Emmy & Oliver - Robin Benway Page 0,59

“Come here, your mouth.” I pressed my thumb against his lips, wiping away my lip gloss. “Bonne Belle Lip Smacker in Dr Pepper just doesn’t match your skin tone,” I teased, and he kissed my thumb.

“Tastes good, though,” he said.

“Oh my God, you need to shut up right now.” I kissed him again, then pulled away and straightened my shirt. “You good?”

“Um, yeah.” He laughed. “This is way better than miniature golf.”

“Glad to know where I rank,” I told him, then clutched the copy of Mrs. Dalloway to my chest. “See you at school on Monday?”

“Absolutely,” he whispered back, then I left his room and went back downstairs, dodging Maureen and going out the front door, only letting the empty cul-de-sac see my face-splitting smile, my ridiculous happiness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Over the next week, Oliver and I kept to a pretty steady routine of going to school, going to the beach for more surfing lessons, kissing, making out in the backyard, and basically lying to our parents about all of that. (Except for school. That, unfortunately, wasn’t a lie.) Caro came to the beach a few times with us, since Drew was busy hanging out with Kevin at Starbucks or at soccer practice, but after the second time, she got bored. “I’m the third wheel,” she said on the way home. “I’m turning your bicycle into a tricycle.”

“Or we could just be three unicycles,” I replied. Oliver was in the front seat next to me, his hand on my leg as I drove with the window down, trying to dry my hair as fast as possible.

“Or we could be a penny-farthing,” Oliver said. “Maybe we could put Caro in a sidecar.”

“A penny what?” Caro and I both said at the same time.

“You know, that old-fashioned bike that had one big wheel up front and then a little wheel behind it?” Oliver mimed riding a bike, which, let’s be honest, didn’t help to clear up the confusion.

“Yeah, no, I’m not that,” I told him. “Can you roll your window down? I need more air.”

“You were saying about the sidecar?” Caro yelled, her voice nearly being drowned out from the sudden gust of wind. “It’d probably be less windy out there than it is in here!”

So after that, it just became Oliver and me. His surfing wasn’t really improving, but we spent most of the time bobbing up and down on the boards, talking instead of practicing.

But on Friday, when our parents thought we were doing another group project for AP Civics at Caro’s house but Oliver and I were actually down at the beach, he was subdued, almost tired. His eyes were heavy, his words soft. “Hey,” I said as we floated next to each other, our legs churning in the water. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine,” he said absently.

“You’re doing the dude sulk,” I told him.

Oliver laughed. “The what?”

“You guys always get pouty and sullen.” I poked my lip out and slouched down, trying to make him laugh for real this time. It worked. “What’s wrong?”

Oliver, though, just looked behind him and watched as a wave started to form. “You think I can get this one?”

I glanced at it. “Probably. You’re getting good.” And he was. He had already ridden to the shore several times that day, hooting and hollering with each successful wave.

“I’m taking it,” he said, then swung his legs out of the ocean and back onto the board as he started to paddle.

“Oliver, wait,” I said as he started to move, and he deliberately reached out and splashed me, leaving me sputtering.

“Oh, you’re going down,” I said, racing to catch up to him. It wasn’t too difficult—his arms were longer and stronger, but I had three years’ worth of experience—and we rode in together, almost like we were moving as the same person.

Afterward, we sat on the beach together, our wet suits drying on a rock next to us as we huddled together underneath a blanket that we found in the back of the minivan. “Your car needs a name,” Oliver said. “Something with personality.”

“Stealth Fighter,” I offered. “Secret Mission.”

“Barely Running,” Oliver said, and I laughed and pretended to choke him.

“Get your own car if you don’t like mine!” I cried.

“Oh, Emmy, I would if I could,” he said, and the sadness I had seen in the water was back now, clouding his eyes like a storm.

“What is it?” I asked. “What happened?”

Oliver shrugged and picked up some sand to run through his fingers. “I guess some national crime show called