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"What the hell is your disconnect?" Laredo scolds me like a parent. "If you walk in there with that attitude, I guarantee you're going to fail." He pulls on my shoulder, forcing me to halt. My chest heaves to prepare for a fight. "Chill. I just want to talk. Brother to brother." His gaze reads my face, and his eyes soften with concern.
"You care for her, huh? This isn't some fantasy fling you're chasing?"
I tilt my head and give him the look his ridiculous question deserves. "I'm not you."
He snickers. "If I didn't take that as a compliment, I might be hurt." I cross my arms across my chest and hope he reads my impatience. "Maybe your issue is that you aren't a little more like me." I turn, and he grabs my shoulder again. "Hold up, one minute."
He lifts his palms to face me. "Okay, so you go bursting into this party. What are you going to say? Are you going to grab a beer and sit on the sidelines? Because I can totally picture you doing that, and Ariel wondering why the hell you showed up."
My eyelids flutter in thought. I hadn't thought that far ahead. In my head, all I pictured was me arriving and Ariel racing into my arms. Isn't that how it's done in the movies? "No. I'd go over to her, tell her a joke, and she wouldn't leave my side the rest of the night."
"Because of your charming personality," Laredo mutters. "I can't believe I've failed to fulfill my older brother duties and teach you game."
I roll my eyes. "You're ninety-three seconds older than me," I spit the line as a reflex.
"And every second counts." Laredo leads us from the middle of the boardwalk to the railing. He slips his rear onto the railing and points up to the crescent moon high in the sky. "You see that?"
I stuff my hands deep into my pocket and shrug my shoulders. "Of course."
"When I was young, I thought I would see nothing more beautiful than that in my life." He pauses, and we stare up in silence. He twists his neck and looks at me, "But then I laid eyes on you."
"Are you serious?" I shove him hard, his hands flailing out and hooking the railing to prevent from flying over. His snicker lights the smoldering fire in my veins. "Ariel isn't like any woman you've ever met. She's… she's a keep up or get out of my way woman on a mission. She doesn't tolerate foolishness or have time for people who don't know what they want. She's a special lady who creates magic and then spreads it to the entire universe, making everyone who hears her feel blessed. She's smart, talented, and though she has a past most people would die for, she's more interested in building a future no one will ever forget." I'm rambling, and when I face Laredo, he pantomimes tossing invisible popcorn in his mouth.
His shit-eating grin gives away his intent. I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. He wasn't feeding me a cheesy pickup line for me to repeat. He was getting under my skin to force a reaction.
"That's what you tell her." He hops off the railing to his feet. "And bro, you're the one with the heart of gold. Don't ever, for one second, think any woman, hell, any person, is too good for you." Laredo walks in the opposite direction.
"Where are you going? It's this way." I point up the boardwalk toward the lights of the Ferris wheel in the distance.
"Naw." His laugh tells me he's not through having me be his entertainment for the night.
My raised hand remains in the air. "You said you knew where the bonfire was."
"I did, and I do."
"Then why the hell have we been walking for the last twenty minutes in the wrong direction?"
Laredo waves me on. "Because you weren't ready." He unhooks the wireless portable speaker from the loop of his pants and hands it to me. "Now you are."
Chapter Seventeen
Ariel
"They're babies." I laugh and push my head into Emily's shoulder, nearly bowling her over. We're sitting on a large piece of driftwood in a darkened corner of the beach. If Dax knew, he'd shift into overprotective helicopter parent mode and force me to turn on location services and text him every twenty minutes.
We followed Jon and his friends nearly a mile down the beach. Far away from the festival. Far away from the boardwalk. Far away from civilization.
A garbage can fire roars twenty feet in front of us, illuminating this deserted stretch of the beach. A smaller one rages to our left, that one tended to by some locals poking hot dogs on sticks into the fire. I can't believe I've eaten two of those already.
"They're only a year younger than the twins," Emily reminds me, and we turn at the sound of water splashing and laughter. Jon, Roy, and about a dozen other people take turns diving into the dark ocean like they're twelve years old again.
"Did you hear what he said when I asked him about the Rolling Stones? He stared at me as if I had two heads. What person doesn't know who Mick Jagger is? Not anyone who I could trust."
"Be fair." Emily giggles and gives me a playful shove. "Their friend Gael knew."
"He doesn't count. He plays in a band. He had better know." I nod, recalling the cute name of their band, Plot Twist. After he disappeared, I bookmarked their SoundCloud account, curious to hear their stuff. Jon seemed proud of them. He said they're a local big deal and have been trying for years to make it to the festival stage.
"I bet you didn't know who Bing Crosby was when you were their age."
