When I walk into Drenaline Surf the next morning, Topher leans over the counter, completely engaged in A.J.’s retelling of Colby’s coffee table disaster. I wonder how much of the truth he’s exaggerated, knowing A.J. Then again, the story itself is pretty insane without A.J.’s special touches.
“I swear to you,” A.J. says. “That fucking table went splat! And Taylor was right there on it, glass everywhere, bleeding. No lie.”
The pleading tone is A.J.’s voice cracks me up. I can only imagine the crazy stories he’s told Topher before, just to be proven wrong later. I wish this story was an exaggeration, but he nailed it. The table went splat, Colby was on it, and there was glass and blood. No lie.
Topher looks over at me as I make my way to the counter. “He’s serious?” he asks.
“Unfortunately, yes,” I say, leaning against the counter next to A.J. “It really was that bad.”
“Damn,” Topher says. He heaves a heavy sigh and looks down at the cash register. “My brother is going to flip the fuck out when he hears about it.”
That’s exactly why I’m here at Drenaline Surf this morning. Regardless of Vin’s distance, I know he’s under a ton of pressure. He’s just signed a new surfer. He’s managing the careers of three guys. He’s trying to keep this store running, and now with talks of opening a second location, he’s pretty much drowning in Drenaline Surf. I wish he’d stop being too stubborn to ask someone for help. There’s no way he can handle all of this on his own. Colby Taylor alone is a full time job.
Sunlight pours into the room when the front entrance doors open. Enchanted Emily bursts in, hugging a newspaper against her pink tank top. The words ‘Young, Wild, and Free’ stretch around the bottom of the fabric.
“Have you guys seen this?” she asks, shaking the paper in her hand.
She rushes over, wedges in between A.J. and me, and plasters the paper down on the counter. Topher comes around on my other side to see.
Colby Taylor – Coffee Table Surf Star?
If the bolded, yellow headline wasn’t enough to make me cringe, the photo beneath it is. It’s definitely not a photographer’s photo. It’s fuzzy, taken from across the room, probably with a cell phone, but it’s clearly Colby face-planting with the table.
“Oh my God,” I say, dragging the words out slower than I meant to. “Vin can’t see this. Not yet. We need to be the ones to break it to him, not the Cove Gazette. How did they even have time to get this printed?”
“Tabloids work fast,” Emily says. “And it’s a local tabloid, no fancy printing company or anything. They do it all in-house. I sent Alex down The Strip to collect any and every issue he saw.”
I’m glad she’s dating Miles. It means she really has Drenaline Surf’s best interest at heart, even if it’s because of him.
“Alex?” I question.
“Summer Snow Alex,” Topher says. “The quirky blonde kid at the snowcone place. He’s Jace’s bassist. I wonder if this has hit SurfTube yet.”
Topher walks over to the flat screen TV that Vin installed a few months ago and flips it on. The only channel it has is SurfTube, but Vin thought it’d be a great added addition to the store, modern technology and all that. I feel like it takes away from Shark’s photography, but the guys have assured me that Shark would love to have SurfTube playing in his store 24/7.
Just as Topher assumed, the main news story is none other than Colby Taylor, the Coffee Table Surfer. Images of his collapse pop up on the screen, and I pray I’m not standing around in someone’s cell phone photo looking on in shock.
The screen then flashes to a blonde-haired girl with a microphone on the beach. She smiles the perfect newscaster smile. She looks more prepared for an acting audition in Hollywood than a story about the rise and fall of the west coast’s star surfer. The wind whips around her, sending her hair astray. She tucks it back behind her ear and speaks, but the TV is muted.
“But the real question is what drove Colby Taylor to this point,” she says, as Topher turns up the volume. “Is this a rebellious stunt in the wake of his parents’ return to his life? Is he lashing out over his disqualification in his most recent competition? Could he feel threatened by the uprising career of Miles Garrett or the recent sponsorship of longtime rival Logan Riley? Only time will tell. This is Bridget Parker reporting for SurfTube. Back to you guys in the studio.”
