She had her very own room in the house! It was a room that was twice the size of the room she and Gracie shared at home, with a bed that was also twice the size of hers, a walk-in closet, her very own bathroom (complete with a bathtub with little jets that shot water out), and a window that looked out over the ocean! The house had a pool table, a pinball machine, something called a shuffleboard table, refrigerators that were endlessly stocked with Pepsi, a bitchin’ stereo system with a huge collection of CDs, and a big screen TV with a huge collection of recorded movies. There was a radical housekeeper named Elsa, who talked with a British accent, called her “Miss Chastity”, did her laundry for her (as long as she emptied her pockets and put it in the hamper), fixed snacks for them throughout the day, made awesome breakfasts and dinners, and then cleaned everything up afterward herself (as long as they finished what was placed on their plates and as long as they put everything else in the places she had designated they be put). And there was a hot tub out on the edge of the cliff the house sat on; a hot tub that she was allowed to use as much as she wanted. And she used it quite frequently, sitting out there for hours at a time, staring out at that amazing expanse of blue water that was the Pacific Ocean until her skin became wrinkled like a prune.
Their first full day in Oceano they had spent mostly in the huge sand dunes along the beach, riding four-wheel ATVs with big flags sticking up from the rear. She and Gracie had been allowed to each have their own ATV to themselves! And after the day of riding, they had come back to the home, taken showers in their private bathrooms, and been served a meal of homemade chicken tacos, refried beans, and Spanish rice.
Uncle Jake and Aunt Laura had the friggin’ life! And all because he knew how to play his guitar and sing a little! Friggin’ amazing!
But none of that could even come close to comparing to what was going to happen today.
“Relax, Chase,” Uncle Jake said with a smile, obviously picking up on her thoughts to some degree. Uncle Jake was a very perceptive guy (and, she could not help but think, pretty friggin’ hot in a bad-boy sort of way—after all, he wasn’t a
“You think so?” she asked.
“I know so,” he assured her. He seemed about to say something else, but then his attention was suddenly distracted. “Ohh, here it is,” he said reaching for the volume button on the car’s radio screen.
“That song you were talking about?” Chase asked.
“That song I was talking about,” he said. “It’s debuting this morning. Let’s listen. Tell me what you think about it.”
“Okay,” she said, sensing that he was not just trying to shut her up so that
The DJ on the local alternative rock station was introducing the new tune to the listening audience—a large portion of which were college students from Cal Poly. “ ... from a band called