CHAPTER THREE
Nova
The darkening sky streaked with reds and purples above me.
It was strangely peaceful, beautiful even.
It almost made me forget I was sprawled on hot asphalt, possibly bleeding out (I was fine).
I didn’t complain when a boy’s bronzed face, his jaw shadowed with stubble, interrupted my view.
He had dark blue eyes and a wide nose, his tapered hair disheveled, dark brown waves falling over his face.
I enjoyed looking at him, until I noticed the blood on his brow and shirt. So, he was the driver of the campervan.
‘You hit me.’
‘Well, I came to a stop, and you ran into me, but yes.’
I narrowed my eyes and tried to sit up, gasping. Pain intensified with each breath. I touched my diaphragm and regretted it immediately. My guess – a few bruised ribs, courtesy of his stationary campervan.
‘Don’t move. An ambulance is on the way. I placed a few flares so cars can go around. Not that anyone comes this way. Except us.’
Stubbornly, I lay back down. The boy must’ve used something as a pillow for me. I pressed my lips into a thin line, refusing to be comforted. Nothing felt broken, and I could stand if I wanted to, but I was still banged up – and definitely late for my shift. I wiped blood from the side of my face.
‘I’m so sorry I blocked the road like that,’ he said. ‘The sun – I don’t think I’ve ever seen it that bright. This road is always empty in the afternoon. But it’s the fastest way up the coast to the beaches.’
The fastest way uptown too.
Well, now we both knew why the road was empty at dusk, the sun beaming as it dropped below the horizon.
Behind him, the campervan sat with its roof rack full of surfboards, my blood staining the cracks in the shattered windshield.
I winced, feeling the cut at my temple. Then there was my bike – or what remained of it – a hunk of twisted metal embedded in his front bumper.
I swore, hissing through a headache. I didn’t have money for another bike.
Or for healing ribs. I barely had money for groceries, arthritis medicine –
‘I can pay for a new bike – everything, really. This was my fault.’ He interrupted my spiral before it could deepen.
I waved him off, trying to sit up again.
‘No, please lie down. I can’t have you passing out on me.’
‘Alrighty.’ I stretched the word as I settled back against the makeshift pillow. ‘If you insist. I guess the sky is a nice view.’
‘Is it?’ He glanced up, a quirk to his lips, as if he was seeing the vast expanse for the first time. It was almost sweet, until I remembered he was the reason I was horizontal. He lay down on the asphalt beside me, shifting until comfortable. Heat radiated off his body.
‘Looks like you’re right,’ he said softly.
I snuck a peek at him. I’d been wrong about his eyes.
They were the color of the sky after a summer storm, ringed with the thinnest gold circle from his oculsight surgery.
I squirmed. I was staring, but it was hard not to, especially with his undone bowtie and wing-tipped shoes.
Somehow, he’d ripped the buttons off his dress shirt.
I raised a brow, interest piqued. ‘Are you in a tux? Is this pillow your suit jacket? I’m struggling to picture this tuxedo-wearing, campervan-driving combo.’
‘Well, let me help you.’ He re-knotted the bowtie and gave it a wiggle.
‘Nice. The specks of blood add character.’ That and the fact that his buttonless shirt revealed his physique. I couldn’t be mad about it. Not that I was objectifying him.
‘It’s nothing really. I’d rather be wearing less and in the water.’ He nodded toward the horizon.
I resisted a snort to save my ribs, waiting for him to catch the subtle innuendo. He didn’t. Ah, an innocent golden child.
‘I’m supposed to be in a dress serving fancy food at a retro-themed gastro pub.’ I checked my banged-up solisWatch. My shift had started two minutes ago. ‘Maybe tomorrow, if I still have my job.’
‘Sounds like waitressing isn’t your first choice.’
‘Nope. But mortgages have this annoying habit of needing to be paid,’ I said, joking, and he peered at me, confused, most likely wondering why I – an eighteen-year-old – had a mortgage.
‘I live at home with my dad, sister and brother,’ I explained. ‘My dad’s arthritis means he can’t work much. Thirty years of underwater welding at free-floating solar farms doesn’t translate well to other professions. It’s me and Leo covering the bills and groceries. Now after this …’
‘Hey.’ He nudged me. ‘I meant what I said. I’m covering all the medical expenses. And getting you a new bike. Would you like the same hot-pink vintage seven-speed or–’
‘If you’re paying, we can go with an upgrade.’
