Summer's Last Breath

Part 26

Volleyball was over for me, but my dad giving me permission to see Jamie took the sting out of our loss in the semi-finals of the tournament. I was taking a few weeks off and after that workouts would begin again. I had a tryout for a traveling club team in a couple of months, and I was determined to be ready. When I wasn't at school and Jamie wasn't training, we were together.

Tonight he'd brought me to Pirates, his favorite place to eat. Pirates was a back-porch-style restaurant overlooking the Gulf. As the locals would say, it was where "those people" hung out.

"Thanks, Joe." Jamie nodded at the basket of fried shrimp Joe, the owner/cook/waiter/busboy, put in front of him, then dug in with the relish of a starving man. Jamie consumed shrimp baskets the way most people drank glasses of tea. This was his third one.

The place was empty with the exception of the guy who'd been leaning against the bar when we walked in—Sol Kelley. I'd never spoken to him but I'd heard of him. Specifically, my dad had told me to steer clear of him.

Jamie had nodded to him when we'd walked in, but they hadn't spoken. Sol had oddly dark eyes and his silver-blond hair roped down his back in long coils. He was also a chain smoker, the pungent smell of whatever he was smoking tickling my nose.

I watched Jamie finish off his third basket of shrimp, laughing as he covertly eyed my grouper fingers.

"Go ahead," I said, scooting the basket across the table.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm full."

The amount of food he could put away in one sitting continued to amaze me.

As Jamie dug into what was left in my basket, the door opened and a girl and a guy walked in, and though I tried not too, it was impossible not to stare. The girl was tall and willowy with long pinkish hair and sharp violet eyes, and somehow she made the combination look sophisticated instead of animated. The guy was similarly striking with deep brown skin and thick dreads over a pair of cobalt eyes I thought had to be contact lenses. The girl headed for the bar and sidled up to Sol. When Dreads spotted Jamie, he headed for us.

"Hey, man," Dreads said, fist bumping Jamie then sliding onto the bench next to me.

"Erin, this is Cree," Jamie said, slapping Cree's hand when he tried to steal his last shrimp.

Cree was slightly intimidating and borderline mean looking with the blue-heat of his eyes until an easy smile spread over his lips. "What are you doing with stingy?"

He made another grab for a finger, his elbow bumping mine in the process, drawing my attention to the outline of the eels winding around his forearm and elbow to the top of his shoulder.

"Cool tattoo," I said, resisting the urge to scoot over because they looked so real and oddly .gif-like.

"Thanks. I've got one more session to fill it in."

Jamie snorted. I presumed he wasn't a big fan of tattoos. I knew some girls found them sexy, but I couldn't imagine wanting Jamie to cover up one inch of his gorgeous skin.

"You're Marshall Shaw's daughter," Cree stated.

My dad's reputation proceeded me. He was a friendly, one of the few in a position of authority, as limited as that authority was, and I guess that made me a friendly too.

"Guilty," I said and blushed under Cree's open perusal.

I felt welcome enough in this place that acted as a haven for Jamie and his kind—his tribe. None of them had made me feel like an outsider. That was until Sol sauntered his way over to our table wearing an insolent expression as though my presence here were barely tolerable.