Topher mutes the TV again as images of Colby reappear on the screen. This is probably the part where the news anchors in the SurfTube studio all sit around and give their theories as to why Colby is behaving this way and what it will mean for Drenaline Surf as well as Colby’s individual career.
“This is all anyone is going to talk about at the sale this weekend,” I say. “So much for celebrating Logan’s arrival. Everyone’s going to be too busy talking about coffee tables.”
“Shit!” A.J. says. “Turn off the TV!”
Topher clicks it off and resumes his employee position behind the counter. He crumbles up the tabloid and tosses it away just as Vin enters the store through the back. That was dangerously close.
Vin stops and looks at us for a moment, as if he knows we’re totally up to something. Then he folds his arms over his chest. Yeah, he totally knows we’re up to something.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
A.J. shrugs and glances to Emily and me for an answer. I completely freeze. Luckily, Emily came prepared.
“We were just talking about the sale this weekend,” she says. “I helped Miles pass out flyers yesterday in Horn Island. We sent some to the music store with Jace. Should be a good turn out.”
And just as I think Vin is about to disappear into his office, Summer Snow Alex bursts into the store.
“I got ‘em!” he yells.
In his moment of pride and excitement, he stumbles on the metal under the door, and the load of papers in his arms burst into a firework of tabloids. They litter the floor of Drenaline Surf, and Colby Taylor becomes the new tile.
Vin slowly walks across the store, reaches a hand out to Alex, and helps him up. Then Vin pulls a paper from his pocket, unrolls it, and holds it up.
“Sorry, kid,” he says to Alex. “But you forgot one.”
Emily buries her face into her hands next to me. A.J. pats her on the shoulder in condolences. She crosses the room to help Alex clean up the tabloid mess on the floor as Vin walks back toward us. He simply shakes his head before going back into the office.
I refuse to let him accept defeat this way. There has to be some way I can help. There has to be something that Vin needs done that he can trust me with. He won’t live to see twenty-five if he keeps going at this rate. I follow him back to his office. I half-expect him to kick me out, but he simply looks over his shoulder and turns back to the wall.
“This is officially going to be the Wall of Shame,” he says, tacking Colby’s tabloid cover to the wall. “I wonder how many of these he can collect before his contract is up.”
Vin sits in his spinning chair, and I find a seat on the corner of his desk. Something has to give. Now.
“Look,” I say. “You can’t handle all of this on your own. I know, you think you can, and you’re stubborn, and you don’t want to make anyone else suffer, but this is ridiculous. You have too many people who want to help Drenaline Surf to keep pushing us away.”
Vin sighs and props his elbows on the desk. He buries his face in his hands, just like Emily’s defeated actions moments ago.
“As much as I want to let Taylor out of his contract, I can’t,” Vin says to the desk. Then he looks to me. “I don’t see any other way out of this mess. He’s the weak link that’s dragging us all down. I can’t manage him. He’s out of control.”
“Then let me,” I say. I’m not sure why I didn’t come up with this idea sooner. “I can be like your public relations person. Or an agent of sorts. Let me manage Colby and his career. I can go with him to appearances and interviews, make sure he says the right things, give press statements on his behalf. And he’ll listen to me. I can even help with Miles and Logan if you need me to.”
It’s crazy how I came here a year ago, hoping to find Colby and learn all of his secrets so I wouldn’t have to be a CEO slave to a company I hated. I had dreams of frame shops and driftwood, but these days, all I want is to be right here in the heart of Drenaline Surf. It’s bittersweet how dreams change with life experiences.
“I don’t know,” Vin says. He twists back and forth in the chair, analyzing me in his head. “I don’t want you to get sucked into this place like I have. It’s my entire life, and I never asked for this life. I’d give it back in a heartbeat if I knew it’d come down to this.”
