Page 54

Asher looked at me. “No comment,” I said, and he laughed.

Dale dropped his board in the sand and slid a backpack off his back. He unzipped it and pulled out a helmet with some sort of bendy antenna on top. “Check it out,” he said.

“What exactly are we looking at?” Kamala asked.

Dale took his phone out of the front pocket of his bag and attached it to the antenna. “We will capture it all out on the water.”

“Have you never heard of a GoPro?” Kamala asked.

“Do you know how much better video quality is produced by my phone?”

“I guess not,” she said.

“What exactly is there to capture out on the water?” I asked.

“So many possibilities. Did you ever see that video of the kayaker swallowed by the whale?”

“Yes!” I responded, pointing to Kamala.

“Ugh,” Kamala said with an eye roll. “Don’t get her started.”

Dale slid the helmet onto his head.

“You look like an idiot,” Asher said.

“Says the guy in the bucket hat.”

“Is that…?” Dale was staring at something behind me.

I screamed and whirled around.

“Elinor?” Dale finished, and I let out a relieved breath until I processed what he’d actually said.

My eyes zeroed in on every single person, one at a time, in the parking lot: an old man with a beard, a woman holding hands with a toddler, an Asian girl around our age with long black hair and perfect skin. She wore a bikini top and shorts and she was gorgeous.

“Wren thinks a sea lion is going to sneak up behind her and what?” Kamala said in my direction. “Eat you?”

I forced my eyes away from Parking Lot Girl who may or may not have been Elinor and pointed to Dale’s helmet. “Rememberthat video of the sea lion who pulled the little girl off the pier and into the water?”

“That won’t happen,” Kamala said.

“I actually saw that video,” Dale said. “I hope thatdoeshappen.”

“Sea lions are tools,” Asher said. We had an inside joke and I hated that I liked that.

“What’s she doing here, dude?” Dale asked, not one to be easily sidetracked.

So itwasElinor.

“I don’t know,” Asher said. “There’s only one bay in town and it’s not like I own it.”

“I should ask my parents to buy it. Then wewouldown it.”

Asher sighed and Dale laughed. I rolled my eyes but laughed as well. He really was doing it on purpose, making himself seem more obnoxious than he was. I could see that now.

Kamala looked confused. “Who are we talking about?”

“My ex,” Asher said, gesturing toward the parking lot like Elinor was still standing there. She wasn’t. She had gone into one of the restaurants along the dock. Or I assumed she had, because I couldn’t see her anywhere.