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

Chapter 10: Team I-Have-A-Death-Wish

"I see you two have met?" Reed asks from across the table. He traces the rim of his menu with his index finger.

"We're acquainted," Vin says. He shoots another cold glance my way, and I turn my focus to A.J. and his paper octopus to avoid the chill.

Silence engulfs our table like a monster wave swallowing the shoreline and the tiny children playing in its sand. Seconds feel like hours until we're saved by the waiter who brings us our food in three separate trips. He lingers for a moment before turning his attention to the con artist next to me.

"How's business?" he asks. He folds his arms and stares at Vin with this stupid prideful smile. I nearly lose my appetite on the spot. How can anyone ask a con artist how business is?

Vin devours a few fries. "Pretty damn good," he mumbles. "With the season and all, you know."

The season? It's summertime – tourist season. God, the nerve of these people. To just sit here and talk about it like it's okay that he rips off tourists and pretends to be a mechanic on the side!

"Just keep doing what you're doing. It's obviously working," the waiter tells Vin. He places another bottle of ketchup on the center of the table and disappears.

The red bottle serves as battle lines – Linzi on Team Not-So-Dangerous and me on Team I-Have-A-Death-Wish. Her flirty eyes with Alston are a day and night contrast with the soul-crushing stares Vin continues tossing my way. Someone should've told me to pick up some armor during our road trip; I'll need it to survive this fight.

"Don't you love when you order onion rings and you find a random French fry in there?" Reed asks, waving his lone fry and breaking my thoughts of battle plans and survival techniques.

"Man, Strick," A.J. says as he stashes the paper sea creature under the table. "It's kind of like when you go to buy weed and you open the bag and there's–"

"Hey!" Vin shouts in my ear. "Hush."

A.J. obeys the order and gnaws into his hamburger before he can argue with Vin. It's probably something he learned in bodyguard boot camp – to keep your mouth shut – and General Con Artist has trained him impeccably.

I catch Reed's stare over my plate, the way his eyes gravitate between mine and Vin's, like he's searching for answers or trying to see through us. But we're not transparent. And there's nothing I can do to ease the fears that Reed has built up in his mind since the moment Vin sat down and called me Sunshine.

*****  

Spirals of smoke swarm together in a white-gray fog above us. A.J. turns his head to the stars and blows into the night. His cigarette smoke lingers just briefly before riding away across the ocean air with the rest of the fog.

He races across the parking lot, jumps on the hood of a car, and uses it as a stepping stone to stand atop the lid of the giant green dumpster.

"I am the dragon lord!" he screams out, raising his arms to the sky. "Fear my fire!" He flicks the lighter in his hand and exhales another cloud of smoke.

"Idiot," Alston mumbles.

Reed shakes his head. "Get down!" he shouts across the lot to A.J.

A.J. leaps forward and blends into the shadows below the dumpster. Metal trash can lids clang together. "I'm okay!" he calls out.

"I think it's time to call it a night," Reed says. He glances at Vin then back at me, and it's more than obvious he has questions that no one wants to answer.

"Spit it out, Strick," Vin snaps. "What is it?"

My chest tightens, and I pray Linzi doesn't begin explaining the hair dye incident. She'll more than likely just piss Vin off even more than we already have. Like it or not, I'm going to have to deal with him to ace Chasing Forever 101.