Emmy & Oliver - Robin Benway Page 0,35

eyes cut to me and I dropped my hand back down. “I’m really sorry. Oliver was just stressed after the interview, that’s all.”

Now both of my parents turned to look at me.

“He was?” my mom asked.

I nodded. “We were just talking. I was trying to be a good friend.” I made my eyes wide and blinked once, twice for good measure—just an innocent girl next door who was merely chatting with her long-lost childhood best friend.

“Nice try, Bambi eyes,” my dad said, shaking his head at me, and I went back to my normal expression with a sigh.

My mom finally set down her phone on the counter, which she had had in a death grip since I walked through the door. “Next time,” she said, “come home. Or call. Or do something so that we’re not running around worried about you.”

I bit back my comment about how, if they had really been running around, they would have seen my car in the driveway or heard Oliver and me talking in his yard. “Got it,” I said. “Absolutely. Learn and grow, I always say.”

I saw my mom’s lips twitch, trying to repress a smile, and I took advantage to put my arms around her and give her a kiss on the cheek. “Does this mean I’m not grounded?” I asked in my nicest daughter voice. (You don’t live with worrywart parents for ten years and not pick up a few tricks here and there.)

This time, she couldn’t suppress the smile. “Get upstairs,” she said. “It’s late.”

“It’s nine—” I started to point out.

“Bed,” my mom said, pointing at the staircase. “Or homework. Or something that keeps you upstairs for the rest of the night and doesn’t have me worried to death.”

“Consider it done,” I said, then gave my dad a kiss on the cheek for good measure before dashing up the stairs. Once I was in my room, I plugged in my phone, watching as the battery sign flickered to life, then checked my computer. There was an email from Caro:

Your parents are making me be a Luddite and resort to email you to find out where you are. Do something pls.

I smiled and tapped out a fast message. “I’m fine, was talking to Oliver. Thanks for sacrificing your beliefs for the cause.” Then I shut it before Caro could reply. She would have questions that I didn’t want to answer, like What were you talking about? And questions I didn’t know how to answer, questions that I was scared to ask myself. Why were you talking to Oliver? Is he all right? Why does your heart beat faster when you think about him? Why can’t you stop feeling his fingers on top of yours? You’ve thought about him every day for ten years, so why is it different now?

“Everything’s fine,” I whispered to myself as I clicked out the light. Across the way, I saw Oliver’s light flicker on, then off, our signal, and I repeated it with a smile. “Coming home is like being kidnapped all over again,” he had said, his words cushioned by darkness and privacy, and I lay down on my bed and tried not to think about what, or who, would go missing this time around.

THE TEAM

Emmy isn’t having a lot of fun at Drew’s fifth birthday party.

She went to it directly after her T-ball game, for starters, which means her uniform feels hot and scratchy and dirty in the afternoon sun. Worse, all the other little girls are wearing party dresses, not stirrups and cleats, and Emmy catches one of them—a little girl with a huge pink bow in her hair—eyeing her. Emmy glares right back.

This is all Oliver’s fault, she decides. He’s the one who wanted to play T-ball. She just joined because that’s what friends do. They stick together. But the only good thing about T-ball, Emmy quickly learned, is the granola bar and juice box they get at the end of the game.

Emmy tries to cheer herself up by eating two pieces of cake (her mom is busy talking to Oliver’s mom, so she doesn’t notice), but all the frosting makes her feel sick and she finds herself sitting in Drew’s brand-new gazebo in the backyard, watching the other kids jump around in the bounce house and wishing she could just go home and watch TV.

“Hey!” Oliver says, running up. “What are you doing out here in the zagebo?”

“This party is stupid,” Emmy tells him. “And I’m not wearing a dress.”

“Drew has