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Debbie paled then blushed and on a huff turned and walked away. I stood motionless, fighting back laughter.

  “I was serious about the ice cream,” she called to me.

  After what she’d done, I should be buying her ice cream. I joined her; she offered her hand. “I’m Paige.”

  “Alexis.” I glanced in Debbie’s direction. “That was awesome.”

  “She’s a bitch.”

  Truer words. “Let me treat for the ice cream, my way of saying thank you.”

  “Hot fudge?” she asked.

  “You read my mind.”

  She flashed me a smile and held the door. That day was the start of a beautiful friendship.

  Alexis 1996

  My second-hand bike was baby blue with white daisy decals, most of which had turned pee-yellow with age. There was rust covering the fenders, the spokes of the tires had seen better days and the brown leather seat had a large tear being held together with duct tape. It was too small for me, but I absolutely loved riding it around.

  I didn’t have any particular routes, all of them had awesome hills, but I did like riding through the heart of town because of the endless whirl of activity. Sometimes I was lucky enough to see the fishermen unloading their catches of the day. The shipmaker was always hammering and sanding, crafting some wonderful creation from wood, the smell of sawdust mingling with the salty tang of the sea. And of course there were always tourists with cameras in hand to capture the quintessential small town shot. I had filled journals with stories about them; loved writing because in my imagination nothing was off limits.

  It was cooler now that summer was coming to an end. In just a few days I’d be starting my junior year in high school. My hope was to get accepted to NYU for creative writing. I wasn’t sure why New York, but from as far back as I could remember it was my dream to live there. Perhaps it was the iconic buildings, or the romance that seemed to weave through the lure of the city, or maybe it was just location…something completely different from what I knew.

  Town was fairly empty; tourist season was winding down. I had some time before work so I headed to the jetty—it ran about a quarter of a mile into the Pacific Ocean but there was a particular cluster of rocks that was the perfect place to sit and think or write or just look out at the horizon. It was my favorite place.

  I reached my destination and was climbing from my bike when I noticed my favorite spot was taken. The sun was setting, which made it harder to see the intruder, but what I could make out of him he was a sight worthy of seeing. Dark brown hair, shot through with red, and long enough that the breeze had it teasing his shoulders. He was wearing faded jeans, a black tee and his feet were bare. I thought he was reading then I saw the pencil and sketchpad. I wondered who he was, more than likely a tourist on vacation with his family. If I had a bit more nerve, I’d join him on the jetty, but I couldn’t get my feet to move.

  No one approached him. None of the families on the beach resembled him. He was alone. Not that being alone seemed to bother him. I wondered what he was sketching, the horizon, the ocean, the jetty or something else entirely? What surprised me was how much I wanted the answer to that. I wanted to see his face and hear his voice. I didn’t know why he intrigued me so much, maybe it was just that he was the first person I’d ever seen sitting in my favorite spot. Or maybe it was because I saw a little bit of myself in him.

  He rubbed the back of his neck, like he was rubbing an itch away, then turned his head and looked right at me like he knew I was there. I’d read books and heard songs about that hit of attraction, the kind that steals your breath and makes your knees weak, but this was the first time I’d felt it. I’m sure it wasn’t more than a few seconds that we stared across the beach at each other, but it felt longer. Disappointment followed because I wasn’t going to see him again. The first boy to literally make my knees weak and he was just passing through. I should march down there and introduce myself; at the very least get his name and hear his voice so I could recall it when I was eighty, rocking in my chair sharing stories of my youth with my grandkids. I didn’t move though, because you couldn’t miss what you didn’t know. I wanted to connect with him, it was irrational but I needed some connection to him, so I lifted my hand in a sort of wave. He returned it and I felt ridiculously happy and surprisingly sad. I’d remember him just like that, branded the sight onto my brain, the perfect moment with a total stranger.

  The diner was packed. My tray was loaded with the house specialty, the best damn cheeseburger around. Mel and Dee Baker opened the diner in the fifties and though the building had recently received a few face-lifts, the menu was the same as it had been when the doors opened all those years ago. It was simple fare, but it was delicious and cheap.

