Scanning the partiers for Boyce, I saw his friend Mateo smoking a bowl with Rick Thompson, whom I’d rather not have in my house. But there Rick sat, on my sofa, along with Brittney—still a stoner chick, still dumb as dirt. She laughed, uninhibited and openmouthed like a little kid. I tried not to glare at her. Brit had slept with Boyce multiple times over the previous three years, and she’d never been secretive about it. The only reason I didn’t full-out despise her was the fact that she was mindlessly unaware how it hurt me to hear her spouting the torturous details in the hallways or the girls’ restroom at school, in line at the coffee shop, on the beach…

Living in a small town could really suck.

Melody’s eyes met mine from across the room. The party had been going for a couple of hours, but Boyce and Landon hadn’t shown. When she’d invited them, they’d agreed to come right before walking off toward the beach road, where Boyce’s black Trans Am was parked. If they were coming, they’d have appeared long ago.

Chapter Ten

Boyce

The numbers had been telling me for months that garage business had picked up, but I thought the difference was a passing irregularity. Folks catching up on overlooked maintenance work, not an actual increase. When I entered the initial end-of-month numbers last night though, there it was—six months straight of higher revenue. Several new local customers too—more likely to be repeats.

More money I could appreciate. More work was pushing me to the limit. Hiring help would make more sense than turning away business, so I made a note to contact my old auto-shop teacher to see about employing a kid to do simple but time-consuming shit, clean up, and schedule appointments. Boyce Wynn: boss man. Huh.

I didn’t check the message alert on my phone until I took a five-minute break. After taking a leak and grabbing a Pepsi, I checked my notifications. The text I’d ignored, thinking it was likely Vega bitching about the Astros crapping out way early from any possible chance at the playoffs for another year, was from Pearl.

Pearl:  Mel is on her way to Dallas. Is today still good for you?

Me:  Sorry. Busy as hell today and just got a break. Tonight works better. Want to get something to eat first?

Pearl:  Why don’t I bring something over? Whataburger? ☺

Me:  You know I can’t turn that shit down.

Pearl:  Avocado bacon? Vanilla shake, extra thick?

Me:  You trying to seduce me, Miss Frank?

Pearl:  You are perpetually sixteen. What time?

Me:  7 okay?

Pearl:  See you at 7. ☺

I’d known I was going out on a limb, suggesting that we go out somewhere together—in public. It would have been more of a shock if she’d said yes. That’d only happened once.

When Maxfield cracked a rib kicking Clark Richard’s ass in high school, I’d followed her brand-spankin’-new Mini from school to her house in my ’79 TA so she could pick up the stethoscope her stepfather kept in his dresser. Then she’d followed me to the Maxfield place to check him out. She’d been cranky that day, which hadn’t been long after that kiss on the sandbar—a month or so, maybe.

The feel of her in my arms, the sound of her sigh and taste of her mouth when I took possession of it—she’d spun my head around that night. Three days later in bio, she’d barely looked at me, and I knew from the way Dover spoke to me that she hadn’t told her. If a chick doesn’t tell her best girlfriend something, it’s either so unimportant that she forgot or something she’s too ashamed to tell. Frankly, I didn’t want to know which one of those I was.

I’d gone to that sandbar the next weekend, downed a six-pack of Budweiser, and seriously considered motoring over to Dr. Frank’s floating dock, tying off my piece-of-shit boat to one of the cleats, and marching up to her door. In a rare burst of restraint, I’d settled for hoisting those cans one by one, toasting her in ways I thankfully can’t remember the particulars of now, cussing and kicking sand like a moron.

More swearing followed when I booted a mostly-buried something hard enough to break my big toe. I landed on my ass, clutching my bare foot, furious that some inanimate object would dare to be in my way while I was throwing a tantrum like the oversize man-baby Dover had accused me of being after I’d burped the chorus to “Gold Digger” in class. My anger flagged when the full moon came out from behind a cloud, lighting the small, visible portion of my buried enemy.

With only hands for tools, it had taken me a while to dig up the entire shell, which was about the size of a football. Even half-trashed, I’d known better than to use a rock or stick and risk cracking it. I’d never seen a whelk anywhere near that big, and my first thought was how much Pearl would love it. Once I dug it loose, I swept off as much of the sand as I could, wrapped it in my T-shirt, and left it by her front door.

She’d brought it to bio to show Mr. Quinn, nestled in a towel-lined boot box like it was a puppy. The whole surface, every spiral indentation, had been cleaned and polished. Quinn had her walk it around the classroom so everyone could see it up close. “The lightning whelk is our official state shell, ladies and gentlemen!” Quinn said, more excited than anyone else, as usual. But as Pearl circled the lab tables, even people who hated school and science in particular wanted to touch it. “Judging by its size, the previous inhabitant—a predatory marine gastropod, scientific name busycon perversum—was older than all of you.”

When she sat down, our eyes connected across the scarred black tabletop while our lab partners examined the shell.