Chasing Islands

Chasing Islands

Nikki Chartier

Copyright © 2021 by Nikki Chartier

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Author note: This book was previously published as part of the West Coast Hooligans series.

For Nicole Swerdloff, Topher’s biggest fan

Chasing Forever Down, book #1

Rough Waters, book #2

Always Summer, book #3

With You Around, book #4

Deep Blue Forever, book #5

Chasing Swells, book #6

Chasing Aloha, book #7

Chasing Islands, book #8

More coming soon!

Contents

1.Chapter 1

2.Chapter 2

3.Chapter 3

4.Chapter 4

5.Chapter 5

6.Chapter 6

7.Chapter 7

8.Chapter 8

9.Chapter 9

10.Chapter 10

11.Chapter 11

12.Chapter 12

13.Chapter 13

14.Chapter 14

15.Chapter 15

16.Chapter 16

17.Chapter 17

18.Chapter 18

19.Chapter 19

20.Chapter 20

21.Chapter 21

22.Chapter 22

23.Chapter 23

Epilogue

Thank You!

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Sloane

Frat boys are the worst, Daphne says, a harsh groan under her breath once she speaks the words. She stomps across the hotel room holding a condom wrapper at arm’s length. Can they not throw it away after the fact?

I shrug. At least it’s just the wrapper and not something that’s been used.

She drops the wrapper in the trash can and cringes visibly. I need to sanitize these rubber gloves now, she says, holding her hands away from her. Why didn’t I take that waitress job at Triton Pizza Company? I could’ve had discounted garlic bread sticks and pasta.

I finish wiping down the phone and bedside table before I walk over to where she stands, a pouty look on her otherwise pretty face. Her chestnut-colored hair is pulled back in a high ponytail that reminds me of a high school cheerleader.

If you worked at Triton Pizza Company, you wouldn’t have met me, I tell her. I motion for her to sit on the bed, and I sit next to her. Yeah, discounted pizza is great, but all that grease? Could you imagine how much money you’d spend on face masks to clear that up? And you wouldn’t even have me to join you for at-home spa retreats.

I don’t mention the fact that I wouldn’t survive this job without her. When the Poseidon Key Resort sold two months ago, I never dreamed it would have the impact on my family that it’s had. We knew things could change, but I don’t think anyone saw my dad’s job loss coming. He’d been with the company nearly twenty years. A change in ownership was all it took, though.

Dad was in denial. Mom was frantic. My older brother Will had the ‘I told you so’ attitude, and I sat back and watched the mansion walls crumble down around me. Will said this could very likely happen, and I hadn’t believed him because I couldn’t fathom anything bad ever happening to our family.

We were the Harringtons, and we did well for ourselves. Dad worked hard in his financial position, and Mom volunteered everywhere she could. She had connections anywhere and everywhere. I thought we’d be just fine, but I was wrong – incredibly wrong.

Daphne sighs. You’re right, I guess, she surrenders. It would suck to watch rom-coms and wear face masks alone. But waitresses make tips, so there’s another perk.

I narrow my eyes at her. Are you really going to leave me alone working at the resort that fired my dad? C’mon, you can’t make me take that walk of shame past the reception desk by myself every morning, I say.

Working at Poseidon Key Resort wasn’t my first choice, but the housekeeping manager was sympathetic to my circumstances. Dad didn’t want Will or me to worry about the financial impact his job loss would cause, and since Will moved out just before the world crashed down, he didn’t have to.

But Mom’s volunteer work didn’t look as great on a resume as job experience, and Dad wasn’t able to find an accounting job that paid even a fraction of what Poseidon Key Resort paid him after twenty years of service. My parents refused to let me help pay the bills, but I wouldn’t dare ask them for a cent when I know how much we’re struggling.

That’s how I ended up making beds, vacuuming carpets, and picking up half-eaten hamburgers and condom wrappers from the floors in hotel rooms. It’s not glamorous, and I don’t broadcast my occupation to anyone, but it helps fund the road trips to see my friend Sunflower and her family across the island in Forbidden Reef.

I hate you sometimes, Daphne mumbles. You know I’m not going to make you walk past Courtney and her iced green tea without backup.

