Free Air by Lisa Glass Page B

drink?” he asked, sliding off the countertop where he’d been perched.
    Chase jumped in first with, “Surprise me.”
    “Really? You’re like the pickiest drinker on the planet. How about you, Iris?” he said, turning to me.
    “Half a Coke. Thanks.”
    “Get her a real drink,” Chase said. Then he turned and sang at me, “ You’re in Miami, girl. ”
    “Alcohol is not her friend. She already had some tonight and she usually gets drunk off of vapors, then spends the next three hours puking or running to the john.”
    “Rude. I’ll have a mojito.”
    “Whaat?” Zeke said, looking pained. “Anders was pretty insistent you stay off the liquor. He’ll have a coronary if you wind up getting busted for underage drinking.”
    “What a tool,” Chase said, picking a piece of olive out of his teeth with the edge of his credit card.
    “Zeke,” I said, “ you’re underage and you’re drinking! Why is there one rule for you and one rule for me?”
    “Because I can have three beers and not fall over.”
    “Stop stressing,” I said. “ You only live once.”
    Zeke couldn’t really argue with that, since he basically had it tattooed on his back.
    “OK, one drink. After, you think we should head back to the hotel?”
    “You guys aren’t leaving yet,” Chase said. “The night is young.”
    I shrugged, like it was nothing to me either way, but I secretly felt a shiver of nerves. When Zeke had suggested this holiday, in a super-fancy hotel, I thought it was to get some uninterrupted, decent alone time together, since Anders usually made us get separate accommodation during our contests, saying something like, “Let’s try to keep up an appearance of decency, shall we?” which I thought was ridiculous, since anyone who knew about professional surfing knew me and Zeke were together. The sort of together where you sometimes wake up together. Since arriving in Miami, apart from those brief moments in the marqueeand the alley, we had not exactly connected, and in the hotel room it was as if an invisible force field was running up the center of the bed. But there was something in Zeke’s face that made me think that could be about to change.
    As if deliberately dispelling this idea, Zeke touched my arm and said, “Just promise me you won’t throw up. I’m, like, emetophobic or something. Blood I can handle. My baby cousin’s dirty diapers I can handle. Pee, no problem. But vomit? Count me out.”
    “I promise.”

chapter fourteen
    Two hours later, when Zeke and Chase were fully over the high of serenading each other in front of four hundred strangers, and Saskia and Gabe had locked themselves into one of the bathrooms, we were into the chill-out portion of the evening, stretched out on sunloungers under a sky full of stars.
    “So, buddy,” Chase said to Zeke, under his breath, “you get it yet?”
    I could have sworn Zeke did that thing where you pretend not to hear something, just to buy yourself more time to answer.
    Zeke and I were sharing a sunlounger, and I was nestled into the side of his body.
    “What was that?” he said.
    “You get it yet?” Chase asked, louder this time.
    “Get what?”
    “Buddy, come on, you know what I’m talking about here.”
    Zeke shrugged.
    Zeke never did that. You asked Zeke a question, he answered; no bull, no front.
    “Is that a no?” Chase said, confusion in his eyes. He looked from Zeke to me and back again.
    “What haven’t you got?” I asked.
    “Nothing,” Zeke said. “Nothing important anyways.”
    Did Zeke get what exactly? Something secret? Something for me? A birthday present?
    “Me and my big mouth,” Chase said, looking sheepish.
    “What am I missing here?” I said to Zeke.
    “Don’t sweat it,” Zeke said. “For real, it’s nothing you need to worry about.”
    Zeke and Chase reached across the void between our loungers to fist-bump, their touch gentle, and I felt totally outside. They’d known each other for years and had history that I