I don’t know what it is about him that makes me want to open up. I’ve been closed off from everyone since Dominic dumped me, and now I seem to want to spill all my insecurities. Maybe it’s because he’s new in town and knows absolutely no one who could blab how badly I want Dominic back. Or maybe it’s because he looks so otherworldly, it’s like he’s not even real. Most people would call him a redhead, but his hair is practically the same shade as the neon-orange buoy I grabbed on my way out of the stand. It’s supernaturally orange, but somehow he makes it seem natural. He has the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen, and a smattering of freckles over his pale white skin. My eyes do a close-up of his golden arm hairs. The way the sun glints off them makes him look like he’s covered in hundreds of minuscule jewels. His palms are perfectly smooth, not a single trace of a callus like the ones I have from holding scratchy plastic buoys all day and lifting weights for strength training. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but he looks fairylike? No. Angelic? That’s not it either.

A squeeze in my chest reminds me that I still think of Dominic like this. Like his slim pale arms (which he always said were too skinny but were actually perfect) and his pitch-black hair are the most beautiful things in the world. A mysterious stranger washing up outside the beach club isn’t enough to wash Dominic from my mind. Even just the moment of catching this guy by the arm reminded me of so many moments with Dominic, how he liked to loop his arm through mine or lace our fingers together when we kissed. But now he wants to do that with Miguel.

I shake my head to clear it of Dominic, and notice Orange staring at PCH with wide eyes. There are so many cars, his bright hair billows out from the wind in their wake. I bet he’s never seen traffic like this in Indiana.

“Yeah, people drive across PCH like they think they’re in a Fast and the Furious movie or something.”

Orange just half-heartedly laughs and I instantly hate myself for telling such a dad joke.

Thankfully the pedestrian sign changes to walk and I march across the street. I’m so focused on not looking like an idiot again that it takes me until I step on the other side to notice that Orange is not beside me. He’s standing on the opposite sidewalk, staring wide-eyed again between me and the line of cars waiting at the stoplight. His head snaps back and forth, back and forth, a look of terror etching itself deeper and deeper onto his face.