Chapter Six
—JAMIE
The sheriff’s station is quiet as we walk inside to report that my boat is missing. Jordan approaches the desk clerk, and he tells us to have a seat and wait for the sheriff. Jordan pauses there, seeming embarrassed by the dismissal, but then she walks proudly toward the chairs in the back.
I assumed having Jordan with me would help speed up the process, but the officer doesn’t seem impressed or intimidated by her—which is kind of surprising. Maybe even a little refreshing. I thought the Augustus Resort had pretty much taken over the entire town at this point.
Jordan sits outside the sheriff’s door, and I take a spot next to her in the hard plastic chairs.
Looking around the station, it’s incredibly small—just three desks plus the sheriff’s actual office.
The fluorescent lights above the entrance flicker and the air conditioner rattles in the window.
It smells like burned tires, like old gym mats.
Doesn’t appear that they’re working with a very big budget around here.
Just a few months ago, I was sitting in a much larger police station with my head throbbing and my body tense as I waited for my parents to pick me up.
Turns out, sneaking away from your prestigious boarding school to go to a party at the local college is frowned upon, especially when you set off the fire alarm sprinklers while trying to get back inside.
It didn’t go on my permanent record, but it did, in fact, get me kicked out of school.
Which is why I finished my degree online, sabotaging years of gathering gold stars for my Ivy League applications.
Sitting here now, I’m starting to get a little anxious. How long before my parents notice I’m gone? What if they notice the boat is gone? I check my phone and see that I haven’t missed any calls, so that has to be a good sign.
Hoping for a distraction, I turn to Jordan as she swipes aimlessly through her phone apps, looking painfully bored. She’s out of place here, too elegant, too stiff.
“Thank you, by the way,” I tell her, drawing her attention. “I really appreciate this.”
“It’s fine,” she says with a shrug. “I wasn’t doing anything anyway.”
I watch her for a moment before nodding my thanks again.
Since lunch, Jordan has returned to her old self, the vulnerable girl staring at the breadbasket now safely tucked away.
She’s back to being fake, although “fake” feels too harsh.
She’s polished. Personally, I like her better without all the shine.
The front door of the station swings opens wildly, and suddenly, there’s a flurry of movement, shouts and stomping feet. A group of teenagers is being ushered inside, escorted by two officers and the sheriff himself. And they’ve got their hands full.
“Oh great,” Jordan mutters.
The dark-haired girl in the front of the group is clearly hyped up, looking like she’s ready to fight someone. A small smile pulls at the corners of my mouth when I see her.
“Let go of him,” she shouts at one of the officers as another holds her arm. “Tech should be at the hospital, not here. This is negligence. I’m filing a complaint.” She yanks away from the officer’s grasp and tries to pull the other one off her friend.
“Knock it off,” the sheriff tells the girl firmly. To my surprise, she does quiet down, staring daggers at him instead. He takes out a notepad, flipping through the pages.
A phone rings loudly, echoing around the room.
As one of the officers snatches the receiver off the desk, he looks warily at the kid in the glasses, as if anticipating that it’s about him.
For his part, Tech really does seem shell-shocked by the entire thing.
His clothes are filthy, soaked in what looks like mud all the way up to his chin.
He literally looks like someone dragged him out of the marsh.
The other girl, a blonde in a baseball cap, walks over to sit at one the desks. An officer chases behind her, trying to keep up. Once there, the girl reaches over to take a sip out of the guy’s coffee mug.
“Shawn,” he says in exasperation, and snatches it back from her.
Jordan shifts uncomfortably beside me, her posture rigid. “And now we get to spend our afternoon with the Chasers,” she announces. “Awesome.” She holds herself up, as if pretending they don’t exist.
But they aren’t making it easy on her. Shawn turns and locks eyes with Jordan. When she does, she blows a kiss in her direction—sweet, mockingly innocent—and in the same breath, flips her off.
Jordan’s eyes narrow for just a moment, but she doesn’t bite. She doesn’t flinch. Her lips press into a tight line, and I can almost see the walls go up around her. It’s a type of protection.
“Delinquents,” Jordan murmurs. Her voice is tight, but there’s more underneath it—something deeper.
Fear or frustration. She thinks she’s better than them.
She doesn’t hate them because they’re rough around the edges.
She hates them because they make her feel powerless, and she doesn’t do powerless.
