That reminded me of something.
“Sorry to change the subject, but do you really have a boyfriend?”
Darryl’s expression turned into what I could only describe as dreamy. “Sure do. He’s the perfect guy.”
“We’ve been here for about a month, and I’ve not seen any evidence of this. He’s real, right?”
“He’s shy. We meet in private a lot, but one day, hopefully he’ll get up the nerve to live here.” He scanned the ocean again. “There’s a lot of weird and wonderful people in this world: human, werewolf…” He paused and took a deep breath through his nose. “Other.”
“Other?”
“If you come back to my beach, I’ll make sure you get to meet Bobby. He’s the sweetest guy, and I love him as much as the ocean. Hell, he practically is the ocean.”
“Is he really half shark?”
“How’d you hear about that?” Darryl let out a laugh. “He’s the only one I’ve ever met, and the poor guy can’t swim. He just sorta sinks. I don’t know why he gets so hysterical. It’s not like he’d drown.”
“Okay, I’m still having a really hard time telling if you’re fucking with me or not.”
“Well, only one way to find out. Come back and see me, and you can meet him.”
I thought for a moment about him and Roscoe, and even Austin’s proposition earlier. “If you have a boyfriend, why do you sleep around?”
“It’s a werewolf thing. But once relationships get really serious, we form strong bonds with one other person, and we stop sleeping around. Once I make that bond, it’ll be the best day ever.”
The hours passed at a snail’s pace as Adam and I were crammed next to each other. Roscoe drove, and Austin sat on the other side by the window. Evening had arrived, and the sun was a sliver of fire over the hills. It was beautiful, but really out in the boonies. Every small town we passed had one gas station, and there were at least fifty miles or more between them.
Forests of tall evergreens dominated the landscape, and the weather was cooler and dryer out here, away from the coast. Roscoe was singing to the radio while Austin stared out the window, not having spoken much since we left White Dunes.
“I’ve never been this far before,” Adam said, staring at the sky.
“Really?” I asked. “I used to live in Montana before I moved down here.”
Roscoe stopped singing. “You never told me that. I heard it’s real pretty up there.”
“The west side is pretty. The rest of the state sucks.”
“Why’d you move?” Austin asked.
“My parents were… not good people, but my aunt let me stay at her place until I graduated high school and had enough money to get out on my own. She was cool. Kind of the black sheep of the family, which is why we got along so well.”
“That sucks,” Austin grunted, turning back toward the window.
“It was a while ago.”
“It’s crazy that parents can just choose to abandon their kids,” Adam said.
“You’d be surprised what bad parents can do,” Austin muttered in almost a whisper before raising his voice again. “Stop talking about this stupid shit and grow up.”
“How about we talk about whatever the hell we want to?” That redness returned to my vision. “And how about you stop being a miserable piece of shit?”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“Well, take the stick out of your ass and actually talk about stuff instead of just bitching all the time.”
Austin clicked his tongue but didn’t raise his voice. “You’ve sure got a mouth on you for a little twerpy half-turn.”
“C’mon guys,” Roscoe said casually, turning the radio down. “We’re all a little cranky and hungry, but we’ll be there in a few hours.”