  I had been working here for two years, so I could do it with my eyes closed, which was a good thing this morning because I was distracted thinking about the boy from the beach. Just thinking about him had me feeling all funny. That was one of the drawbacks of living in a tourist town; we had lots of visitors all of whom were just passing through. I wished I had talked to him, wished I could rewrite that scene, because I had a feeling whatever it was about him that intrigued me was special.

  “You’ve had a weird look on your face since you got here. What’s going on?” Paige cornered me in the kitchen as I dropped off empties. Since that day with Debbie four years earlier, we had become as thick as thieves.

  The woman always looked like she’d stepped from the pages of a fashion magazine. It was damn frustrating. “How do you do it? After three hours, my hair looks a bit like Medusa’s, my clothes are covered in food and my face is flushed. You look like you’re heading to a modeling shoot. I swear you and that husband of yours have made a pact with the devil.”

  She grinned.

  It was true though. Twenty-three and a mother of two, she was a modern day Snow White with her raven black hair and bright blue eyes. She had a figure like those pinup models of the forties, but she didn’t work out and she ate whatever she wanted. Even the burgers Dee and Mel sold. She didn’t have to worry about men gawking or touching because her husband was a modern day Thor—a six foot five Norse god. And the man built custom motorcycles. I had a crush on Grant, our nine year age gap made no difference to me. The first time I met Grant my eyes popped out of my head and my tongue hit the floor. In the years that followed, my crush mellowed as we grew into family.

  “What weird look?” I asked.

  “Like gooey-eyed.”

  That was possible. I had been thinking about the hot kid on the beach. “There was a guy on my jetty.”

  She cocked her hip and narrowed her eyes. “I’m guessing he was cute.”

  “Yeah, well from what I could see.”

  “You didn’t talk to him?”

  “I didn’t even climb off my bike.”

  “Why?”

  “I felt something.”

  “Indigestion?”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  She smiled like the Cheshire cat before she guessed again. “Attraction.”

  “More than attraction. I’ve been attracted to guys, but I’ve never felt anything so visceral. He’s literally a stranger off the street, but it was like a punch to the gut when he looked at me.”

  “The sweet burn.”

  “The what?”

  “When your body burns in awareness, that sweet visceral reaction to someone. That doesn’t happen every day.”

  “With my luck he’s probably a tourist who’s already heading home.”

  “Maybe, but it’s pretty late in the season. He could be new to town.”

  “I think we would have heard if there were new folks in town.”

  “You’re probably right. Well, lesson learned,” she said as she started for the door.

  “What lesson?”

  She reached it and looked back at me. “Next time get off your damn bike.”

  The foster monsters were ripping into each other, so I grabbed my notebook and sweatshirt and climb
ed onto the roof outside my bedroom window. The moon was full; its pale glow illuminated the yard. I could hear the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs in the distance.

  My thoughts drifted to the boy from the beach. It had been two days and still he lingered in my thoughts. That was unusual. He had made quite the picture though. Sitting on the rocks, the waves crashing around him. Solitary, but not alone. I’d like to know his story. Who was he? Where did he come from? Where was he going? I’d asked those questions countless times over the years, made up the answers, created characters from the people I’d observed, but I didn’t want to make up his answers. I wanted to know him. I never would, he was likely already gone, and that reality caused regret to twist in my gut. I should have talked to him.

  I couldn’t help scripting a bit of a story around him, he was too fascinating not to. How it could have been had we talked. He’d have smiled when I started down the beach toward him, moving to meet me halfway. It wouldn’t have been awkward; we’d have chatted like friends catching up and not strangers meeting for the first time. Maybe one day I’d write a book based on those few minutes, fill in with my imagination what real life only hinted at.