It’s clear they know how to press her buttons, and they do it on purpose.
I watch as Jordan begins to twist her bracelet again, a nervous twitch. I can’t help but wonder why she cares so much. She’s got enough to deal with from her mother. I have no idea why she’d let a group of locals get under her skin.
As I try to make sense of the situation, I turn back to this group of misfits. In my mind, I can’t stop hearing my father warn me about the type of people I should surround myself with. Yeah, these guys are definitely at the top of the avoid list. Which I always liked about them.
The sheriff’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “Let’s go,” he says, sounding frustrated as he takes the arm of the shouty dark-haired girl and leads her toward his office.
On the way past us, the girl’s eyes pause on mine. I feel the weight of her gaze, like she’s sizing me up. And for a second, I wonder what she sees. But then her eyes drift past me like I’m not even really here. Like I’m invisible. It stings a little. Maybe a lot.
She walks into the office with the sheriff, and the door closes with a soft click. Now contained, the precinct falls into an uneasy quiet. It’s actually quite unsettling. I feel like I’ve missed something important. I wonder what they did to end up here.
“I need some air,” Jordan says, slipping her phone into her purse as she gets up. “I’ll be outside. Just text me when you’re done.”
“Oh,” I say surprised. “Do you want me to—?”
“No,” she says, without waiting to hear the rest. She strides through the office, her back straight and confident. She and the Chasers aggressively ignore one another on her way past them.
Suddenly, the sheriff’s door flies open, and the girl comes stomping out, slamming it closed behind her.
She’s barefoot and sun-kissed and half covered in dried sand.
She drops down in the seat directly next to me, the legs of the chair screeching and sand flinging over my feet.
The office door opens back up, and the sheriff appears.
“Stay there,” he tells her sternly. She turns away from him. The short man in the gray uniform glances at me, but doesn’t break character to acknowledge that I’m waiting for him.
The sheriff goes back inside his office, slamming the door once again.
The entire precinct seems to hold its breath.
Even I’m struck silent. The girl leans back against the chair, her shoulder just an inch from mine.
We sit quietly. There are several open seats on either side of us, but neither of us gets up to move.
Finally, I turn to her. She’s literally gorgeous. She’s a breath of salt and vanilla. Her skin is deeply tanned with dots of freckles over her nose, her eyes a browner shade of hazel—and I’m just going to say it—she really is a siren. She always has been.
“Hi, Noa,” I say simply.
She turns to me, annoyed. “So you’re friends with Jordan Miles now?” she says like an accusation.
I’m not entirely sure how to answer at first, but I think Jordan and I have turned a corner.
“Yeah,” I say. I motion to the people she came in with. “And seems you’re all as tight as ever?” At that moment, Shawn puts her muddy sneakers up on the officer’s desk in an act of defiance. Irritated, the guy swats her legs away, telling her to behave.
Noa smiles. “Best friends,” she replies.
“I’m glad to hear it,” I say. We fall quiet again.
“So… how are you?” she asks after a few minutes. “It’s been a long time.”
“Two years,” I say. She nods, eyes narrowed.
“Two years,” she repeats flatly. Coldly, as if letting me know it’s too long to ever come back from.
That was the last time I saw her. Saying goodbye on the beach, promising to meet her the next day. Flying back to Connecticut instead and never answering her calls. I’m not proud of how I handled it, but my life imploded. She wasn’t the only thing I lost that summer.
“Well,” Noa says with a shrug. “You should know that you can do better than Jordan Miles.”
I fight back my smile, appreciating the compliment. She tilts her head.
“Don’t you even want to know why I’m in here?” she blurts out as if she’s been waiting for me to ask.
I shrug. “I’m a little curious.”
“My friends and I needed a boat,” she says. “It was an emergency.”
I’m a bit stunned, holding my expression still, even as my blood pressure starts to rise.
“We weren’t stealing it,” she continues, oblivious to my darkening mood. “We fully planned to return it before anyone noticed—but shit went sideways. Clearly,” she adds, motioning around to the police station.
“Clearly,” I repeat, my voice tight.
“And sure,” she adds. “The boat got a little damaged, but it’s not like the owner can’t afford to fix it, right? I mean, there’s a thing called insurance.”
I swallow hard. “How badly damaged?” I ask.
“Barely a dent,” she says, measuring an inch with her fingertips. “It’s fine.”
