Sweet

That boy had no idea how close he’d come to a dart in the forehead. He could stare at Dover’s legs all he wanted, but one word about Pearl and he’d have been sporting a skull ornament.

“Shut it, dickwad.” Mateo swatted the back of his cousin’s skull. “Those two are so far out of your league they might as well be on the moon.”

Bart rubbed the back of his head, eyes following Pearl’s best friend as she walked up to the bar. “Maybe. But it looks like they’re slummin’ it tonight, primo.” He was up and swaggering her way before any of us knew it.

“This should be interesting,” Randy said, settling back in his chair to watch. He crossed thin arms over his skeletal chest, chuckling, and I was glad to see him smile. He’d been released from prison a few months ago after serving time for running a meth lab in a trailer that blew to hell a few years back. He’d have been inside a lot longer if anyone had been there at the time. That or dead. He’d convinced the parole board he was determined to go straight, and so far, he was sticking to it. The same couldn’t be said for his little brother, Rick.

“Oh hell.” Mateo passed a hand over his face and turned away like he couldn’t bear to watch. Two of his first three throws barely made the board at all.

“It’s just Melody Dover, Vega—not the queen mother,” Randy said. “Besides, your cousin could use a slapdown. Twenty bucks says he’s about to get one.” As we watched, Bart rested one elbow on the bar next to Melody, and she leaned away as he leaned closer.

I shook my head and threw another dart.

“Yeah. Except her father is my boss’s boss’s boss.” Mateo was the assistant manager for one of the half dozen convenience stores in town, five of which were owned by the same company. Melody Dover’s daddy was the divisional manager over half the state.

“Chill, man,” I said. “Rover Dover’s got nothing to report about you. God knows we can’t do anything about the dumbasses we’re related to.” I pulled my darts from the board, thinking about my dad and my brother, and how different they’d been. Wondering where I fit between them.

“‘Rover Dover,’” Mateo choked out under his breath. “I haven’t heard that in years. Christ, Wynn, don’t let her hear you say it. Between that and my ignoramus cousin, she’ll have me fired in two shakes and then drag me through town from the bumper of that Infiniti her daddy just bought her.”

Pearl

Of course I would run into Boyce Wynn on my first night home. Boyce Wynn—my guardian angel, the imaginary best friend of my childhood, my unprofessed adolescent crush, my dirty little secret. Or was that last one me?

Boyce saved my life when I was five.

It was my first beach cleanup day. I was an entry-level Girl Scout, determined to take home my troop’s prize for the most bags of trash collected. Funny, I can’t recall the reward I wanted so badly—one of those plush toys filled with plastic pellets. A dolphin? A whale? I don’t remember. All I retained was my single-minded resolve to win whatever it was.

I’d defied stay-close orders and branched out a bit farther than allowed. Collecting trash along the water’s edge, I spotted something that looked like litter but turned out to be a clump of floating sargassum—the seaweed scourge of the gulf. I’d followed it far enough out that my shorts were soaked to the waistband. So when a tiny jellyfish caught my eye, the first live one I’d ever seen, I didn’t fret about getting my clothes wet. I wanted to see that translucent creature up close. It hardly looked real—gliding along the current as though it had been fashioned of fluid glass.

I hadn’t sensed the slight drop-off coming until I took a step and plummeted, the water level abruptly reaching my shoulders. I didn’t catch sight of the wave that knocked me off my feet immediately after that either, so I had no chance to draw a breath before being submerged, overturned, and disoriented. I knew how to swim, but this was no deep end of the pool where the water was motionless and I could see the blue-tiled bottom below and the clear sky overhead, just beyond the smooth, horizontal surface of the water. Here, murky water swirled in every direction. There was no up, no down, no air.

And then I glimpsed light. I propelled toward it, kicking and clawing, and burst out of the water. Air. I sucked in a breath before sinking again—nothing was underfoot. My brain knew I must have surfaced facing away from the beach because I hadn’t seen it, but it seemed as if the beach had ceased to exist.

I kicked hard and surfaced again, both arms thrust high. Still no beach. I gulped a breath and got a bit of water too, and a reflexive cough exhaled the precious air as I sank. I swam up again, legs and arms tiring rapidly, knowing only that I needed to breathe—nothing else mattered. The jellyfish I’d pursued, or maybe it was another one altogether, appeared in front of my eyes like a dream, and then there were more of them. They puffed along all around me like miniature swimming umbrellas or beautiful, soundless ghosts.

My lungs demanded air but took in water. My vision darkened and narrowed—the jellyfish swimming away, the sky fading.

My life didn’t flash before my eyes—just one scene, one memory. In the kitchen of our tiny duplex, I inhaled the aroma of Mama’s churros, fresh from the frying pan. She placed them, still warm, into a paper bag of sugar and cinnamon. It was my job to shake the bag and coat each one before placing them on a wire rack to cool, but I didn’t want to wait. I broke one open as soon as it slid from the bag, the steam erupting and singeing my fingertips.