Give it back? To who? Shark is gone, and Joe can’t handle this place on his own. Whatever. Vin is just mouthing off because he’s stressed.
“I can do this,” I say, pressing the issue. “I can be your damage control for Colby. If nothing else, it gets him out of your daily work. It’ll be one less thing to deal with. I already have to watch out for him anyway.”
“Alright,” he says, looking at the computer screen instead of me. “Just for the summer. You’re not giving up college to clean up Taylor’s reputation, and you’re definitely not making a career out of being Drenaline Surf’s damage control girl, but for the summer, I’ll go with it.”
I really wish he’d look at me instead of his e-mail inbox while he talks. I don’t like for him to make choices and decisions for me, either. I know he’s overworked and underpaid and stressed to the max, but that doesn’t give him the right to tell me what to do with my future. I left North Carolina to make my own choices, not to let my boyfriend make them for me.
Someone knocks on the door. Reed pokes his head in and realizes it’s just us, so he comes inside. I’m thankful to see him. There’s no way I’d go off on Vin in front of Reed. Vin doesn’t know how lucky he is right now.
“Hey, dinner date tonight. Don’t forget,” Reed says.
“Can’t make it,” Vin says to his inbox. He looks over at me, then to Reed, and back to the computer. “I have to get these merch orders filled or we’ll be out of stock for Logan’s signing and the sale this weekend.”
“Oh,” Reed says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his khakis. “Do you need any help? Or want us to reschedule?”
“Nah,” Vin says. He pushes his chair back and looks at us, trying to pretend like it’s no big deal. “I’ve just been swamped, and they just sent me a final reminder for orders. If I don’t get this stuff in by five o’clock, I won’t get it in time. I have to check inventory before I can order, but I’ve got it. You guys go tonight. I’ll catch the next one.”
Reed and Alston wait in the back corner booth when we get to Shipwrecked. This was the place where I officially met Vin last summer. Chills rush over me just as they did then, when I realized the con artist from The Strip was the final guy I’d have to get through to meet Colby. But I’m not with Vin tonight. Instead, his brother gets out of my passenger seat.
“You don’t think they’ll care that I came along, do you?” Topher asks.
I really don’t know, but I figure if he hangs out with them and surfs with them, they’re probably cool with the fact that he tagged along in Vin’s place. If they don’t like it, well, it’s too late to back out now.
Topher slides into the booth and sits across from Alston, leaving me the open seat across from Reed. A.J.’s empty chair sits at the end of the table. Alston says something about the swell this morning, and Topher dives right into talking about the sets and how high the waves were.
“You find replacements on short notice,” Reed says to me, covertly nodding toward Topher.
“Shut up,” I mutter. I hope he doesn’t think I’m moving from one brother to the next. That’d just be awkward. I change the topic instantly. “A.J. here yet?”
Reed shakes his head and asks Topher something about a party at Kale’s. Apparently it’s after the big Drenaline Surf celebration sale this weekend. Topher says something about keeping it under wraps so a ton of people don’t show up, and Alston says he’ll never meet any hot chicks as long as the Hooligans keep throwing exclusive parties.
“Oh, you’re invited, by the way,” Topher says, elbowing me. “I know you don’t drink, but you can hang out with the one sober kid there.”
I smile when Reed corrects him and says that there will be two sober kids there. Reed may be too nice, and Topher may be hyper most of the time, but parties make me thankful for people like them. It helps me look less awkward. Reed points to the door, and I turn my head as A.J. jerks his chair out from the table.
“Whoa,” Topher says. “Who the hell pissed you off?”
A.J. props both hands on the edge of the table. “The fucking city of fucking Crescent fucking Cove!”
He pushes himself back like a blast from a rocket ship, sending him into space. He balls his hand into a fist.
“Hey, breathe,” I say. “What happened?”
“They’re tearing down my carnival.”