A/N: Thanks again to everyone for reading and reviewing. Just want to remind the readers that this story is going to be very long by the time it's all done, so please bear with me. I hope nobody gets bored and loses interest lol!

Chapter 8

Skip went in the back room for a minute and came out with a surfboard and some wetsuit gear. Nathan, Kathy and Jess filed out of the shop behind him. Outside, Skip turned to the closest person to him, which happened to be Jess, and handed her the surfboard. "Hold this for me while I lock up," he told her, not bothering to take his cigarette out of his mouth.

Jess took the surfboard, surprised at how easily she could lift it. "Wow, I thought it would be a lot heavier than this!"

"Fiberglass over foam, babe. Gotta be light to skim those waves. And hey, you drop or ding it and I'll spank your ass – and in a way you won't enjoy, either!"

Upon hearing that line Jess almost did drop the board. Maybe that's who Jay learned his bratty attitude from, she thought with little shake of her head.

Skip locked the shop door and took the board back. They all jumped into his truck which was parked in front of the shop, the surfboard and Nathan both ensconced in the back as the girls squeezed into the cab with Skip. It only took a couple of minutes to drive a few blocks to a beach parking area almost lost amid tall condos and warehouses.

"Everyone out," Skip commanded as he turned off the ignition. He retrieved the board and they all walked down to the looming pier. Up close it was even more decrepit and creaky than Jess had realized. Why was it allowed to stay, she wondered. It was obviously well past redemption and looked as though it would all collapse into the ocean at any minute. Perhaps the city was hoping the waves would knock it down to save them the cost. The little group walked across a debris-filled parking lot with grass growing out of the cracks in the pavement, keeping close together. Jess just hoped it was still too early in the day for the crazed vagrants. Or for any random gang violence to break out.

They got to the pier itself and followed Skip underneath it as he negotiated a rough path through the rotting pilings. "Watch where you walk, you might trip over rebar or a part of a ride," he warned Jess in particular.

"Yeah, and look out for broken surfboards," Nathan half-joked. Jess threw him a quick questioning glance and he nodded a confirmation. "You'll see what I mean in a minute."

And a minute later they had reached the Cove and Jess did indeed see what he meant. Four-to-six foot waves were rolling by in sets, seemingly amplified by the Cove's layout, built as it was to make a square U shape with the top of the U open to the water. All three sides were bordered with huge pilings, some half-broken off and some leaning at odd angles. None of them looked like they'd be pleasant for a board or a rider to hit as the debris swirling around the back of the Cove attested. Several parts of smashed boards were bobbing around amid the yellowish foam, assorted rubbish and pilings, mute but powerful attestations to the dangerous surfing conditions.

"Toldja," Nathan said a bit smugly. "If the pilings don't get ya then underwater debris will. This is by far the most dangerous place to surf in California."

Jess definitely could believe that. She decided it was a good time to break out her first bit of California slang: "That's gnarly, all right."

Nathan nodded. "Damn right it is," he agreed.

Out in the Cove just past the breaking waves were eight or nine surfers on a variety of colorful boards. All were clad in some form of wetsuit gear. Jess went to the edge of the sand to dip her hand in the water and guessed its temperature was in the mid-50s or so. Three young men also in wetsuits came out of the pilings to their left, drove their surfboards nose-first into the wet and called out hellos to Skip, who hailed them back. "Chris! PC! What's up, Red Dog?" Jess recognized the last two guys from the day before at Bicknell Hill, but the first one, Chris, was new to her. He was a littler shorter than her own 5'7" height, with straggly blonde hair with a wide nose and a longish face. PC was another snub-nosed, freckle-faced hot guy with the requisite long streaked brown hair. And Red Dog obviously earned the nickname from his straight dark strawberry blonde mane. He had classic Irish features to go with it and Jess decided that after Stacy and Jay he was the third-best looking local guy she'd seen. PC and Red Dog high-fived Nathan, hugged Kathy and gave Jess some curious glances but only nodded to her by way of greeting.

"So you guys got some good waves after all," Skip said as observed the ocean.

"Yeah, going strong all day," PC confirmed. "Jeff's caught so many it's not funny."

"He's gotta be freezin' his balls off, wetsuit or not," Skip muttered as he surveyed the lineup. "Where is he now…oh, there he is."

