Page 85 of Rebel Summer

Nope. Nope. Nope.

I tamped down the butterflies begging for release and instead turned back to my triple stack of carbs and syrup.

That was the last time I had seen him all day.

All day.

Our kiss from a few days earlier had become a huge elephant in the room we didn’t talk about. Even with all the jokes leading up to it, any attempt to make light of it after fell flat.

The sun had set, lighting the sky with a delicious golden hue. Fireworks would be starting soon. Dax had missed the parade, the beach games, swimming, food trucks, volleyball, and dinner. He had an island full of good friends hanging out on a major holiday, and he chose to hide himself away. Here I was, thinking he had made some good social progress the past week. I wasn’t sure what he was so afraid of with his friends. There seemed to be a never-ending stream of people coming in and out, itching to talk with him.

Like me.

No, I was different, I told myself as I burst into his garage, ready to drag him to the beach. I wasn’t doing it because I liked him.

I was doing it because…because he needed to appreciate what he had on this island.

There was no light on overhead, though I could have sworn I heard music. The familiar smell of grass clippings and motor oil greeted my nose as I used the flashlight on my phone to pick my way through the room littered with small motors. I kept the shop lights off because wherever Dax was, I wanted to find him first.

Again—and I can’t emphasize this enough—not in a creepy kind of way.

In a I will force him to have fun and remember what it’s like to not be working all the time kind of way.

I squinted out the back door window into the darkness, but other than the yellow glow of a light from the marina that illuminated the boats sitting in the water, I saw nothing. No indication that Dax was out there. The music seemed a little louder from where I was standing. I opened the three other doors leading to the storage closet, mechanical room, and the bathroom (again, not a stalker), and they were both pitch black inside.

I was about to head to the duplex to check for him there when the clank of a tool hitting the concrete sounded through the air and stopped me in my tracks.

He was here.

There was only one room I hadn’t checked. I never thought to check because it was always locked. Once, when I had asked him about the mysterious third garage door with an entrance that required a code, he had only shrugged and told me it was storage.

Storage, my butt.

I stopped at the door, usually closed with a keypad on the outside, but today, someone had been careless, and the latch hadn’t closed completely. My hands gripped the doorknob but stalled before opening. Unless he had randomly decided the Fourth of July was a great time to organize the storage room, Dax clearly didn’t want anybody to know about whatever was in this room. What if he got mad? What if he pushed me away? What if this was where he buried his dead bodies? I really couldn’t see Dax getting angry, but he kept so many doors closed, metaphorically and physically speaking, that I wasn’t sure what would happen if I opened one and invited myself in.

Since the court sentencing, much of our relationship on the outside hadn’t changed—with the exception of the kiss that will forever haunt my dreams. He still teased me. He still made me sweep his shop and clean his bathroom and answer his phones. But the fridge was always stocked with Coke, and my favorite bag of chips was always on the counter. Most nights, I would go home knowing I’d made it to a certain page in the Lego guidebook, but the next day, I’d be ten pages ahead, though Dax continued to deny it. And most importantly, he kept my Bon Jovi song on his playlist.

I swallowed. Of course, this could also be a secret weight room, and he’s in there shirtless, pumping iron.

With sweat dripping down his neck and?—

STOP it, Brooks.

Without further ado, I pushed open the door and stepped inside, the intro of the song “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum greeting me as I did so. When my eyes adjusted to the light, I dropped my purse on the ground with a thud. At the sound of the clatter, Dax, who was indeed standing shirtless with his back to me and holding a jug of oil, turned in surprise.

Surprise mixed with…horror? Shock? Trepidation?

With good reason because behind Dax, sprawled out in his secret garage with a secret code, on an island where it’s illegal to drive or have in your possession anything but a golf cart, sat a shiny, burnt-orange 1969 Chevy Chevelle.

Biology Class

Day 34

“Why’d you get a car tattoo?” I asked Dax, my eyes shamelessly roaming over his arms. Over the weekend, he had added an image of a sun and palm tree behind the car.

“Why not?”

“We live on an island with no cars. Shouldn’t you have a boat on your arm or something?”

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