I shook my head. “She isn’t mad at me, is she?” Honestly, I couldn’t understand why she would be. We kept in semi-regular touch over the past year. Texting. Commenting on socials. A few phone calls. When I told her my summer plans were changed at the last minute to come home, she seemed so excited.
Her sister squinted at me with a little suspicion. Was I missing something?
“Not that I’m aware,” Patty finally said, using tongs to lower the battered corn dog into hot fat. “However, Jaz has been, shall we say, struggling a little lately.”
“Struggling?” That alarmed me. Jazmine hadn’t said anything to me about this. I knew we weren’t as involved with each other’s daily grind like we were before I left for Harvard, but she was still my best friend. I would’ve liked to feel confident that she’d reach out to me if she needed anything. But now I wasn’t so sure.
“You didn’t hear that from me. If she wants to share, she will...”
I nodded. “Of course.”
Patty shrugged lightly and clapped her tongs together. “She rarely comes down to the food truck anymore, unless our parents threaten her with death. However, if you don’t need to get in touch with her tonight, she should be at work tomorrow, bright and early.”
“Thanks,” I told her, when a flash of light caught our attention farther up the beach. A bonfire roared to life, and a crowd of people cheered. “I thought the mayor put a stop to bonfires inside city limits?”
Patty signaled for a waiting customer to approach the counter. “Dock bros don’t care about rules.”
Dock bros were Haven’s version of a beach bum. Their beach bonfires were legendary—not for parties, but as beacons that drew crowds to their version of a non-secret Fight Club. Most of the crowd that ran with these guys were rowdy high school dropouts who liked to pretend they were the next MMA champions. Someof them were scumbags with serious police records. The highest in the food chain were the Vanderburg boys—a family who lived on a compound outside of town. Daddy Vanderburg, otherwise known as Big Burg around town, was a “prepper,” one of those end-of-the-world, let’s-amass-guns-in-the-woods, fuck-society types. If there was an illegal way to make money, he took part in it.
The Vanderburgs were not good and decent folk.
“Big Burg’s doing house arrest for manslaughter. Not sure if you heard.”
“Jaz told me a few months ago.”
“And Big Burg’s oldest, Paul? He got hauled off to jail a few days ago for drunk and disorderly,” Patty informed me, and then added, “fighting your boy.”
She didn’t have to say his name. I knew from the way she arched a brow that she meant Seb. Who else did I know in this town who would be fighting on the beach? None of myactualfriends, that’s for sure.
“He hasn’t been ‘my’ boy for years,” I complained when she set the freshly fried corn dog into a paper food tray and slid it across the metal counter. “Last I heard, Seb was practically Paul Vanderburg’s shadow. Are they on the outs now?” To be fair, I hadn’t heard much of anything about Seb since he got sent away to boot camp two years ago.
“Apparently. Not sure what Seb did to piss off that crowd, but they don’t seem to be friendly anymore. Bet you a million bucks he’s over there at that bonfire right now, about to get his ass beat again. If he keeps taunting the Vanderburgs, he’s going to end up in jail,” Patty said, shaking her head. “Dammit, got a line forming. See you around, Paige.”
“Appreciate you,” I told her, holding up the corn dog in thanks, but she was too busy to notice. I cast my gaze toward the bonfire and begrudgingly headed in that direction, burning my tongue on the fried crust while I woofed down my free supper. As I got closer, I surveyed the group of people—mostly male—who gathered around a flaming pile of wood scraps and cardboard boxes. It appeared that Patty was right: a fight was about to go down. The crowd was watching a couple of shirtless, tanned white guys who were circling each other and shouting out taunts.
The fighters were both lean and muscular. One had a military-short buzz cut, and as I got closer, my pulse pounded inside my temples and my anxiety spiked. When Seb first got sent away to military school up north, he mailed me a handwritten letter that included a printed photo of him with his new buzz cut—his one-and-only attempt to contact me. Now I was recalling that photo and struggling to match the face I once knew with the buzz cut in the middle of this impromptu fighting ring.
A loud barking dog tore me out of my thoughts. I swiveled to find the ugliest, shaggiest husky I’d ever laid eyes on—no leash, no apparent owner—barking madly at me. I flinched and backed up. Me and dogs? We didn’t get along. I was bitten by a Doberman when I was a young child, and I’d never gotten over the fear.
This dog was no Doberman, but it was certainly big enough to scare me.
Those ice-blue husky eyes, so otherworldly...
When I backed away, the other fighter inside the bonfire ring turned to glance at the dog, squinting and pushing blond hair away from his face to reveal one blackened eye. I immediately knew I’d been mistaken about the other fighter.
Thiswas Seb.
It just wasn’t the Seb I knew.
Loose blond waves swooped over his forehead. A pair of board shorts hung from his hips, threatening to fall off. Bronzed muscles glistened in the firelight.
Had it been only two years since we’d laid eyes on each other? In that time, the sweet, skinny boy I once knew had gone from gangly to utterlyrippedand now looked like a full-grown man.
His eyes widened. “Paige?”
Anger rose, swift and hot. “You’re dead to me, Sebastian Jansen!” I shouted.
The buzz-cut fighter laughed, turning toward me to reveal the face of a male model... if that model’s face had been covered in burns and scars. I knew him, too, unfortunately. “Pretty Paul.” That’s what people called him. His real name was Paul Vanderburg, the proverbial king of the dock bros. He’d graduated two years before us.