Everyone turned to look at the surfers, who were getting ready to catch the next set that was about to roll in. Jess spotted Tony's distinctive curly mop, hardly diminished in size by being wet. Near him was Jay in a red wetsuit. A little farther to Jay's left was a 20ish looking Asian man with shoulder-length hair on a bright red and orange board. As they all watched, a good wave swept into the Cove and all the surfers began paddling hard to catch it. The Asian guy was the first to pop up into riding position. "Yeah! Charge it, Jeff!" Skip yelled. Tony caught the wave as did Jay and two of the other surfers, both of whom looked a little older than the rest. To Jess's horror the one farthest to the right was being swept by the wave straight toward the pilings. "Holy shit you guys!" Chris yelled. "Bummit's going for it!"

"Bummit?" Jess mumbled. Kathy quickly explained: "His real name's Craig." Then they said no more but just watched as the rouge surfer nimbly steered his board between the pilings, missing them by inches as the onlookers cheered wildly. "I don't see how that fucker even swims with balls of steel like that," Skip mumbled in awe.

Jess wrenched her eyes away from Bummit and spotted Jay already paddling back out to catch the next wave with Tony close behind him.

PC zipped his suit back up. "Going back out, see you guys later."

"Me too," Red Dog said as he wrenched his board out of the sand.

"Yeah, I'll suit up and paddle out in a minute," Skip called after them. They watched the proceedings for a few more minutes, then Skip took off his shoes, shirt, shades and love bead necklace, putting them into a heap on the sand. "Look after that, willya?" he asked the girls as he struggled into his wetsuit. "No prob Skipper," Kathy assured him.

After Skip left them to join the surfers' lineup, Kathy picked up Skip's belongings and turned to Jess. "Hey, you wanna go up top and watch the guys from there?"

"Sure," Jess agreed.

"Hey Chris, walk us up there ok?" Chris sullenly nodded agreement. Jess decided he was definitely the quiet type. She remembered what her mom always said about the quiet ones – gotta watch out. They walked out from the pilings and up a rusty staircase that led to the upper level of the pier where all the rides were. Kathy motioned for Jess to follow her to a railing overlooking the Cove where they had a 2nd story view of the action.

Jess turned to Chris. "You're not going back down?"

Chris shook his head. "Nah, I've done for the day. This crappy wetsuit leaks anyway."

They all stood in silence and watched the surfers for a little while. Jess found it hard to say who was the best – they were all amazing. At one point Jay caught a wave in just the right spot and steered under a fallen piling on the far left hand side of the Cove. "Yeah, he got the Angle Piling!" Kathy cheered. "He's gonna be so stoked 'cause of that."

"Ahh, that ain't no big deal," Chris muttered, but subsided at a dirty look from Kathy.

"Do you surf at all?" Jess asked the older girl.

"Sometimes, but not here. As far as I know, no girls ever surf the Cove."

This piqued Jess's curiosity. "How come?"

Kathy elucidated. "For a start, you gotta be really good or the Mob – those are the regulars here - won't let you in. And on top of that, it's really dangerous. I mean, you saw how close Bummit came to those pilings. Guys get wiped out and injured here all the time. They say it's no place for a girl to surf and none of us have ever challenged it."

"What would happen if some girl tried to surf here anyway?"

"She'd never get in the water. Someone like Skip or Bummit would bodily pick her up and throw her out if she insisted. Why, you wanting to try it?" she asked with a wink.

Jess shook her head. "Noo, just wondering. I've never even stood on a surfboard!"

"But to answer your question, yeah I surf, but not here obviously," Kathy continued. "Sometimes I go to Ballona Creek down near Marina and sometimes to that spot over there" – she pointed to the ocean off to the right side of the pier – "we call that the Tees."

Just as Jess was about to ask why the spot was called that, they heard people climbing up the staircase. Females, by the sound of their chattering voices and laughter. Jess hoped against hope that none of them were the ones she'd run into the day before, in particular Angel or Karen. Even Kathy probably wouldn't be able to save Jess from their wrath when they saw Jess had disobeyed their orders to stay away from P.O.P.

As the girls came into sight, Jess felt a stab of fear impale her gut – it was indeed the same group of girls and Karen and Angel were heading up the posse. They spotted Kathy first and gave her friendly waves and smiles, which immediately vanished as they laid eyes on Jess, who stood paralyzed, unsure what to do. In that moment she wanted to jump over the railing and throw herself on the mercy of the wave and debris filled Cove rather than face that crowd again.

Then the merciful Fates handed her a break – the last person up the stairs was Deb, the cool Dogtown girl who had done such beautiful work with her hair earlier that morning. Jess sagged against the railing in relief.

