All Trey’s father wants him to do is be nice to the homophobic class bully, his business partner's son. But that’s like trying to mix oil and gasoline: explosive. So Trey decides to run away, which is hard to do on a rainy, muddy, haunted night on the small island of Maui. Another kid in school, Chris, stood up for Trey against the bully and was badly beaten for his efforts. Which makes Trey wonder if Chris is gay, too, or just a brave ally. Trey doesn’t know, but there’s clearly something brewing between them. When Trey’s dad expects him to go to the bully’s birthday party, Trey sneaks off to go surfing instead. Hitchhiking to the beach, he meets up with an interesting old geezer, who just might be able to help him figure out what he’s going through. Will the forces on this fiery island break apart Trey and Chris? Or is there hope for something more than friendship between them buried under the Maui ash?

Spring Tide Love

I was videoing one of the jocks making a fool of himself when it clicked to me that I really hadn’t seen Ryan for a while. I popped up above water and looked around. There, there he was, way out much farther than he had any reason to be, huddled on his hands and knees, clutching the board like the life-raft it was, and his mouth open like he was screaming his lungs out.


Of course I was rather far out too by now and I saw the board a jock had just fallen off shooting toward shore without the stupid jock, who was way too cool to wear the ankle leash. Why hadn’t Coach made everyone use their ankle leashes? Mano had taught him to always wear the leash! Coach was farther in pulling the jock up onto his own board. That left me. I tried to holler toward Coach, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t hear me, so I put my snorkel back in my mouth, submerged, and started swimming with the rip current after Ryan. I would have taken the board but it was floating away from where I needed to go.


Chapter 7