Let’s finish making this bed and get the trash out. By the time we finish this room, it’ll be close enough to time to clock out, I tell her. Then we can talk about anything but this resort.

Thirty minutes later, we sit outside on the sand sipping lemonade that the kitchen staff let us swipe before shift change. Daphne shakes her hair loose from her ponytail and scrolls through social media on her phone.

A group of guys walk past us, laughing about God only knows what, when one of them says he needs to buy more condoms before a party he’s going to tonight. I wonder if he’s one of the messy occupants of room 314.

Ugh, Daphne says, rolling her eyes. They don’t pay us enough to clean up after these idiots. Imagine how bad it would be if we were a tourist location.

I shake my head because I’d rather not. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be? I ask.

Her lips scrunch to one side as she tilts her head, deep in thought. A dreamy look sweeps over her eyes, and she smiles.

New York City, she says. But it would be winter time. There’s snow on the ground, a slick layer of ice underneath. Snowflakes float around me, and I’m wearing the cutest pink and purple scarf and a matching beanie.

I try not to giggle as she sets the scene for her own perfect romantic comedy. So far, it sounds like a Hallmark Christmas movie, but I’m perfectly okay with that. Romance is romance, and I love a happy ending.

And there’s a realllly cute guy with me – about six foot two inches tall, dirty blonde hair, bright blue eyes that glisten alongside the snowflakes. His name would probably be something preppy and Ivy League like Everett or Clayton, she continues.

I considered myself a dreamer before, but Daphne takes things to a new level. She dreams big and far away, and I still dream within the limits of St. Catalina Island because I can’t imagine traveling the world or meeting a handsome stranger in a big city.

We’d go ice skating, even though I don’t know how, and he’d laugh because he grew up skating every weekend. He’d offer to teach me, and I would agree for the chance to stumble and fall into his strong arms. That’s when we’d have our eye-lock moment, under a streetlight, in the cold, while snowflakes dance around us, and Christmas lights twinkle in the background, Daphne says. That’s when everyone would say, ‘They’re going to end up together.’

I laugh. I expect a fully prepared script of this before Christmas, I say. I hope you know that. I deserve to know what trials and tribulations you and Everett-Clayton go through to reach your happy ending before the New Year rolls in.

Oh, shush. What about you? If you could teleport out of here to anywhere in the world, where would you be? she asks.

If I could be anywhere right now, I’d be in Sunflower’s backyard, listening to the waves swim in and the crackle of a summer night bonfire. She would play her guitar and sing whatever new song she’s writing while we charged our rose quartz crystals under the full moon. Her brothers would laugh from the ocean during a late night surf, and her friends’ dogs would bound around happily in the shoreline, leaving paw prints in the muddied sand.

Seriously, Sloane? Daphne asks, unimpressed. You can go to Sunflower’s house any time you want. You go there all the time. Is that really your dreamland right now?

Ever since Kaia and I took that road trip outside of Poseidon Key earlier in the summer, I’ve ached for another adventure like that, but I haven’t had the courage to take off on my own and explore somewhere new.

I guess I’ve been saving that journey for the right moment, and when it’s meant to happen, it will. Until then, Sunflower’s backyard is my dreamland because it’s peaceful and happy and makes me feel at home.

It’s my safe space, I say, shrugging like a little kid who was just embarrassed in front of her entire class. Since my parents lost our house, I haven’t had a familiar place to go. Our new house is fine, but it’s not home. Her house feels like a home.

A smirk grows on Daphne’s face. "I think you like it because her brothers are surfers and you can daydream about what it’d be like to be there with your favorite surfer boy, she teases. How is TopherBrooks23 doing today?"

Heat flushes my cheeks the instant she says his WaveSnap username. We’ve been messaging every waking moment we can since the week after Dominic and Kaia headed back to California. I’ve told him my hopes, dreams, and fears. He’s been my sounding board throughout my parents’ fall from luxury and my own rebuilding of my life due to that. He was my safe haven, my judgment-free zone.

We aren’t talking about him, I say. Not today. This is about you and your dreamy love story, not mine.

