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

Chapter 15: Tea Cups

The morning sun glints off of Linzi's rhinestone-studded flip flops and blinds me for half a second. She rocks back and forth, heel to toe, studying the whiteboard hanging outside of the turquoise snowcone stand. Summer Snow stretches across the lime green roof in bright pink letters, the letter O a snowcone. Luckily the guy ahead of us is as indecisive as Linzi.

"Brad, dude, c'mon. Make up your mind. I've got real customers behind you," the blonde behind the stand says. His lopsided smile is childlike, and his hair is as wild as A.J.'s.

 His name tag reads Alex, and Linzi instantly begins talking about her Enchanter named Alex and how she wonders if Enchanted Emily named it after snowcone guy. This Brad guy settles on blue raspberry and moves along so Linzi can study the selection list more closely.

 "Just get the usual," Vin says from behind me.

 Reed laughs. "You're so boring. It's always something simple. Watermelon. Grape. Apple. You need to live a little."

 "Fine," Vin spits back. He leans over my shoulder and scans the flavors while Linzi orders Mango Mandarin.

Despite Reed's jab at Vin for being boring, I play it safe myself and order pineapple, not so much because I'm scared to live a little but more so because I don't want my mouth to be blistering red or deep ocean blue while I attempt to sell the rest of these tickets. I need my smile today. I don't have Miles to help me out or show me who I need to target.

"Tiger's blood," Vin says. "It sounds badass."

But three seconds after he bites into the snowcone, tiger's blood splatters across the sidewalk and Vin curses, something about strawberries and damn-it-fucking-coconuts. I grab his arm before he tosses it into a nearby garbage can.

"Wait," I say. "I like coconut. We can trade."

I pull the spoon from my clear pineapple ice and offer it to him, although every fiber of my confidence is mocking me and laughing at my attempt to be nice to Vin, like he'd even accept such a gesture.

So when he hands me that bleeding red ice and says 'thank you', I'm too dumbfounded to respond. I stand on the sidewalk, watching the back of Reed's T-shirt blend into the crowd as he and Vin disappear into the mass of tourists and locals near Strickland's Boating. I attempt to drop the red ice down my throat without it hitting my tongue or teeth, but Linzi sticks her orange tongue out at me, and I realize it's pointless. I hope her orange tongue is up for selling tickets because my mouth will look like that of a well-fed vampire soon.

*****  

After an hour of listening to Linzi's attempt to sell tickets, I see my salvation down the sidewalk. A.J. flexes his arm back, showing off the dragon across his forearm to the girl working at one of the T-shirt stands. She leans forward on her elbows in that flirty way Linzi does, and I assume she asked if he has more because he turns and shows her the crescent moon skull on his other shoulder. Neither Linzi nor I approach until Alston pulls his shirt over his head to show off the tribal art between his shoulder blades.

I swap glances with Linzi, whose eyes are flaring with some sort of emotion that I can't exactly decipher, and we trek forward to the T-shirt stand. The guys are already past it though, A.J. with his arms flailing and his turquoise dragon flying crazily with his motions. For him to be so thin, I really think he could take Alston right now. His eyes are flaring, just like Linzi's, and I suddenly feel like I should be mad too.

"Every fucking time! Every. Fucking. Time. You just have to get in the way. You can't give me a single fucking moment!" A.J. shouts the words too loudly, and it won't be long before some Crescent Cove cop gets word that his favorite troublemaker is at it again. God, I hope it's not that Pittman guy.