“No boyfriend.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
He smiles. “Nice.”
I ask, “Have people died surfing out there?”
He nods slowly, watching the incoming wave.
“Aren’t you scared, then?”
He doesn’t answer right away, just keeps watching the water. Finally shrugs. “Of course I’m scared. The whole thing terrifies me. But it’s exhilarating, too.” He looks at me again. “You ever surf?”
I shake my head.
He grins, touches the small of my back. “Maybe I’ll show you sometime.” He jerks his head back toward the trees and the parking lot beyond. “You want to go for a ride?”
Six hours to go.
Six
Chazz opens my door for me. At first I think it’s a sign of chivalry, but then I realize the actual purpose is easier access to the red and white plastic cooler on the passenger-side footwell. He opens the lid and pulls out two bottles of Corona.
“Sorry,” he says, popping the cap off and handing me a bottle, “don’t have any limes.”
As I’ve never had Corona before, I’m not sure why this should matter, but I smile anyway and take a sip.
“Wait, wait,” he says, popping the cap off his bottle and tossing it aside. “We need to toast.”
Embarrassed, I wipe at my mouth and hold up the bottle.
Chazz clinks his bottle against mine. “To tonight,” he says.
I don’t say anything, just smile again and wait until he takes a sip before taking another sip.
He grins at me. “Ready?”
The responsible part of me wants to suggest maybe we should wait until he’s done with his beer before we get back on the road. But the irresponsible part—the one that’s reckless and always eager to lie to my parents—punches its counterpart in the throat and leaves it on the floor coughing for air.
“Let’s go,” I say.
We continue north on the highway. Up past Kawela Bay and Turtle Bay Resort, which Chazz says are where all the rich assholes go. He pauses, sneaks a glance at me, asks if I’m staying there.
“Nope.”
He laughs. “I knew it! You’re too cool to be one of those uptight losers.”
Not much of a compliment, but I’ll take it.
We drive for another ten, fifteen minutes. Chazz doesn’t play any music, and we don’t talk, and that’s okay. The sky is clear and the stars are bright. The wind keeps whipping my hair. I’ve finished the Corona and just hold the bottle, not sure what to do with it. We pass a few cars heading in the opposite direction, but for the most part, it seems to be just us on the road.
That is until the Sting Ray begins to slow.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
Chazz doesn’t answer, his focus on the ocean side of the road. He slows the car completely until we’re at a crawl, and then he says, “There it is!” and guns the engine, jerking us forward.
We turn off the highway onto a road … if a road is what you can call it. It’s only dirt and gravel.
Chazz turns off the headlights.
I look at him. “What are you doing?”
“We’re not supposed to use this,” he says. “Don’t worry, I can still see where we’re going.”
The moon is bright enough to illuminate the narrow road. Some of the trees are overgrown, their leaves and branches scraping against the car. For some reason, I expect Chazz to be pissed about this, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Then we enter a sort of clearing and Chazz parks the Sting Ray and grins at the empty bottle in my hand.
“Ready for another?”
Out of the car then, two new cold bottles of Corona extracted from the red and white cooler, Chazz pops the cap off my bottle and hands it to me, and I wait until he’s opened his in case he wants to clink bottles again.
He doesn’t. He guzzles from his beer and points out at the beach and the ocean beyond.
“What do you think?”
“It’s beautiful.”
I say the words without thinking and immediately want to kick myself. Do I sound sappy? Maybe, but the truth is it is beautiful. This little section of the beach doesn’t look public at all. This isn’t a tourist destination. This, I realize, is one of those secret spots that only the locals know about and refuse to reveal to strangers. Because they don’t want people telling other people who will tell other people so that everybody will know about the spot and ruin it. This is a secret spot.
“Thought you’d like it,” Chazz says. He takes my hand and leads me past the car toward the beach. “This place doesn’t really have a name, nothing official, but I like to think of it just as the Hidden Cove. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”
“Not at all.”
“The best time to come here is late at night. There are moments when there are no cars passing out on the highway that it’s completely quiet. Like you’re the only person in the world. Like you can get a sense how the world was before … well, before we all came along. You know, back at the beginning of time.”
The sand is flawless. Completely level and smooth. It makes me think of a fresh snowfall before anything disturbs it.
Chazz is still holding my hand. “Come on, let’s go in.”
“I don’t have my bathing suit.”
He looks around the deserted beach. “I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”
As we near the beach—Chazz slipping off his shirt and shorts—I hesitate. That responsible part of me is screaming that I don’t even know this guy. Yeah, okay, he’s hot, but so what?
Then again, I’ll probably forever hate myself if I don’t do this.
“What’s wrong?” Chazz still has on his boxer shorts, his other clothes tossed aside. “Hey, if you don’t want to take your clothes off, you don’t have to take your clothes off. No pressure.”
Shit. Now I feel like a loser. For some reason, I think about Tina and what she would do in this situation. She’s not a complete prude, no, but would she actually go