My old high school friends would have pitied me or potentially judged me for working as a housekeeper and moving out of a mansion to a small two-bedroom home on the outskirts of town. I was always Sloane-with-the-big-swimming-pool or Sloane-with-the-big-screen-TV. Now I am Sloane-who-sold-everything-to-survive.

Topher knows it all, though. He knows that I had big dreams to go to college, which we can’t afford now, and that I had lived a pampered life until recently. He knows about my current job and the shame I feel every morning when the new owner’s daughter laughs as I walk past the front desk while she sips her tea. He’s been my support system, my rock, my sanity.

He knows everything about me… except who I am. And that I know his friend Dominic. And that I obsessively stared at his pictures so desperately wanting to know him before I ever messaged him under my fake IslandGirl98 profile. He doesn’t know my real name, where I live, or what I look like.

But he knows my heart and soul.

Oh, c’mon, Sloane, Daphne says, a whine in her voice. I love hearing about your conversations with him. I know, I know – ‘He doesn’t even know who I am.’ Who cares? Romance is romance, and he’s feeling you as much as you’re feeling him. I think he actually enjoys the mystery of not knowing who you are.

I roll my eyes at her for dramatic effect. His friends are probably convincing him that I’m some 45-year-old single mom who is bored of her life and wants to relive her youth, I say, crashing back to reality.

Ohhhh, he’s told his friends about you? she asks.

Stop. I’m never going to meet him anyway, so it doesn’t matter, I remind her. And even if I did meet him, he would meet me as Sloane Harrington, not IslandGirl98. As far as the rest of the world knows, we’re not the same person, and you, my friend, are keeping that secret.

She zips her fingers across her lips, as annoyed as she may be about keeping my WaveSnap account where it is – on WaveSnap and not in the real world. As soon as we finish our lemonade, we stroll to the employee parking lot and part ways for the day.

But I’m not up for going ‘home.’ I need an escape for a bit, and since I can’t take a road trip right now, there’s one place I can go for a breath of fresh ocean air – my brother’s house.

Will doesn’t answer when I knock on the front door, so I twist the knob to see if it’s unlocked. The door creaks open, and I poke my head inside for a quick glance around. Music plays throughout the house, so I know he’s around somewhere.

Will? I call out. It’s Sloane. Where are you?

Kitchen! he calls out.

He stands over the stovetop with a dish rag in one hand and a bottle of cleaner in the other. His black muscle shirt clings to his skin. He’s wearing those tacky palm tree board shorts I always make fun of because he looks like a dork in them. He drops the rag and grabs his cell phone to pause his music.

You’re cleaning? I ask. You own this place. You don’t have a landlord to inspect, unless Mom’s coming to visit. Then I wouldn’t blame you because she expects everything to be immaculate.

Will laughs because he knows I’m being honest. Nah, Dominic’s actually coming to stay a few weeks, he says. So I thought I’d clean up a bit. This place ain’t the bungalows at the resort, but I’d like it to be presentable.

Kaia hasn’t mentioned another trip to the island. If she and Dominic were coming here for another surf mission, I think she would have told me. We could’ve already had another epic adventure mapped out by now.

Kaia didn’t mention a trip when we were texting the other day, I say.

She’s not coming, Will replies. He moves across the kitchen and grabs a broom to sweep the sand from his hardwood floors. Dominic hit me up recently and said he wanted to hang out while he was here. He was going to stay at the resort, but I told him they should just crash here. They’ll be in the water most of the time anyway, and I don’t charge a nightly fee.

They? If his coach is coming along, Kaia would obviously come too, I reason.

Will sighs and tosses his head back. You don’t listen. Kaia isn’t coming. Dominic is, and he’s bringing his friends with him – his surf crew, the Hooligans or something like that.

Oh. My. God. The West Coast Hooligans includes TopherBrooks23… or well, Topher. I swallow the lump in my throat, but I can’t find the words to speak. The Topher Brooks is coming to our island to surf in our waters and hang out on our beaches and stay in my brother’s house! The absolute guy of my dreams is going to be right here, having Taco Tuesdays in this kitchen.

"So he’s bringing all of his surf friends and