Although I’m relieved that the damage sounds minor, it still sucks. I’m trying to think of who I know around town that can fix a boat when Noa starts talking again.
“This was a onetime thing,” she defends. “I never do stuff like this, but today… those assholes from the resort crossed a line. You have to understand,” she says earnestly, “I would never steal—borrow,” she corrects, “from someone who didn’t deserve it.”
“But you didn’t know who the boat belonged to,” I reply, annoyed.
“Are you worried it belonged to Jordan?” she asks as if I’m missing the point.
“Because it doesn’t—her family partners with the huge dock down at Sunset.
And listen, don’t judge me. It’s not that bad.
Shawn and Tech wanted to take the yacht, but I convinced them to take the smaller boat. I was responsible.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” I say. The yacht actually belongs to my father, so either way, she was screwing over my family.
“So you stole a boat,” I say, wanting the rest of the story. “I hope you did something fun with it, at least.”
“Uh, sure,” she replies, widening her eyes. “I got Tech locked in a Prohibition-era jail where he nearly drowned. Luckily, the coast guard was close by and got him out in time. Let’s just say it’s been a busy day.”
“Sounds it. Same here, though,” I tell her.
She furrows her brow, looking me over. “Yeah?” she asks, curious. “Big day at the fancy resort? How did you end up in Sheriff Dipshit’s precinct?”
“Turns out,” I say, leaning toward her, “someone stole my boat. Weird, right?”
She stares at me, red rising on her cheeks. After a moment, she actually looks pissed at me for telling her. “You serious?” she asks. “It was your boat? When did you get a fucking boat?”
“The Sweet Caroline,” I say. “All mine.”
The door to the sheriff’s office opens again, and he comes out to impatiently wave Noa back inside. She gets up, but before she leaves, she turns to me and shrugs apologetically.
“I didn’t know it was your boat,” she offers. When I don’t respond, she fixes her jaw in a pissed-off expression. “Whatever,” she says, and shakes her head. “You do you, Jamie. Like you always have.”
My heart drops. Her voice is cold, detached, and somehow that hurts worse than if she yelled at me.
“Yeah,” I agree sarcastically. “Well, it’s too bad you stole and wrecked my boat, or I could have taken you out for a ride.”
The sheriff curses under his breath and reaches to take Noa’s arm, pulling her inside the office. “Stop talking to the victim,” he warns her in a hushed tone, sounding like a worried parent.
When he turns back to me, the sheriff looks older than I remember—the lines around his eyes cut deeper, exhaustion seeming to cling to him.
“James Matthews,” he says, more tired than surprised to see me again.
“Jamie,” I correct quietly.
He nods slowly, his gaze traveling over me. “Right,” he murmurs. “You always hated the formal stuff. Haven’t seen you since you stopped coming around the Surf Shack.”
I lower my eyes, not sure how much he knows.
He sighs through his entire body. “Anyway,” he adds. “Your boat is impounded for now, but we’re working on getting it released from the coast guard. You should be able to pick it up at the dock tomorrow.”
There’s a pause, as if he’s weighing every word before saying it.
“Now, we can file an official report,” he continues. “Or you can go through insurance. Restitution is on the table too, if you want it. Your call, but—”
“No charges,” I cut in. “I just want my boat back.”
“Understood,” he replies quickly, seeming relieved. “You’ll have it back tomorrow.” He hesitates, then adds, “That’s really decent of you.”
He gives me a short nod, then turns and disappears into his office, the door clicking shut behind him.
Decent. I’m glad he thinks so, although my motivations aren’t really centered around being decent to the people who stole my boat. Less paperwork means less chance my father will find out it was ever missing. Inside the office, voices start to rise as Noa and the sheriff shout at each other.
I stand up, glancing at the door. I can’t believe Noa tried to sound innocent, as if I’m some tourist who doesn’t know any better. I’ve been around for wild nights with the Chasers before, so I’m not clueless. And it is definitely not the first time she’s stolen a boat.
Walking toward the desk, I see Shawn watching me with a smirk. She quickly averts her gaze when I catch her.
“Don’t bother saying anything,” I call to her, and she covers her smile with her palm. “I have every right to be mad at her right now.”
She holds up her hands in surrender, but I know exactly what she was thinking. She’s wrong. Noa is the one who messed up this time, and it doesn’t matter that I used to be in love with her.