Page 13 of Jaxon

Griffin came downstairs wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. "If I'd known you were going to get all shiny and pretty for the evening, I would have pulled on new socks and underwear," I said.

"So, you showered and put on the same underwear?" Griffin asked as he searched around for his keys.

"Nope, never actually pulled on underwear today until just now. What's going on downstairs?" I asked.

"Theo and Crusoe met a few women down at the protest. Apparently, they saw a post about Croft Beach online and drove down here to join in the cause." He looked at me. "By the way—what did Cru mean when he told me you were 'sleeping with the enemy?'"

I shook my head. "I'll tell you on the way, and in my defense, I had no idea she was the enemy, and even so, I would do it again. She was fucking worth it."

More giggling and laughter floated up from the basement.

"Ready?" Griffin asked.

I held out my arms. I had on jeans too, only mine were faded and somewhat tattered. "Are they going to let me in?"

"I don't know. Guess we'll find out."

I followed Griffin outside, and we climbed into his truck for the short drive to Oceanview. When we were younger, we always rode our bikes over to Oceanview. There was a miniature golf course, a real crummy one where all the paint was peeling on the props and the green felt was worn down to netting. We'd play three games for three bucks each. Afterward, we'd fill up on blue raspberry slushes and cold, greasy fries before pedaling our way back home.

The first shop when you entered Oceanview used to be a barbershop, complete with red and white striped poles. Now it was a clothing boutique. A giant pair of plastic scissors used to hang in the front window. Now a shiny white mannequin wearing a sparkly blue dress and gold jewelry stared down from the window ledge.

"Remember when Mac drank too much blue slush, and he puked up all the blue right in front of the shoe repair shop and that old shoe repairman came out yelling with his fists flailing?" I asked.

"Was that Mac? I thought it was Cru," Griffin said.

"Hmm, maybe you're right. All I remember was a lot of blue. I don't think I had any more slushies after that. Once you see something like that, you don't forget it easily."

I stared out the window as Griffin drove through the center of town. Most of the old shops had been demolished and replaced with buildings painted in pastels and dotted with tinted windows. "This doesn't even look like a town anymore. Looks like someone created it with AI. What a way to ruin a perfectly good beach city." I rarely visited Oceanview anymore. Nothing about the place was inviting, especially if you were coming from Trayton.

Griffin turned down a street. A line of fashionably dressed people snaked down the pristine white sidewalk.

"They all look like a bunch of overdecorated Christmas trees." I glanced down at my jeans. "I think I might stand out a bit."

"Then it's good the owner is out of town. Bear assured me he could get us inside."

"Think you're going to owe me for this one, Fin."

The club, Essence, as it was named, looked like a hole in the wall from the outside. I had no doubt inside looked like a sparkly carnival, the kind of club I hated. I much preferred a place with grit on the floor and rusty tin pendant lights that flickered when the music got too loud.

Griffin parked on one of the side streets. He texted Bear as we headed to the line. Three women, all wearing more jewelry than clothes, stopped us as we walked to the back of the line. "You can cut in here," the one with blonde hair and a tiny star tattoo on her cheek said. "As long as you buy me a drink once we get inside." Her offer was directed toward Fin.

The woman with a black crew cut, massive diamond studs and three-inch nails smiled at me. "Are you boys visiting? Never seen you here before and you two are definitely faces"—she tilted her head to look me up and down—"and bods we'd remember."

"We're visiting," Griffin said abruptly, figuring, and rightly so, that I was going to say something that would piss them off. As far as I was concerned, the people living in fucking Oceanview were the visitors, the trespassers, and they were stinking up our coastline plenty with their shallow decadence and expensive perfume.

The blonde waved us in front of them. A few people behind us grumbled in complaint. I would have been just as happy at the end of the line because I wasn't the least bit anxious to step inside the place.

"I'm Buzzy, short for a horrible name that I won't even mention," the blonde said. "This is Riana," she pointed to the woman with the crew cut. "And Amy," she pointed to a woman with dark hair and bright pink lips. Her cheekbones stuck out unnaturally, and her lips were the size of two massive slugs. Theo was right when he said that all the women in Oceanview were starting to look the same. Some plastic surgeon was bringing in big bucks with a factory-style, mass- production face.

"Griffin, and this is Jaxon." Griffin was taking over as the speaker for both of us, and I was more than fine with that.

Twenty minutes later, the women were falling over themselves to flirt with Griffin, but they were avoiding the big grump and probably regretting giving me a spot in line. Normally, I'd have been right there with Griffin, flirting and sizing up whether or not the flirting was heading toward something more substantial, like a good fuck, but my head and gut were still twisted in a knot about the day. The whole thing would have and should have already become just one of those memories I could bring up occasionally to laugh about. Instead, I couldn't get Bridget out of my mind. Her laugh, the way her fingers traced the ink on my chest, the way she felt in my arms, it was all there, imbedded in my soul.

Bear, a guy who did sort of resemble a bear and who was close in size to me, nodded at us and motioned us inside without a word. "That was fast," I muttered to Griffin. "What'd you have to promise him? Your chocolate Hostess cupcakes for a week?"

"Something like that," Griffin replied. I'd been joking, so I looked at him with wide eyes.

"I told him I'd pay for his lunch for a day, but trust me, a guy like that can eat a week's worth of food in one sitting. Just hope this place is worth it," he said quietly. "And let's try and break free of our new friends soon."

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