Free Second Star by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

“Very funny.”
    “What’s funny?” Matt answers. “You saved our asses back there. We owe you big-time now, Newport.”
    “Well, I’ll take my payment in free beer and surf lessons, thank you very much.”
    Matt grins. He has tan lines around his eyes just like Pete’s, from squinting in the sun. I think he must be my age, and I wonder if he ever thinks about the fact that under different circumstances he might have graduated high school this spring.
    “Aren’t you cold?” I ask. He’s wearing board shorts and a T-shirt. I’m wearing jeans and a sweater and am still covered with goose bumps.
    “Nah, cold doesn’t bother me. I head out there in January in nothing but shorts,” he says, gesturing toward the waves. “If you’re cold, I can run up and get you a blanket or something,” Matt offers, but I shake my head.
    I lower myself onto the sand, and he sits down beside me. This could be an opportunity to ask him about John and Michael, but I know I’ll have to tread carefully.
    “What’s it like surfing here in January? The waves are bigger then, huh?”
    Matt nods. “Oh yeah, they’re really something. Just you wait. If we get one of those sweet Northwest swells coming down the coast, you’re in for a treat.”
    I nod, smiling at the way Matt assumes I’ll still be here come January.
    “Did you get a nice swell this winter?” I ask.
    “Pretty good. It hit the coast up north a lot harder than it hit us here.”
    I know .
    “We still got some pretty wicked waves,” Matt continues. “I got hella worked out there.”
    “Sounds dangerous.”
    “It can be. But Pete always makes us come in when it’s looking too gnarly.”
    “He does?”
    Matt shrugs. “I’m not the best surfer here, you know? Pete knows it. He keeps me out of the worst shit.”
    “Nice the way he looks out for everybody.”
    Matt nods.
    “Were there a lot of people around here in January? I mean, when those swells pick up, people must show up sometimes, right?”
    Matt shrugs. “Well, this place is pretty far off the beaten path. But yeah, we get some people passing through from time to time. Belle calls ’em tourists.”
    I’m sure she does , I think, though I’m pretty sure she calls me something a lot less mild. I can see her through the flames on the other side of the fire, her blond hair waving around her face.
    “Where do the tourists usually crash?” I ask. “Something tells me you don’t have any hotels in Kensington.”
    “Some of ’em stay in the empty houses up there,” he says, gesturing toward the cliffs. “Most of ’em camp out down here. Or in the parking lot, waiting on the tides, you know?”
    “Right,” I answer, nodding.
    “Course some of them end up at Jas’s house, though they pretty much stay on the other side of the beach. Pete does what he can to keep it that way. Dusters on one side, us on the other.”
    “Dusters,” I echo. I’m about to ask what that means when something clicks, and I remember the drug Pete told me about—fairy dust.
    I picture Pete building an enormous fence slicing its way down the beach and into the ocean, Pete’s crew on one side and Jas’s spaced-out customers on the other.
    “And sometimes a few kids end up on our living room floor, but only when Pete likes them.”
    “Should I consider myself privileged that I didn’t end up on the living room floor?”
    I laugh and so does Matt. “Yeah, well. We’ve had some trouble with strangers staying over in the past. You can’t blame us for being wary. Sometimes, they’re just not the right crowd, you know? We had a few kids staying with us last winter, man—I thought they were cool, but Pete ended up having to throw them out, right?”
    “Really?” I ask. I try to imagine Pete throwing anyone out of the house.
    “Yeah, they just got caught up on the wrong side of things, you know?”
    I nod. I’m getting used to the cadence of Matt’s chitchat, the way he ends almost every sentence as a question.