Chasing Forever Down (Great White Surf Saga, #1) [Wattpad Featured Story] | ✔

Chapter 4: The Ocean in Moonlight

Jitters is booming this morning. Linzi insisted on coffee before we hit the road to Arizona. I insisted on Jitters, and I didn't bother denying it when she said I only wanted to see "the hot coffee shop guy" again.

"And one vanilla frappe," Tim says from across the counter.

I watch the bracelets on his arm as he reaches across the counter. The words Live to Ride are engraved in red and black rubber, but he pulls his arm back before I can read the rest. I wonder about the untold stories behind his bracelets, if he'd leave a rubber bracelet behind just like Spence left the paper star.

I drop a few bills into the plastic tip jar as Tim tells us the best route back to the interstate. He wishes us a safe trip, and I hope this frappe wakes me up soon because the lack of a good night's sleep mixed with road tripping has me barely running.

"Hand me the keys," Linzi says in the parking lot. "I'll drive a while. You need more sleep."

I wait until after the vanilla frappe brain freeze to let the passenger seat back. Linzi says it's just interstate for the next few hours and puts The Ocean in Moonlight's CD into the player. Billboards fly by my window for miles and miles until even Tim's coffee can't keep me awake.

***** 

The yellow sign at the gas station stings my eyes. Linzi slips back into the driver's seat and cranks up. She watches the fuel hand rise and tells me it's about time I woke up. We're near the state line, about to leave New Mexico and enter Arizona.

"Switch," I tell her as I unhook my seatbelt. I can't believe I slept that long. Or that I'm actually still kind of tired.

We run inside for a restroom stop and more caffeine, then trade seats, and I drill her on directions to this night club because I'm certain she'll be asleep or just waking up by the time we get there.

"It's called Night Owl. I searched for images of it earlier. The O is actually an owl," she says.

As tired as she is, she can't stop rambling about The Ocean in Moonlight, guessing which songs they'll perform and giving me play by play of the fantasies she's played out in her head all day while I slept, like her meeting the Moonlight guys and becoming Keegan's roadie girlfriend. She falls asleep just after telling me about how she'd take pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower with him, if they let her go overseas on a tour with them. I just want to make it to Night Owl. Paris can wait.

I still don't know how a Moonlight concert is going to give me answers. But they know Spence. They gave him flyers. Maybe they'll give us some answers. I feel like I've made a full circle – from the cover band back around to the real band – and while I know no one can rock out to a Moonlight song on drums like Keegan can, I actually wish I was back in Fallen Elk Grove at The Lyric listening to the cover band. If my chase for forever ends, it will be at Night Owl. I hope they'll at least play my song.

*****  

The orange owl stares at me, reading me, questioning me, and I start questioning myself all over again. Then I question why I'm letting an owl in the form of neon lights lead to this kind of stress. Linzi pulls me through the crowd, but our chances of nearing the stage are slim to none. We're in Moonlight territory with Moonlight fans who have been with the band since before the days "Ocean Air" dominated radio stations.

"Do you think we'll get to meet them?" Linzi asks.

Her eyes sparkle with glimmers of hope and stage lights, and I don't want to burst her bubble of excitement.

I shrug my shoulders. "You never know," I say, hoping the opening act's bass drowns out my doubtfulness.

I do hope we get to meet them, though. I just have to figure out a good icebreaker to ask them about their undead friend with flyers.