Emmy & Oliver - Robin Benway Page 0,48

the beer, wiping off the condensation in one clean stripe. “Why don’t you join the surf team?”

I blinked at him. “That’s your question?”

“Because you flinched when Brandon said that maybe one day you would. You’re good enough, right? It’s not a big secret or anything that you’re good. I bet you could make the team, no problem.”

“Dude, my parents. I told you, they’d freak out. Like, werewolves during a full moon freak out. And the surf team costs money. There’s fees, meets, equipment, signed permission slips. There’s no way. No.”

“But how do you know?”

“Look, Ollie, you don’t—” I started to say, but the look on his face stopped me. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“No, it’s just, no one’s called me Ollie in, like, forever.” He smiled a little.

“I was—I am—the only one who was allowed to call you that,” I told him. “I guess it’s still habit. Is that okay?”

“No, it’s fine, it’s fine. Sorry, go on.”

“You don’t know, okay? When you disappeared, my parents, they changed. They would’ve smothered me in Bubble Wrap if they could have.”

“Well, that wouldn’t have been very safe.”

“You know what I mean.” I nudged him with my knee.

“But they want you to be happy?”

“Yeah, I guess. But sometimes happiness means different things to different people. And if they found out and said I couldn’t do it anymore?” I shivered at the thought, the idea of not cutting through glassy water in the morning, not riding out the wave and having it take me somewhere that I didn’t know I could go, that first sweet gulp of air after wiping out and resurfacing. “Maybe when I go to college. Maybe then. I’ll be eighteen and I won’t be here anymore.”

“You won’t?” Oliver asked. Neither of us were looking at each other: he was pulling paint chips off the gazebo’s front step and I was plucking grass out of Drew’s parents’ immaculate lawn, one blade at a time. If the conversation kept going the way it was, we were going to cause some serious damage to the backyard.

“I, um, I actually applied to UC San Diego,” I said. “No one knows that, though. Not even my parents—or Caro and Drew.” Just saying the words out loud made my heart start to race. “They have a surf team. It’s like, second-in-the-nation good. And even if I don’t make it, I could still surf at Black’s Beach. That’s a good place to go. If I get in, I mean. I probably won’t, but if I do, then yeah.” I hugged my knees to my chest. “Don’t tell anyone. Okay?”

“I won’t tell,” Oliver promised, looking down at his lap. “I, um, I lied to my dad, too. About school.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. You know how they found my fingerprint in that forensic science class? I didn’t actually tell him that I was taking it. I signed up behind his back. It was a Saturday science class through this local college. He was always so weird about me doing things outside of the house, so I just didn’t say anything. I forged his signature and I went.”

“You liked science so much that you were willing to give up your Saturdays?” I teased him. “Nerd alert.”

Oliver huffed out a little smile. “So now I’m home and it’s your turn to leave. I see how it is.”

“Oh, please.” I shoved at his arm. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere right now. We still get to have our do-over. I mean, our start-over.” I sprinkled a handful of grass over his shoes, then shivered again.

“Cold?” Oliver asked.

I wasn’t sure what I was. Yes, I was cold, my hair still damp from surfing and the sea air starting to creep over the hills and drift into the suburban yards. But it was his knee pressing against mine, the fact that neither of us moved away or acknowledged it, the warmth of his skin under his jeans and the way it felt so new and so familiar at the same time.

“Yeah,” I said. “Really cold.”

“Here.” He started to slip out of his hoodie.

“Is this new?” I asked him as I tugged it over my head, fixing the sleeves so that they came down past my fingertips.

“Yeah. My mom got it for me.”

She had bought it for him, bought it so he could fit in and look “cool,” bought it so he would talk to her and not hate her for taking ten years to find him.

I thought of Maureen watching Oliver walk up the front steps to