Emmy & Oliver - Robin Benway Page 0,37

took him surfing,” he said, “and you didn’t tell Caro.”

“Because Caro would make it a thing,” I told him, emphasizing the last two words. “And it wasn’t a thing.”

“You had dinner after?”

“We ate food together!”

“And did that food consist of dinner-like items?”

“Okay, fine, yes. And I know, Caro says it’s a date if you eat food together, but if that’s true, then I’ve dated half the population at our school and do not make a snarky comment right now.”

Drew widened his eyes and looked innocent, the way I had tried to do the night before with my parents.

“Cut it out, you look like a Kewpie doll.”

“Look,” Drew said, going back to his normal face and tugging me closer, “you can tell your old friend Drew anything. You know that, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“And you can tell me nothing,” he continued. “I don’t really care. As long as my best friend is happy, then I’m happy.”

“Oh my God, stop talking! Oliver thinks that you and Caro hate him!”

That stopped Drew in his tracks. It was rare that he was serious, but when he was, it changed his whole face, made him look older. “Hate him?” he repeated. “How could I hate him? I barely know him!”

“Yeah, I know, but that whole ‘giving him space’ thing made Oliver feel like he was Patient Zero. So we’ve got to hang out with him more, okay? Go surfing or whatever.”

“Or whatever.” Drew wiggled his eyebrows at me.

“Stop that! And I said we!” I added. “Let’s invite him to the party, okay? We were friends once, we can be friends again.”

“Emmy, you are a saint among saints,” Drew said, then hugged me to his side as we walked down the hall. “Let the healing bonds of friendship ease all of our wounds!”

“Oh, shut up.”

“That’s not very saintly language,” he pointed out, then kissed the top of my head and then released me with a shove. “Now get off me before Kevin thinks I’m straight.”

“He’s homeschooled. He doesn’t even go to school here.”

“Rumors, Emmy. They respect no boundaries.” Drew raised an eyebrow at me, then ducked into his history class.

I didn’t see Oliver until lunchtime that day, and even then, I didn’t see him until he was standing right in front of me in the library. I was making flash cards for French verbs and he stood over me just as I was writing je ferais on my lined card. (I can’t have unlined note cards. It’s just not natural.)

“Hey,” Oliver said, his hair (still) in his eyes. “Let’s go surfing again.”

“Right now?” I whispered back, glancing around me.

He pulled out the chair next to me, sitting down and heaving his backpack onto the table with a loud thwop! that made the librarian look up and frown. Former kidnap victim or not, everyone had to be quiet in the library.

“Not now,” he said. “I mean after school. Today. It’s supposed to be a good swell.”

I tried to hide a smile, failing miserably. “It’s a one- to two-foot swell,” I said. “But it’s sweet that you think those are good waves. Adorable, really.”

“Those are good waves for me,” he clarified. “And I had fun last time. I want to go again.”

I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest. “So you’re not worried about sharks anymore?”

“Only slightly. I just want to do something!” he said, drawing another look from the librarian. He raised his hand in apology before leaning closer to me. He smelled like the same baby shampoo the twins used. It was an odd dichotomy.

“I’m tired of sitting in my house,” he said. “I feel like everyone’s always watching me in there. And the twins actually are watching me. I can see their little noses under the door.”

“That’s sort of cute,” I admitted.

“My dad has this saying,” he continued, not noticing how I startled when he said the word dad, how it seemed like such a normal word in his mouth, like dad wasn’t the thing that had brought such catastrophe into our lives.

“He says, ‘nervous like a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.’ That’s Maur—my mom right now. I feel like if I blink too many times in a row, she’ll worry about me.”

“Wait,” I said. “Your dad said that? My dad says that.” It sounded strange that our dads would have anything in common—even a dumb saying. His dad was a criminal; my dad’s biggest crime was putting the empty milk container back in the refrigerator.

Oliver laughed. “Are you