t think I should leave Noah alone with...the fangirls.”
Aralie cocks her head the side and looks straight through me. “He and Jules survive just fine on tour together,” she says. “They’ll be fine. They need to get over all this crap. Let’s go.”
Noah shoots me a look that could burn holes through me as Aralie tells him and Jules about our plans. I hope Theo or Kale will jump in and offer to hang out with the guys so I’ll feel less guilty about leaving them here to fend for themselves.
Emily grabs a set of keys from Vin, who apparently is the big shot guy over Drenaline Surf, and motions for Aralie and me to follow her. We trek up the beach back to the parking lot behind Drenaline Surf.
“I’m parked over here,” Em
ily says.
She walks over to an electric blue PT Cruiser. Aralie offers me the front seat, but I allow her to take it instead. Emily cranks up and backs out of her super lucky parking spot behind Drenaline Surf. I guess this is the perk of dating one of their surfers.
“Alright. Give me just a second,” she says.
She hops out but leaves the car running. She walks back under the small garage-like area on the back of Drenaline Surf. Then she straddles the motorcycle parked underneath it.
“Oh my God,” Aralie says, leaning into the dashboard. “Is that little pixie fairy girl going to actually drive that? How does she even know what to do with a motorcycle? Holy…she’s cranking the thing. Oh my God. Why aren’t you speaking?”
“Uhhh,” I stammer. I lean between the driver’s and passenger’s seat for a better look. “I guess, um, she’s moving it or something?”
The bike roars to life, and as gently as she’d play with a kitten, the surfer’s girlfriend moves the motorcycle into her former parking place. Then she kills it, walks back over to her car, gets in, and drops the set of keys into her purse.
Aralie finally picks her jaw up off the armrest. “Holy fucking hell,” she says, almost shouting the words in Emily’s face. “You have to be my best friend. Forever.”
Emily laughs. “Okay then. We can do that,” she says. She maneuvers her car out of the parking lot and onto the main road. “Vin knew someone would steal my spot, so he told me to move his bike. It’s not the first time I’ve done it. He’ll still be at the beach when we get back.”
When Emily parks her car in front of a small diner named Shipwrecked, I don’t even care if it’s some local burger joint. I love the fact that I’m out with the girls. It doesn’t matter if they’re not my lifelong friends or people who know everything about me. It really doesn’t matter that Emily is a surfer girlfriend and Aralie is a Saturn girlfriend. All that matters is that it’s spring break, and I’m in the cove, and I’m hanging out with possibly two of the coolest chicks in California at some diner named Shipwrecked.
I pause to look at the diner’s sign. An octopus has its tentacles wrapped around two halves of a broken ship. The word Shipwrecked is broken in half beneath the image. Once inside, we settle into a back corner booth. A paper octopus with scrunched legs sits between the ketchup and mustard bottles. Its eyes are pink rhinestones. I hope the food is better than the accessories.
Aralie and Emily sit across from me. Aralie wasn’t kidding about making Emily her new best friend. From what I gather, the Branson sisters don’t really have a lot of friends outside of Saturn world, and Darby doesn’t seem to be part of their inner circle. I skim the menu while Emily gushes over how amazing the spicy fries are here.
After we place our orders, Emily surveys the room before leaning forward on her elbows. “Okay, spill it. How did you guys pull off crashing Dr. Richardson’s party?” she asks.
The color in Aralie’s face drains slowly, like it’s running through a funnel. I’d jump to her defense if I wasn’t completely frozen myself. How does Emily know?
“Reed,” I say, unable to get any more of the sentence out.
Emily catches on to our panic and straightens herself up, sitting properly. “Wait a sec,” she says. “I’m not ratting you guys out or anything. The whole thing was brilliant. Absolutely genius. Do you have any idea what that man’s family is like? There is no redemption waiting for them.”
It suddenly occurs to me that I know nothing of Dr. Richardson except that he insulted Noah that night outside of the club. Theo happened to be around, said the guy was a jerk, and we took it upon ourselves to strike revenge over one late-night smartass remark. I’m not sure if Dr. Richardson is the one who needs redemption. Maybe it’s us.
“We shouldn’t have done it,” I say. “It was reckless and stupid, and we were out of line. I’d apologize if it wouldn’t land us in jail.”
“Like hell you would,” Aralie snaps. “We were only there because of your list. I just wanted out of the hotel, and now I have to lose the best little black dress that’s ever happened to me because of it.”
Yep. I’m definitely the one who needs redemption. I should’ve just thrown my candy wrapper clothes away, offered to work for Hilary, and just let her be the star of the show. Then I wouldn’t have crashed a rich guy’s party, made enemies all over Crescent Cove, and had a one-night stand with a boyband guy.
“I’m sorry,” I say. The weight of this week is seriously falling on my shoulders right now. “I’m sorry. That’s really all I can say.”
