Dawn by McKayla Box

Chapter 19

We walk outside and down to his backyard, which bumps up against the bay. We sit down in a couple of beach chairs on the grass. The sun is trying to burn through the gray sky and the wind is still blowing. My hair is half-dry now and loose strands whip against my cheek, despite my efforts to tuck them behind my ear.

“I didn’t want to have a conversation inside,” Trevor tells me. “In case Sunny was listening.”

“Right,” I say, even though I still don’t understand what the hell is going on.

“Don’t be pissed at me.”

“What do you expect me to be, Trevor?” I ask. “I’m not really into all of this weird ass, vague cloak-and-dagger shit.”

He sighs. “I know you’re not. Okay. Let me ask you a question. Do you trust me?”

I level my gaze on him. “That’s a loaded question.”

“Maybe, but right now, as of this second, do you trust me?” he asks.

I think for a moment. “Yes. I trust you.”

He exhales, like he was holding his breath. “Okay. Good. I swear to god, Pres, I’m not lying to you about anything. I haven’t and I won’t. I know I’ve said that before, but I want to say it again so that you know. I love you and I won’t lie to you and I won’t hurt you. There is no other girl or any of that shit. My life has been boring as shit without you.” He smiles. “I’m not interested in anyone or anything else.”

Butterflies flit around inside my stomach.

Dammit.

It’s so hard to stay mad at him.

Because I believe him.

“I’m not, either,” I tell him. “And I love you, too.”

He reaches over and takes my hand. His touch sends a wave of emotions through me. “And you know that I’m loyal to the people that matter to me. Probably to the point that it’s not always a good thing. Right?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“My friends are the most important thing to me,” he says. “You and my family and my friends. And anyone that’s important to you. Those are the people that matter, and I’ll do anything I can to help them.”

“I know that,” I tell him. “But this is starting to freak me out.”

He intertwines his fingers with mine. “I’ve told you that Brett has…some stuff going on. I know that’s not super specific and sounds shady, but he does. And I’m trying to help him.”

“I saw him at The Hut,” I tell him. “He looks terrible. And I’m not trying to be mean. But he looks…bad.”

Trevor nods. “I know. He’s not in a great spot right now.”

“What’s going on with him then?” I ask. “You know I care about him, too.”

“I know you do.” He thinks for a long second. “He’s been fucked up since you guys left. Been fucked up over Jake. I think I was, too, but in a different way. For Brett, it’s been…bad. I think he feels guilty. Feels like he could’ve done something. And he just misses Jake. I do, too, but for whatever reason, it him harder. Or different. I don’t know.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” I say. “It was fucking Kane’s fault.”

“I know that,” he says. “I think everyone knows that. But he can’t get that through his head. So he’s been in a bad place. And he started doing some stupid shit.”

“Like?”

“Drinking like crazy to start,” he says. “I mean, like every night. And not like a beer, but like a case. Just blackout, shit-faced drunk. Sleep it off and start again. I let it go for a week or so because I didn’t think it was my place to say anything and it’s not like I’m perfect, so I didn’t say shit. I drank with him a couple times. Thought that would be it.” He pauses. “But it wasn’t.”

I squeeze his hand as he looks toward the bay.

“So then he starts not showing up to surf in the mornings,” he says. “And I got on him a little bit and he said he would chill. But then he was just avoiding me. Not returning my texts, not meeting me at the beach. Nothing. I knew something was up. I couldn’t find him for like three days.” He pauses again. “And then he shows up one morning at the beach and he’s got a shit ton of cash. Like ten grand.”

“From where?”

Trevor laughs and shakes his head. “Vegas. He’d gone to Vegas and won. And I don’t really know all that happened, but he was happy and he hadn’t been happy in forever and I didn’t wanna fuck that up, so I was just, like, okay cool. But then he disappeared again. And when he came back, this time he didn’t have shit. He didn’t win, he lost.”

“Big?”

He nods. “Big. But what I didn’t know was that he was gambling here, too.”

I frown at him. “Here? In Sunset?”

He nods. “Yep. He got into some card games. And not the kind where everyone brings twenty bucks. The kind where people bring about two thousand. Big pots. Big payouts.” He pauses. “And big losses.”

I shake my head. “Jesus.”

“And he was still drinking, so it’s not like he was even playing with a clear head or whatever,” he explains. “He was fucked up and just making everything worse.” He pauses. “Until he hit the bottom.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he was taking out loans in order to cover his losses until his losses got so big that the loans were called and he was fucked,” Trevor says. “He owes a shit ton of money. To the wrong fucking guy. And I know that sounds like it’s from some bad movie, but it’s the truth. A lot of money to the wrong guy.”

My head starts to spin. When I saw Brett, I knew he wasn’t right. I knew he looked terrible. And the other girls had heard the rumors, too. But I couldn’t have imagined it was this bad.

“So what is he doing?” I ask. “I mean…what the hell does he even do now?”

Trevor leans back in his chair. “So I go over to his house one night. And he’s in the backyard, just sitting on the grass with a bottle of rum. His parents are nowhere to be found, so he’s just in the yard, drinking himself to death. I took the bottle from him and he wanted to fight me. But he was so drunk already, there wasn’t gonna be a fight. He chased me around the yard for a minute or two and then just passed out. I picked him up, put him in my truck, and drove him to the beach. I dragged his ass down the sand and threw him in the water.” He chuckles. “That woke him up. Didn’t sober him up, but it got him on his feet.” He pauses and looks at the water again. “And then he just starts crying. Just bawling and it all just comes out. How he’s drunk all the time and how he started gambling and playing in these fucking games and how he just kept thinking it would turn around and it didn’t and now he was totally fucked and he’d rather be dead.” He looks at me. “That’s when I knew I had to help him. He was talking about killing himself and I don’t think he was just saying it, Pres. He was in really, really bad shape.”

I squeeze his hand. My heart hurts for both Trevor and Brett. “I believe you.”

“I kept him here for a couple of days to dry him out and figure out exactly what was going on,” he explains. “He didn’t want to tell me, but I finally got it all out of him. Turns out the guy he borrowed all this money from wanted it back. It was either that or Brett would go to work for him.”

“Go to work?” I ask, confused.

He nods. “Yeah. But I figured that Brett was in such bad shape he couldn’t do anything on his own right then. So I told him I’d go with him. We’d go talk to this guy and we’d make a deal and we’d get it done.” He looks at me. “So what you saw with me in the parking lot? Me handing over an envelope?” He shrugs. “That’s just me knocking down the debt.”

I take a deep breath, exhale.

Everything he told me…not gonna lie. It’s a lot to take in.

But at least I know.

At least I know I’m not crazy and he’s not running around behind my back.

“Okay,” I tell him. “So what are you doing exactly? And who is this guy?”

He looks at me for a long moment. “That’s the part I can’t tell you.”