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“I’ll live. The clothes aren’t the problem.” He’s got these soft chestnut irises, and they meet my gaze for the first time. “You want to know the real tragedy?”
“Always.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a neatly rolled joint, now soaked and limp.
“RIP,” he says.
I hold up a finger. “Hold on.”
Why, yes. I have tricks up my sleeve. I reach into my bikini, where I’ve stashed away my one vice from Four and Pearl: a rolled joint and a lighter. For the moments I really need to escape.
For the first time, Dock Boy smiles. “Hello, new best friend.”
“You can call me Kenzi.”
Dock Boy’s real name is Donovan. His real age is nineteen. I haven’t discovered his real hair color yet, but I know it’s not black because he keeps having to towel off his neck when the dark hair dye drips down around his ears.
Hannsett Island Marina is a self-contained ecosystem, complete with its own restaurant (the Blue Heron, accessible by the public) and a slew of private facilities: a general store, a private pool, a communal shower/restroom/locker room, and a laundry room.
There are only two sets of washers and dryers in the laundry room. Donovan sits on one of the washers, I sit on the fold-out table, and we pass my joint back and forth as his clothes tumble dry.
He’s wearing only his boxers, but they look enough like a bathing suit that it’s somehow not obscene. Doesn’t keep me from admiring his body, though. He’s lean, not quite stacked like the jocks, but I like the softness of him. He’s kept on this thick leather-woven bracelet and a simple chain necklace with a ring on it.
“Promise ring?” I ask and point to it.
He frowns at that. “My mom’s wedding ring.”
“Divorced?”
“Deceased.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugs, and that’s the end of that conversation.
I get it. I have things that were my dad’s, sort of. Pearl kept his record player and a few tattered albu
ms. I play them sometimes, but only because I like music, not because I liked him. He died when I was just a kid, and the memories I have aren’t great ones, so we never had the kind of connection that inspired me to carry around any of his trinkets.
My head is a little hazy, and I swish my legs under the table. I feel small, but not in a bad way. The comfort of careless innocence. “So why do those guys hate you?”
Donovan thins his lips. He taps ash off onto the quarter slot. “I’m a loser. I’m gay. I don’t have a yacht or a summer house. Take your pick.”
“That’s fucked-up. Have you told anyone about it?”
Donovan’s eyes sharpen. “Who? No one cares. Jason King and his crew of idiots basically run this island.”
King. That clicks. “Jason King…is that the tall one?”
“Tall, blue-eyed, and beautiful? That’s the one. He’s a rare breed of island native. Have you visited the Lighthouse Medical Center yet?”
“Nope, and from the sound of it, I don’t want to.”
“Good call. It’s Hannsett Island’s pride and joy, though. And the island’s cash cow. Jason’s dad owns it, which basically makes him richer than God. They have a mansion in the Dunes. Two boats. And a second house Upstate.”
“All hail the Kings,” I say which draws a little wry smile from Donovan. He holds out the joint in offering, but I shake my head. I’m already floating. An ant crawls over my knuckles, its tiny legs tickling, and I let it. I watch its perilous odyssey across the back of my hand and then back onto the table.
“Why are the pretty ones always jerks?” I wonder out loud.
