Read Online Cross Me Off Your List by Nikki Godwin - Free Book Online Page B

forward. “Horn Island ain’t
exactly Crescent Cove, if you didn’t notice,” he snaps. “So yeah,
our pier collapsed a few years ago. It wasn’t the strongest, and
the water wore away at the wood, and BAM. Fucking collapsed one
day.”
    I definitely shouldn’t have asked about the
pier. I regret it, totally and completely regret it. I want to
interrupt and apologize, but I’m too scared to speak up. Now I can
see why he’s a Hooligan. The name fits. I would not want to get on
his bad side.
    “And no, we don’t bother to haul it away
because Shark McAllister was going to do that, but he died before
he could,” Miles says. “And I’ll tell you right now, not a damn
person in Horn Island goes against what Shark McAllister wanted,
got it?”
    Emily rushes back into the scream fest and
pushes her boyfriend back, reminding him that we’re not from here
and that I was just asking a question. Miles apologizes – more to
Emily than to us – and Noah interjects with a question to change
the subject.
    “Are there any piers in Crescent Cove that
you can actually jump off of?” he asks, secretly bringing up item
number ten on my list.
    Kale laughs. “There’s only one pier anywhere
around here that you could jump off of without going to jail, and
you’re looking at it,” he says.
    Theo stumbles back down toward us, the beer
in his bottle sloshing around with his wobbly steps. “Shark was
going to keep that wood,” he says, looking at the pier. “I don’t
know what the fuck he was going to do with it, but he wanted it
because that was our pier. He always said it was a piece of Horn
Island history.”
    We all stand in awkward silence for a while
before Emily asks the obvious question. “You have to jump off a
pier for your list, don’t you?”
    “Item number ten,” I reply. “My former friend
said she knew of some places in LA where we could jump. I’m sure
hers were intact, though.”
    Theo steps ahead of us. “Well there’s only
one thing left to do. We gotta fucking jump,” he says.
    Miles agrees, but Emily pulls him back,
arguing about his sponsorship and how he can’t risk injury. He
concedes, against his will. Kale agrees to stay back with him, but
his reason is simply because he doesn’t want to mangle his
face.
    “I’m jumping,” Theo says, forcing his beer
bottle into Kale’s hand.
    “Are you sure?” Noah asks. “You seem a
little, you know, drunk.”
    Theo shakes his head. “I can’t get drunk
enough,” he says. “Trust me. I can drink myself to death, and I’d
still see the things I’m running from.”
    I glance at Miles and Emily, hoping one of
them can talk some sense into him, but there are clearly
circumstances I know nothing about. This time, I’m not about to
ask.
    “Alright then,” I say. “Let’s go climb this
broken thing before the sun is completely gone. Has anyone, by
chance, been on this thing since it collapsed?”
    Miles shakes his head. “Shark was the last
one,” he says. “It was already prohibited before it went down. But
he was rebellious and all that shit. He did whatever he wanted.
That’s why he was Shark McAllister.”
    Shark McAllister. Why does that sound so
freaking familiar? I know I haven’t heard of anyone named Shark or
else I’d remember that one.
    “Oh my God,” I say, clicking pieces of the
puzzle together in my head. “Was he a photographer?”
    “You know his work?” Miles asks.
    I shake my head. “The boating place. And
Drenaline Surf. They had shark photos by some guy. Something
McAllister?”
    “Jake,” Theo says. “His name was Jake, but
everyone called him Shark. He built Drenaline Surf. He built that
place from the ground up. Then he died because…things happened. Are
we jumping or not? That sunset won’t last forever.”
    “We’re jumping,” I confirm. I empty my
pockets and hand my cell phone to Emily for safekeeping. Noah does
the same.
    “I need documentation,” I tell her. Emily
says she’ll film our