  I stood in the bathroom attempting to do something with my hair, but it was too thick to do anything fun. I contemplated cutting it, but with my figure that wasn’t a good idea. I turned in the mirror this way and that, but the image didn’t change. Long brown hair, the same color as my eyes, and a body that looked like that of an eight-year-old boy. I was still the ugly duckling. The swan was taking her time appearing.

  I glanced at the clock. I was going to miss the bus. I grabbed my shoes and backpack and ran down the stairs. The foster monsters weren’t around. There would be no Norman Rockwell scene of the parents sending their child off for their first day of school. Whatever. Slipping on my sneakers, I jogged out the front door and down the street to the bus stop. The Cantenelli twins were already there. They had always been skinny and scrawny, but this past summer they worked construction. Manual labor buffed them up. They were so identical that their own parents often had trouble telling them apart. Tall now, at least six feet, muscled with green eyes and messy blond hair, they were going to turn more than a few heads at school.

  “Hey, Alexis. Looking good,” Dylan greeted with a wink.

  “I was thinking the same about you two.”

  He flexed his arm. “You like what you see?”

  “You’re a dope, but you’re going to be beating the chicks away this year.”

  Dominic draped his arm over my shoulders. “What about you?”

  “I remember the snot eating years. No, thanks.”

  He chuckled, “I was nine.”

  “Still too old to be eating your boogies.”

  “There was a study that people who eat their boogies are actually smarter than those who don’t.”

  “I’d like to see that study. Probably done by someone who still eats his.”

  “We’re working on Sophia after school if you want to join.”

  Sophia was their robot. They were inventors, became so out of laziness. If their mom wanted them to fold the laundry, they’d figure out a way to automate laundry folding. Mowing the lawn? Their lawn mower was wired and rigged to work itself with just a press of a button. Sophia was taking their laziness to a whole new level. Doing their chores, probably even their homework, she was going to be the answer to all of that. What was scarier? They were smart enough to pull it off. They were also boys, so Sophia had a seductive voice and large breasts from metal molds they made specifically for her boobs. They were goofs.

  “I have work.”

  “We need to see you walk so we can program her code.”

  “I don’t think I want to know what that means.”

  Dylan grinned, “Probably not. We also need to hear you say, oh baby, harder, yes, yes, yes.”

  A shudder went through me. “Too much information.”

  Dylan tossed his head back and laughed, “Just teasing.”

  But I suspected he really wasn’t. Luckily the bus came and ended that conversation.

  I stood at my locker listening to the buzz about the new kid—the high school attendance topped out at one hundred and eighty kids so whenever there was a ‘new kid’, it caused a flurry of excitement. I gave a passing thought to the new kid being the boy from the jetty, but I didn’t have that kind of luck.

  On the cusp of that thought, I felt a stirring at my nape—the sweet burn Paige mentioned. Twisting my neck, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was hallucinating; reality and my imagination were overlapping. I closed my eyes and opened them again. I even pinched myself, but no he was real. The boy who had consumed my thoughts, the guy from the jetty, was walking down the hall of my school. He was the new kid. Holy shit. He was every bit as beautiful as I remembered, and tall. He had been sitting that day on the beach, but he was at least a few inches over six feet. My heart was hammering so hard it should have beat right out of my chest, cracked my ribs and bounced onto the tile floor. Anticipation joined the other emotions as I waited for him to see me, sense me like he had that day on the beach. Would he walk over? Would I? What would our first words be? I actually felt tongue tied, speechless. That never happened to me. I followed him as he walked down the hall; every step that took him farther from me had disappointment replacing anticipation. He never looked over. I then noticed the other girls in the hall, all of them looking at him like I was, interested and awed.

  My fairy tale took another hit when a girl called to him. I’d seen her around; she was a senior. I didn’t know her name because she was in a social circle I didn’t belong to. She was pretty if you were into petite, athletic chicks with bright blue eyes and big smiles. There was the slightest grin curving his mouth. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and leaned a shoulder against the lockers as they chatted. I was jealous, completely ridiculous because I held no claim on him, and yet seeing him with her had my stomach twisting into a knot.

