Chapter 1 Cole #2
The last song is One Last Kiss, Caspian’s request. I can see him now, front row center, Noah perched on his shoulders, grinning up at me like I’m doing something brave. The sight hits me with a rush of affection.
I wouldn’t even be standing here tonight without Caspian. One Last Kiss would still be gathering digital dust in some forgotten laptop folder instead of showing up in teenagers’ celebrity-crush edits.
The song is about Xaden, my ex. About how he left four years ago and split my heart in half.
It’s a pretty basic heartbreak song: melody, ache, repeat.
But somehow it became a thing, and now it’s my livelihood.
I don’t usually sing it in public. Too raw.
Still hurts, not like before, but enough.
Even seeing his name pop up in a hurried text, like the one Caspian sent me a couple nights ago, makes my chest ache.
If it really was Xaden Caspian spotted, he’s hanging out with two guys Caspian said looked like Beavis and Butt-Head. I didn’t ask for clarification. I don’t want to know.
Because I’m so over Xaden Bailey.
That’s what I tell people.
That’s what I tell myself.
So what if my pulse jumps every time someone says his name.
XADEN
“Yo, Bailey. You awake?” JJ waves a hand in front of my face, his fingernails stained yellow from nicotine. Ronnie chuckles and strokes his damn knife like it purrs. The sound of his laughter makes my skin crawl, and JJ’s gravelly voice grates on my nerves.
JJ’s a tall, mean ex-con, inked up to his neck with crude prison tats, twitchy if he goes more than five minutes without a smoke. Late twenties, violent streak a mile wide.
Ronnie’s older, shorter, muscle packed onto his frame, with no ink, no hair, and no morals.
They are the Craven cousins and they never shut up. The only thing they agree on? If Big Sam says jump, they don’t ask how high: they’re already in the air.
The same rules apply to me, whether I like it or not.
“Late night,” I shrug, stretching slow, lazy, like I don’t have a care in the world.
JJ smirks. “Maybe if you weren’t so busy screwing everyone you meet, we’d find Mike sooner.”
“Come on, I’ve got standards,” I protest. I tip my chin, smirk sharp as a blade. “It has to breathe and say please.”
Their laughter is sharp-edged, not belly-deep. I laugh too. It feels like chewing glass, but I do it. One wrong silence, and I’m dead.
“Got a tip on Mike,” JJ says, checking his phone. “Kieran says he might try to sneak out of Baywood tonight. Some big-ass music festival goin’ on.”
I know. The Baywood Music Festival. I used to go with Cole; first as friends, then for one golden summer as his boyfriend.
He let me hold his hand even with people watching, and I knew it wasn’t easy for him.
Having a gay son who dated a Bay Hollow kid wasn’t ‘ideal’ in Cole’s family.
Holding hands in public was a big deal, Cole kissing me behind Pell’s t-shirt booth even bigger.
I can still taste the melted ice cream when I licked a smudge from his jaw, still feel his blush burn against my lips.
Ronnie perks up. “Might be good for pocket-pickin’.”
JJ smacks him. “You trying to get shipped back to the pen? Sam said avoid attention. Dumbass.”
“Ah, Bay Pen,” I say lightly when Ronnie smacks JJ back. I tilt my head, grin crooked. “Loved the showers.”
JJ rolls his eyes. Then, casually, “You in when they brought those Broad River psychos?”
I hear the trap in his voice. “Plenty of psychos to go around. The biggest one was guard Willis.”
Ronnie flips his knife open and shut, eyes narrowing. “Been thinkin’. One year, and you get parole? Good behavior, my ass. Who’d you screw?”
I meet his gaze, fists tightening. I shrug. Force a smirk, let my voice drop filthy low. “If screwing my way out was a thing, I’d have been first in line.”
JJ laughs. Ronnie tucks the knife away. “Let’s go get that son of a bitch.”
I jump into the back of JJ’s rusty pickup, breathing in the honeysuckle drifting in from the lake. For a second, I almost forget the smoke and sweat around me. Almost.
It’s a miracle I pull this off day after day.
Waking up, going through the motions, ignoring the pain.
Always ignore the pain. Don’t know if it’s a weakness or a strength.
Don’t particularly care. Because I wake up every morning hating myself and go to bed every night missing Cole.
Those fleeting seconds right before I fall asleep, when I finally allow myself to remember how it felt to be his, they’re my punishment and my comfort.
Those memories kept me sane in prison.
Those memories are all I have. All I deserve.
COLE
After my gig, I just want to go home with Caspian and Noah. But getting to them means crossing the festival area, which is basically Snakes and Ladders: Baywood edition. One wrong square and you’re trapped in conversation until your social battery dies.