He grinned, and it felt familiar, but I wasn’t the type to follow gossip socials or society sites like Starshade or OutPrint.
‘What do you do for that to be an easy offer?’ I prodded.
He hesitated. ‘My family is comfortable. But they’re … intense.’
‘Intense?’
He hesitated again.
‘I just confessed my biggest worries in life: falling behind on bills.’ I tried to smile. ‘You have to tell me something in return.’
Then I paled. ‘That was too forward, wasn’t it? I did just get hit by a campervan, so I’m probably not thinking straight –’
‘No, not at all.’ He chuckled, an adorable sound.
‘Things can get intense when you’re the only one not interested in the family business.
I’m on the sports medicine track at North California’s Dominion campus, which is enough to keep them happy, but I’d rather focus on surfing.
I have the Alta Bay Surf Cup in six weeks.
I’m a few waves away from going pro. I just wish my family wasn’t so uptight about it. ’
‘Back up. You got into NorCal Dominion, and you’d rather be surfing?’ I tried to keep the judgment out of my voice. Not that surfing wasn’t a rich-kid sport, but NorCal Dominion was one of the most prestigious colleges in the country.
‘I know that sounds a little privileged.’
‘Not at all,’ I countered with a bemused smile. It sounded entirely privileged.
‘I was on my way to the beach when –’ He flexed his hand.
‘With surfing … I want to go pro, but I need a sponsor. With the boards, wetsuits, tinted SPF, registration fees for the league – it’s a lot.
A sponsor would help me be my own person, with my own goals and responsibilities, away from the family business. ’
I sighed, feeling the weight of being tied to my family.
I’d accepted that taking care of them would be my role for a long time.
Having my own life felt far away, wrapped in guilt.
I couldn’t be selfish. ‘I didn’t think I’d wake up this morning and find myself relating to a random tux-wearing boy driving a campervan. ’
He laughed. ‘My name’s Castor. Cas.’
‘Nice to meet you, Castor Cas. I’m Nova.’
Cas held my gaze a second too long and I turned away, reaching for my cracked solisPhone beside me. ‘I need to let my brother know what happened.’
‘Of course. I already messaged my mom and sister. Tell him to meet you at Mercy Coast. I need to text my friend so he knows I won’t make it to the beach today.’
Mercy Coast – the state-of-the-art facilities and patient-rooms-with-ocean-views Mercy Coast? I held my now-glitchy holoscreen to my ear, wondering just how fancy Castor Cas really was.
Leo answered. ‘Tell me you aren’t calling to make sure I showered.’
‘Did you at least hose the mud off your shoes?’
‘… Yes.’
‘Mhmm, that would be a no – Ow!’ I groaned at my ribs as I tried to sit up.
Leo’s tone shifted. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I got hit by a car,’ I grumbled.
Cas cleared his throat. ‘I’d argue I got hit by a bike.’
I glared at him, playfully.
‘A beautiful girl on a bike,’ he corrected, and stars, I was grateful my complexion was deep enough to hide the fact that he had me blushing.
Leo wasn’t impressed. ‘Are you OK? Are you bleeding? Switch to FaceStream.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Calm down. It’s minor. I ran into a car, but it wasn’t exactly moving. Anyway, can you meet me at Mercy Coast Hospital?’
‘You have Mercy Coast money?’
‘Boy – just meet me there.’ I hung up as the sound of sirens filled my ears, red and blue lights flashing across Cas’s face as he watched me. We really were the only ones out here. Not a single car had driven by. It was just him and me, him staring at me.
‘What?’ I asked. ‘More blood on my face?’
‘What’s your address?’
I balked. ‘My what? We aren’t even on a last-name basis, Castor Cas.’
‘For the bike,’ he insisted, but he cheesed too hard. He held up his hands, storm-blue eyes wide and innocent.
I grabbed his phone and added my details, snapping a quick selfie of me laid out on the asphalt. I started to save it, then changed my name from ‘Nova Williams’ to ‘Hot-Pink Seven-Speed.’ Let’s see if he remembers my name on his own.
The paramedics arrived and strapped me to a gurney, then wheeled me toward one ambulance, Cas toward another. ‘We’re taking you both to Bay General,’ one of them said. ‘Dispatch directed us to stay in our response zone. Mercy Coast is outside our district.’