  The chick laughed, it was a melodious sound, as she tucked her hair behind her ear and looked at him through her lashes. I’d say it was orchestrated to perfection, but I had a feeling she was being genuine. I shouldn’t be surprised by the interest. He wasn’t just the new kid; he was the hot new kid.

  Our moment on the beach, or rather how I remembered it, changed. Those few minutes we had shared had been special because of the ‘what if’. What if he stayed? What if we spoke? My whole life I could have wondered ‘what if’ and there was magic in the wondering. But the reality was I had about as much chance with him as I did at becoming the next Nora Roberts. He wasn’t the boy of my imagination—the one I had built a story around even knowing it was all a fairy tale—he was here and real and out of my league. I would have a front row seat to him doing with someone else all the things my imagination had us doing. It was my own fault, popping that happy bubble, because I had wished for a second chance, but I forgot the old adage…be careful what you wish for.

  In the cafeteria, I pushed my stew around my plate. I wasn’t hungry. All anyone could talk about was the new kid.

  Greyson Ratcliffe. He even had a sexy name, a hero in a novel worthy name.

  In the locker room, the girls were all daring and betting each other to be the first to get him into the eraser room, the worst kept secret in the school. The eraser room saw a lot of action. The staff had to know and yet it was never busted, probably because it wasn’t just the students that took advantage of it.

  I’m not sure why I looked up when I did, but I was treated to the sight of Greyson entering the cafeteria. I unapologetically checked him out. I might not have a chance in hell with him, but my eyes worked just fine. He moved in long sure strides. He didn’t rush, it was deliberate how he walked and though I wouldn’t call it a stroll, he wasn’t in a hurry. He moved like a person very comfortable in his own skin. Why did he come here now? It seemed unusual that he’d switch schools in his senior year. And how many broken hearts did he lea
ve behind?

  He didn’t get in line, but headed to one of the tables by the windows in the back of the cafeteria. He pulled out an apple and his spiral ring and started to sketch. I wondered what he was sketching, wondered if I would ever know him well enough to get a look at that notebook. I had a suspicion I would learn a great deal about Greyson by viewing his drawings.

  My attention was pulled from Greyson when Debbie Demato arrived. And it was an arrival; she had a way of entering a room. She was very different from the girl I had once played with, homecoming queen and lead cheerleader. Mike Devane was her boyfriend, the quarterback, homecoming king, blah, blah. They were Malibu Barbie and Ken come to life. She was wearing the outfit that had bolstered her popularity, a miniskirt that showed off her very long legs and a sweater that was so tight it accentuated the two unnaturally large mounds of her breasts. You couldn’t help but look at them because they stood out all perky and perfect. I wanted to gag. Glancing down at my own flat chest, I thought bitterly that some people just walked in the light.

  She eyed the cafeteria, deciding whom she would grace with her presence, and spotted Greyson. She sauntered toward him like a super model on the catwalk. One would think he was being bestowed a great honor, but Debbie was all about Debbie. She was making it clear to the new kid that she was the queen bee and he needed to get in line with that. Most people did and the few of us that didn’t, she went out of her way to be nasty. I usually ignored her, but sometimes her cruelty got under my skin.

  Debbie leaned so far over Greyson’s table her abnormally large chest was right in his face. I couldn’t hear what she said, if anything, but it was Greyson’s reaction to her that earned my admiration. He ignored her, never lifting his eyes, as he continued to eat his apple and sketch seemingly oblivious. Debbie was getting angry, a lovely blush colored her cheeks, but to look at Greyson his expression and body language gave nothing away. I had never seen anyone treat Debbie that way. Greyson then handed her his eaten apple, winked, packed up his shit and walked out. Debbie had no reaction at first, holding his apple core, her mouth moving but no words coming out. I laughed and loud enough she’d hear. I’d pay for that later, but damn. As if I wasn’t fascinated enough with the hot new kid, he goes and gives Debbie a taste of her own medicine. Despite knowing better, Greyson became my first real crush and I didn’t even know him.