I take three steps and get stopped at Pell’s t-shirt booth by Earl, proudly showing off his new shirt that says: I Escaped Steve’s Suggestion Box .
“I snagged the last one,” he says, running a comb through his hair in one well-practiced move — pure Danny Zuko. “Hey, would you mind taking my picture for Maija?”
“Sure,” I say. “Although you’d be in better hands if you asked Henry.”
“He scares me,” Earl says, and I believe him. A lot of things scare our well-meaning but easily overwhelmed baker. He poses with both thumbs up, beaming to the camera.
“How’s Maija?” I ask, forgetting the first rule of Baywood: do not feed Earl with questions. Maija is a Finnish GP, in her forties like Earl, and she recognizes half the town because Earl mailed her a custom ‘memory lotto’ of our faces for Christmas.
“... so would you help me choose the right color? She’s a winter,” he finishes, and I realize I zoned out at some point.
I blink. “She’s a what?”
Reluctantly, I follow Earl into the t-shirt booth, the air thick with cotton and popcorn. Bright shirts stack up like candy. Earl holds up a burgundy tee to his chest, second-guessing himself. What if Maija’s secretly a spring, or worse, an autumn?
My mind drifts again. This time back to the magical summer I had with Xaden four years ago.
We’ve kissed behind this very booth, his hands warm at my back, pulling me closer.
You’re hotter than the sun , he’d groaned against my lips.
The memory heats me from the inside out.
My fingers brush my mouth before I can stop them.
Has he really come back? I don’t know which is worse: if he has or if he hasn’t.
I spot my parents near the coffee kiosk and make my escape, Earl informing me he’s definitely maybe going to buy the burgundy one.
“My favorite singer,” Mom smiles, looking almost proud. That warmth lasts exactly three seconds. “Although your sneakers give the impression you’re auditioning for a children’s talent show.”
I’m still thinking about a good comeback when Sheriff Hugh Willard appears. Just the man none of us wanted to see.
“Good evening!” he booms, slapping Dad’s shoulder. Dad looks like he bit into something rotten.
I’ve never liked Willard. Too self-assured. Too jovial. Too everything.
“Elaine, radiant as always,” he says to Mom, his smile so greasy it leaves a film in the air.
“Thank you,” Mom says curtly. No weather talk. No ‘how’s Sarah’. For her, that’s a straight-up burn.
Willard doesn’t flinch, just turns to Dad, shark smile in place. “Andy, you busy or can we have a little heart-to-heart?”
“Not now,” Dad says, wary.
“Of course. Tonight’s about music… and family.” He gives me a condescending smile. “Caught your set.” He says it like I owe him an apology.
Then he strolls off, slow and deliberate. Dad’s jaw is tight, fists clenched.
“What was that about?” I ask.
“Just some boring town business. Don’t worry about it.”
I don’t want to worry. But after the look on Dad’s face? I kind of have to.
XADEN
I shouldn’t be here. Too many ghosts, too many eyes.
The risk of running into Cole is too high.
We arrived after his gig — thank God for small mercies — but he must be here somewhere.
Just the thought of seeing him fills me with so much dread and pain that it takes every ounce of my self-control to stay.
The band playing now, Savage Amen, only fuels my angst. Their name is spot on as they really make me think savage thoughts, amen.
Their lead singer is called Brett Morales.
I know, because he’s shouted his name three times already.
He’s shirtless, with something sparkling smeared across his chest like he tripped headfirst into a glitter glue tank.
Mid-song he leans into the mic, panting like the weight of his own biceps might crush him.
“Baywood,” he croons, “you are the loudest crowd we’ve ever had!
” The baffled parents clutch their kids tighter, looking around like maybe he’s talking to another Baywood in another state.
The busload of Florida pensioners adjust their sun hats, visibly disappointed this isn’t the robust gospel act they thought they were signing up for.
I look at all the people milling about, worry-free and relaxed. They believe in Baywood’s postcard fantasy. I know better. I’m here to remind them that their fantasy of living in a safe haven is just that: a fantasy.
Someone in Baywood killed my dad and dressed it up like an accident.
It wasn’t shock or grief or guilt that made me see it.
It was fact. Dad had stumbled onto something.
He had been wary for months but he didn’t want to talk about it.
And when he finally was ready to talk, I ignored him.
Instead of heading home after school like he asked, I spent two blissful hours with Cole behind the bleachers.
I came home, lips swollen and heart bursting, and found Dad crushed under the car he had been fixing.