Cas shook his head. ‘That’s not what I –’
‘It’ll be fine.’ I said, already texting Leo an update. ‘And cheaper.’ I’d take the glassrail home from there. No need for Leo to waste gas. I sent another message to Stephen at Caféology. I wasn’t making shift tonight.
‘I already told you, I’ll take care of everything,’ said Cas.
‘I know, I know. I hope you get me the fanciest seven-speed possible with your future surfing endorsements. One with an electric motor.’
‘Should I make it hot pink?’
‘Buyer’s choice.’
Chaos greeted us in Bay General’s emergency room.
A large group filled almost every seat. They were dressed each in black, an electric-blue band across their chests, discarded posters at their feet reading IMMUNE TO BULLSHIT and LIES ARE CONTAGIOUS.
They all wore the same emblem: an aquamarine lightning bolt against a fuchsia sun.
A nurse moved through the crowd with supplies, wrapping wounds with bandages, pressing gauze to shallow scrapes.
Another poured water over the eyes of a young woman, and I frowned at her reddened skin.
Probably pepper spray, something I’d become familiar with while dragging Daddy home from a protest last year.
Others had the same splotchy faces, palms scratched up with bits of dirt and gravel.
I nudged Cas’s gurney, but he was deep in conversation with the intake nurse.
He gave his biosig – or thumbprint, as Daddy called it from his old days – accepting the charges for our ambulance rides, and pointed between us and the last two openings in the triage area.
I shifted on my gurney. The people in that large group needed those spots more than we did.
I poked my paramedic. ‘Do you know what went down over there?’
‘Something happened with protesters outside one of Dominion’s opioid treatment centers in South Alta. It’s gotten worse with the solar flare anniversary coming up. Then add the mayoral elections landing on the same day.’
‘What’s gotten worse?’
The paramedic didn’t reply, his radio already squawking with the next call. He and his partner left, and I was without answers.
Mayoral elections were a big deal in Alta Bay, the hub of Dominion Pharmaceuticals and their breakthroughs in solradiance technology.
With the pharma giant’s partnership and influence, we were the only city in the state where our elected official carried as much weight as the governor.
Whoever won would have the ear of the President.
One of the protestors was shaking his head. ‘We were peaceful. We only wanted to be heard.’
‘They’ll cover it up, just like the ones in Baltimore and Atlanta,’ said another.
I glanced back to see if Cas had noticed, but we were already on the move. Nurses pushed us into the last two empty spots, separated by an open blue sliding screen, skipping over everyone else.
‘But what about –’
‘Don’t worry.’ Cas cut me off. ‘I’m going to cover it.’
The sound of heels stabbing tile interrupted us. Both women wore crystal stilettos so sharp the floor could sue for assault. Their outfits glittered as much as their jewelry.
‘Where’s my son?’ the older woman demanded.
Her skin was a deeper brown than Cas’s, her hair dyed a golden blonde, but her eyes were the same storm-blue ones I’d already grown familiar with.
A younger woman trailed behind her, similar hair, but with brown eyes and Cas’s round nose.
They rushed over as soon as they spotted him.
‘I’m fine. I’ll only need a few stitches,’ he assured them. ‘Like I said when I called, Nova is who I’m concerned about. I’d like you to meet her. I promised to cover her expenses.’
They either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. His sister – at least, I was guessing – waved a hand in my direction without looking. ‘We can’t believe they brought you here. Didn’t you tell them who you are?’
His mother cut in. ‘We’re having you transferred right away.’
Wow. It sounded like there might’ve been a reason Castor Cas hadn’t given his last name. I squinted, still unable to place him.
‘You’re not going to transfer me for three stitches –’
His mom shot him a look that would’ve shut me up too. ‘Fine. We’re transferring Nova too.’ Cas gestured toward me again.
She tsked, still not looking my way. ‘I can’t believe a bit of sun glare caused this. Why were you so far from the glassways? There’s no reason for you to leave our side of the city.’
I flinched.
An apology filled Cas’s gaze.
I didn’t have the words for the emotion fluttering beneath my skin as I watched him with his family.
He was right – he was fine, a few stitches at most. But he was also cute, rich and not someone I should be letting pay my medical bills.
I winced, holding my bruised ribs as I leaned up and reached out.
Without wasting another thought, I slid the blue screen shut between us.