The girls walked up to where Kathy, Chris and Jess were standing and Deb came around everyone to pointedly give Jess a big hug. "Hey girl, didn't think I'd see ya again so soon! This is my little sis Allie." Deb beckoned to the girl who had been skating in a sundress the day before (today wearing conservative burgundy cords and a tunic-like sweater) and she came up to shake Jess's hand and give her a shy smile. "I met Jess today at the salon. She's really cool, man!" Deb loudly asserted, causing most of the girls to nod in agreement. But Angel and Karen remained skeptical despite the ringing endorsement from the older girl. Karen crossed her arms over her ample chest and glared but Angel spoke up. "I see you couldn't stay away from here like you were told, huh?" she sneered at Jess.

"Chill out, Angel," Kathy cautioned. "Skip brought her here and if he thinks she's ok then she's ok. Ok?"

At the mention of Skip's name Angel backed down, but it was evident in her look that she was pissed off at being denied a chance to hand Jess an ass-kicking, probably while Karen held her down. But she couldn't resist one last challenge. "If Skip says you can hang out here, that's fine-" (Ha! As if she had any say in the matter, Jess thought cynically.) "-but don't go thinking that you can start talking to Stacy. He will always be off limits to you and if ya got a problem with that we can throw down right now, chica!" As she spoke Angel balled her hands into fists and stepped toward Jess, who wisely stood her ground and made no threatening response.

Deb stepped up to Jess's defense. "Look you guys, we only just met but you gotta believe me, she's not after Stacy. Are ya Jess?"

"No, I'm really not," Jess tried to assure them. "I've never spoken a word to him and he's never even looked at me. There's no interest on either side there, honest."

And don't you realize he's TAKEN!, she wanted to scream at Angel. Vent your anger on him for seeing a non-local and leave me out of this!

"No real woman would go for a freestyle fag like him anyway," Chris broke in.

Angel immediately reached out and clouted him, scoring a direct hit to his ear without even looking in his direction. He retreated behind the girls, rubbing the side of his head and muttering curses under his breath.

"Unlike you, he'd know what to do with a real woman," Karen snarled as he passed her. As she towered over him by six inches he wisely forewent a reply to that.

"Yeah, skating freestyle doesn't make you a fag," Angel stated as the other girls all nodded their agreement. "I mean, Tony can do freestyle and he definitely ain't no homo!"

"S'right, my man TA knows what to do with real women too!" Karen asserted.

"Too bad you'll never know," Chris muttered, forgetting himself already. In fury Karen turned around and slapped him as well, it not being his day in Dogtown.

Jess was starting to enjoy this exchange now that the vitriol was no longer being directed at her. She wanted to giggle as Chris turned on his heel and stomped down the rickety stairs but stifled the impulse at the sight of the serious looks on the other girls' faces. She wanted to do whatever it took to stay on these girls' good side, a recommendation from Deb and Kathy notwithstanding.

Unfortunately her amusement was to be short lived. Angel faced her once again. "So I heard you and Jay talking yesterday. You like him?"

Jess still wasn't sure how she felt about the brash boy with the angelic face and the demonic mannerisms. But she needed to get this crowd off her back, so she nodded affirmatively. "Yeah, he's cute but I don't know if he really likes me."

Oh, I think he does," Angel informed her.

"You want us to talk to him?" Karen asked a bit too helpfully. Again Jess suppressed the urge to laugh out loud. Their motives were so transparent! If they couldn't drive her out of Dogtown they would get her together with the fractious Jay so she wouldn't compete with them for Stacy and Tony. As if either of those two guys had showed the slightest bit of interest in her anyway! She decided to play along with their little game. After all, Jay was pretty cute. And who knew, maybe he'd be a totally different person when they were alone. She had known several guys like that back home – arrogant little jerks when their buddies were around but really nice when it was just the two of them talking. That sort of behavior seemed to be wired into the young male ego but what can ya do, she thought to herself, adding a mental shrug.

"Um, thanks, but why don't I just try to get him alone sometime and see how he acts?" Jess suggested.

"Yeah! Get him alone-" Angel started to reply.

"-And drunk!" Karen finished for her. All the girls including Jess cracked up laughing. Angel appeared to have an idea. "Hey, I bet Skip has a party at the shop tonight. If he does, you need to work your mojo on Jay tonight. Strike while the iron is hot, girl!"

Yep, and while Stacy is out of town too so I'll be good and taken by the time he gets back, Jess thought ruefully. Man, you guys are so obvious! "Good plan," she replied casually as Angel and Karen gave each other crafty smiles.

"Hey, does Jay even know you're here? We should go down and find him," Angel suggested with a fake-nice smile for Jess.

Jess returned it with a bogus smile of her own. "Sure, why not?"

--------End of Chapter 8 --------