Emily clears her throat. “No one is going to find out, and aside from that idiot Pittman guy at the station, no one really cares,” she says. “Dr. Richardson is probably telling the story to everyone he comes across. He’s the bragging type. And the only reason Deputy Pittman cares is because he wants to pin it on A.J.”
No one speaks as the waiter brings out our food and places it on our table. Aralie makes eye contact with me. I think she wants to believe Emily, but at the same time, she can’t afford for her name to be all over the media as having involvement in this.
“Really, no one will ever know,” Emily reassures us. “Dr. Richardson left his family, married some trophy wife who is way too young for him and super plastic, and then he felt guilty so he started buying his kids’ love. That family had it coming.”
Aralie laughs. “Some people say that about my family,” she says. “I’m so sick of hearing all this crap about Chloe and cheating scandals. They don’t know my sister. Family drama sucks.”
For once, I’m glad no one knows who I am. My dad may work for a big company, and Emily would probably think my mom is plastic too, but I’m not a Branson or a Richardson, and I’m totally okay with that.
Chapter Fourteen
“Why do I get the vibe that you don’t want to go to this party?” Noah asks from the driver’s seat. He glances over at me, but I focus on the dashboard so I don’t have to make eye contact.
As much as I love a beach party, this one just feels all sorts of wrong. Miles lost today, and on top of that, his Drenaline Surf brother Colby Taylor won the entire event, just adding more salt on the wound. So why even have a party?
“Marisol?” Noah taps the brakes and pulls off the street into a gas station parking lot. “Talk to me. I don’t want to show up at this party and have people think something’s wrong because you’re distant. People talk, especially in my case.”
I turn my eyes to the trucker at the diesel pump. He doesn’t look much older than me, and he probably shouldn’t be lighting up a cigarette next to fuel. I wonder if he could just throw me in as extra cargo and get me out of here.
“I’m just ready for spring break to be over,” I admit. “I want to get out of Crescent Cove.”
“Is this about us? About what happened last night?” Noah asks.
The truth is, I don’t even know. I don’t know if there is an ‘us’ to have an issue with. I’m not sure if I want an ‘us’ out of this. I don’t know if I can handle his world and the tabloids and the way people judge you when they know nothing about you. Is anything in this Saturn world real? Are any of these couples actually happy or are any of the guys really like brothers? I think the only thing that’s even felt real to me is Nat’s obsessive crush on Benji. No denying that’s legit.
“I don’t know,” I say. I lean the seat back and stare at the ceiling of the car. “This week has just been so crazy, and I honestly can’t even keep up with it anymore. I feel like I’m inside a hurricane, and it just keeps spiraling and I can’t even latch on to an inside wall to catch my breath.”
Noah unfastens his seatbelt and angles his body toward me. “Hey, I get it. Believe me. I live it every single day,” he says. “I know this week has been crazy for you, even though it’s been slow for me, but you’re not alone in this. I’m here. I’m not bailing on you.”
“Not for this week anyway,” I say, realizing the words in my head are actually spewing out of my
mouth. Oh my God. Make it stop.
“Is that what this is about?” Noah asks. “You think I’m using you for someone to hang with for a week and then I’m out?”
I sigh. “No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know,” I admit.
This isn’t like me. I’m not one to worry about things. I just go with the flow. I live in the moment. I don’t question my decisions. I hope this isn’t what Saturn life does to you. I don’t want to be hesitant or leery about everything that happens to me. I need to reach deep down inside of me and pull out that girl who jumped out of the teacup last night, against better judgment. That’s who I really am.
“You know what?” I say, before Noah can give me a speech. “I’m okay. It’s just been a crazy week, and I think the reality of it just overwhelmed me for a bit. I’m not used to hanging with celebrities or pro athletes or being on the inside of it all. But I’m okay. I just have to remember to stop and breathe.”
“Do you want to skip this party? Go somewhere else?” he offers.
I shake my head. “No, they’re all cool people,” I say. “Plus, I have to have proof that I saw Jace’s band play, so we’re going. If nothing else, I’m accomplishing this list.”
Noah pulls the car back onto the street and heads toward Horn Island. From my understanding, a lot of us are actually taking up Emily’s invite. Aralie and Jules will be there. According to Noah, Nat demanded to go, and Benji and Tank are tagging along for some fresh air. Cannon, Jules’s bodyguard, was volunteered to go as well in Big Tony’s place.
“Did you make that request just to get under Jules’s skin?” I ask as Noah takes the exit into Horn Island.
He shakes his head. “No, for once,” he says. “I’ve gotta find a replacement for Tony. He’s an okay guy, but he doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t like the job. He feels like he’s babysitting me, and he’s miserable the entire time. I’d rather be trampled by Saturnites than drag him to a party. Cannon’s cool, though.”
