KYLE #2
They stepped out onto the dock, the boards warm and slightly springy underfoot.
The water slapped gently against the pylons, the sound oddly soothing.
Kyle swung a leg over the Jet Ski and settled onto the seat, hands finding the grips with easy familiarity.
The machine felt solid under him. Predictable.
The beach had never been a part of his life growing up, and with Liddy’s scoliosis, things like this had definitely been out.
Mom had generally kept family activities to things they all could do.
But being the youngest sibling had its advantages, and once Liddy had her surgery and Mom and Dad had loosened up, any restrictions on types of activities had gone out the window.
He couldn’t imagine what he would have done without sports in high school.
The engine roared to life, the vibration buzzing up his arms and into his chest. He felt it, like a switch flipping somewhere inside him—something loosening, unclenching.
They eased away from the dock, slow as they first headed out, then gradually picking up speed. Spray kicked up, cool against his shins. The resort shrank behind them, the noise of people and music and forced cheerfulness fading into something distant and unimportant.
“Try to keep up this time!” Tomas shouted over the engine noise.
Kyle grinned and gunned the throttle.
The Jet Ski leaped forward, skimming over the waves.
Wind tore at his face and yanked a laugh out of him before he could stop it.
The sound surprised him more than anything else.
For the first time since Breckenridge, he felt free—lost to the simple and uncomplicated beauty of just enjoying the outdoors.
He raced Tomas for a bit, just enough to get his blood up. Tomas cut in front of him, then Kyle returned the favor, spraying him with a deliberate arc of water.
“Oh, it’s like that?” Tomas yelled.
“Always.” He felt lighter, his focus trained on speed and angles and the small, petty joy of trying to outdo Tomas.
He eased back, then surged forward again, testing how the jet ski responded. Open water sparkled ahead of them, broken only by the distant paths of other boats. A larger wake rolled through from somewhere to their right, rising and falling in a long, smooth line.
Kyle eyed it, feeling that familiar, dangerous itch wake up.
Tomas rode up beside him and followed his line of vision. “Don’t.”
He cocked a smile. “I wasn’t going to.”
He edged the throttle forward anyway.
The Jet Ski responded like it always did, eager and immediate, the nose lifting as it skimmed over the waves. The wake ahead of them wasn’t huge or impressive, just a long, rolling ridge left behind by a passing boat, smooth-edged and catching the sun.
Familiar calculation turned in Kyle’s head, the quiet, practiced math of speed and angle and timing. He’d done worse than this. Plenty worse. He could almost hear his old internal narrator lining it up like a highlight reel instead of a warning.
Tomas glanced over his shoulder. “You’re smiling like you’re about to do something stupid.”
“It’s not fun if it’s not stupid.”
He raced for it, not straight at first, Tomas following close.
The water changed under him, the Jet Ski bucking slightly as the surface shifted.
Kyle laughed again, loud this time, the sound ripped away by the wind as fast as it left him.
For a few seconds, he forgot to keep track of anything except Tomas’s position and the clean, physical joy of trying to beat him to a line only they cared about.
Tomas cut left, throwing up a fan of spray.
“Oh, fuck you.” Kyle followed, then swung wide to pass him, the engine’s pitch climbing as he leaned into the turn. The world narrowed to white glare and blue water and the solid, satisfying pull of acceleration.
He won by a nose.
“You wanker.” Tomas laughed.
“Skill,” Kyle called back. “Pure, devastating skill.”
He slowed, circled Tomas once, then drifted to his side, engine idling, the water rocking them gently. Kyle’s pulse thrummed, his arms pleasantly sore, his chest light.
Tomas gave him a knowing, pleased look. “See? You’re almost human again.”
Almost. But not quite. Still, he felt more like the Kyle who had bumbled his way into a cactus in the Mojave than the idiot who’d driven his ex-girlfriend into Wyoming and been arrested for it.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Kyle said. “I have a reputation to maintain.”
He took off again, not racing this time, just cutting across open water, letting speed do what speed always did and scrape the edges off his thoughts.
Out here, it was easier to put Sloan behind him.
All the things that had been chewing on him—the metal handcuffs cutting into his wrists, the thought of Evan finding a way to “win,” the way Sloan looked in his shirt—faded to the background of wind and clean horizon.
Another wake rolled through ahead of him, bigger than the last one. Taller, steeper, the kind that made the Jet Ski rise and fall in a more noticeable way.
Gun it.
He told himself he was just going to skim it. Just enough to feel the lift.
Tomas lifted one hand, not quite a warning, not quite a dare. “Don’t get cocky,” he shouted over the roar.
Kyle practically rolled his eyes.
He lined himself up without really thinking about it, muscle memory taking over. The engine’s note crept higher. The Jet Ski surged forward, the hull growing lighter over the water.
The rise, the brief weightless float, the clean slap back down.
Perfection.
His holler came out wild and surprised.
“Okay, okay,” Tomas called, catching up to him. “Show-off.”
Kyle grinned and circled back, feeling loose now, warmed up, and confident. The water ahead of them was busier here, cut with overlapping paths from boats and other riders. The surface wasn’t as predictable, but it didn’t look dangerous either. Just . . . more interesting. More of a challenge.
A larger wake farther out, longer and steeper, beckoned him. That would give a better lift if he hit it right.
He didn’t tell Tomas he was aiming for it.
He pushed the throttle, feeling the engine climb—the vibration deepen under him. The Jet Ski answered like it logically should—eagerly. The wind tore at his face, and his eyes watered behind his sunglasses.
And as he neared, Sloan’s voice roared into his head. “You don’t have to keep proving you’re alive.”
He shoved the thought away.
I have this. I’m not trying to prove anything.
The wake rushed up faster than he expected.
He adjusted his angle, a small correction, then another. The nose lifted—higher this time. Higher than it should have .
For a split second, a familiar, floating quiet filled his head, the one that always came with airtime. The horizon dropped away. The world tilted.
Oh fuck.
The front dipped too sharply.
The impact slammed through him, and his breath ripped out of his chest in a brutal, useless rush.
Pain detonated across his shoulder and ribs, bright and blinding and everywhere, and the handlebars wrenched sideways, tearing at his arms. Something inside him cracked or tore— he couldn’t tell what—oh fuck .
He hit the Jet Ski again, hard, and then the water, harder. Cold and noise swallowed him. His lungs burned, refusing to work the way they were supposed to, a blur of stinging salt and blue and dark.
For a stupid, distant second, his brain latched on to the wrong details—the shape of the sun through the water, the ridiculous thought of his phone in his lanyard . . .
A memory of Sloan’s brown hair gleaming in the sun as she stepped onto the sidewalk of a salon in Vail.
Then everything went white and disappeared.