Emmy & Oliver (31 page)

I nodded toward the main school building and took a sip of Caro's drink. “He had a meeting,” I said. I didn't mention that it was with the school counselor, that he was talking to her twice a week, still adjusting to normal school life. “He'll be out in a few minutes. He already heard the story this morning, though. I drove him to school, which is pretty much all I'm allowed to do anymore.”

“You're grounded?” Caro guessed.

“I'm, like,
beyond
grounded,” I said. “My parents found out last night that I got into UCSD.”

Caro let out a short, sharp laugh. “You're the only kid who gets grounded for getting into college, I swear.”

“I know, right?” I cried. “That's what I said! But yeah, they're mad not because I got it, but because I lied. And then they wanted to know why I did it—”

“Oh no,” Caro said.

“Oh yeah,” I said.

“Wait, what—oh no.” Caro covered her mouth with her hand. “Did you—?”

“Oh, I did.” I sighed. “I actually got my wet suit out of my car and threw it on the floor in front of them.”

Caro giggled a little. “I kind of wish I had seen your mom's face when you did that.”

“No, you don't, because she would have melted you with her eyes.” I sighed and shook the soda, the ice rattling. “It was really bad. And then we started yelling about Oliver and how I'm not him and just because he was kidnapped doesn't mean that I'm just going to disappear into thin air, too.”

“Whoa.” Caro took the soda from me and took a sip. “It sounds like
Real Housewives
. So . . . what now?”

“Well, I'm grounded until I die, I guess. No surfing, no phone, no computer, no Oliver. And possibly no college, I don't know. My dad thinks I should go, though.”

Caro was twirling a lock of hair around her finger, letting it unravel, then twirling it up again. “I think you should go, too,” she said quietly.

“What?”

She took a deep breath. “I was upset because you didn't tell me about it. I'm your best friend, you're supposed to tell me these things. But,” she hurried on before I could
interrupt her, “I think you should go. And maybe I'll find it in my heart to forgive you.” A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, the way it always did whenever she was joking about something. Caro has a terrible poker face. Drew has already said that when we go to Vegas for our twenty-first birthdays, Caro is not invited.

“Oh, Caro,” I sighed, then wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tight. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I didn't mean to make you feel left out of anything.”

Caro hugged me back. “I know,” she said. “I'm sorry I freaked out. I was just mad.”

“I'll tell you everything from now on, okay? Promise.”

“You better,” she said back, then squeezed me tight and let go. “Can we eat? I'm starving.”

“And here we are, the final suits in our house of cards!” Drew cried, and I glanced over Caro's shoulder to see Oliver and him walking toward us.

“Oh yeah?” Oliver said, dropping his bag next to me and then sitting down with a sigh. “Which one am I?”

“Spade,” Drew said.

“No, he's the heart,” I said, giving him a kiss on the cheek before any of the lunchtime attendants could spot us. “Oliver's the heart.”

“Barf,” Drew said.

Caro didn't say anything, only because she was too busy making gagging noises.

“You're cheesy,” Oliver laughed at me, but he put his arm around my shoulders, anyway.

“Here, I brought lunch,” Caro said, passing all of us burritos. They were as heavy as paperweights and the packets of red sauce were sticky and I was suddenly starving. “Only the finest two-dollar burritos for my friends.”

“Did you tell them?” Oliver asked me, unwrapping his burrito.

“Caro's caught up,” I said, then turned to Drew. “I'm grounded because I got into college, they'll probably never let me surf again, my parents might kill me, et cetera.”

Drew tried to respond, but he had already bitten into his burrito. “The ‘et cetera' part is worrying,” he said when he was finally able to speak again. “And no surfing? Are you serious?”

I patted his arm. “I'll have to live vicariously through you.”

Oliver reached for Caro's drink and took a sip. I could see why she had gotten the jumbo-sized one. “What about you, Drew? What happened after last night?”

“Oh, shit!” I said. “Drew, I'm so sorry! I didn't even ask about you and Kevin.”

Drew shrugged. “Oh, you know. It's okay. He understands. Kane's really pissed at
my parents, though. Like, he's
mad
.” Drew widened his eyes a little and I could understand why. Kane was over six feet tall and built of solid muscle. I had never seen Kane get upset, which made the prospect all the more intimidating. “He says that I should bring Kevin, anyway, and if anyone has a problem with it, he'll take care of it. And I don't want my brother to hulk out at my grandma's birthday party,
soooo
yeah.” Drew squirted some red sauce onto his burrito. “Parents, man.”

Oliver cleared his throat a little. “Well,
my
mom wants me to do an interview for
Crime Watch
so they can find my dad,” he said. “So I get to be on TV
and
help get my dad arrested.”

Caro's eyes flicked back down to her lunch and I knew what she was thinking.
Oliver's dad deserves to be arrested.
But she just said, “That sucks, dude. I'm sorry.”

“Thanks,” Oliver said. “Should be fun. Can't wait.”

“To summarize!” Drew said, sitting up straight. “Emmy's parents have grounded her and are possibly plotting her death as we speak because she got into a four-year university and became an excellent surfer behind their backs.”

“Accurate,” I said.

“And Oliver's dad kidnapped him for ten years, scaring everyone to pieces, before he finally came home and now his mom is using him to arrest his dad, which will now add ten of thousands of dollars to the therapy bills he's already going to accrue.”

Oliver laughed, low and sharp and genuine. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“And
my
parents don't want me to tell my grandmother—who, let's be honest, is already in the bottom of the ninth inning, age-wise—that I'm gay and dating the most beautiful man in the free world—no offense, Oliver—”

“None taken,” he said. “Kevin's a handsome guy.”

“—because if I do, she'll cut us off and my parents would rather I live a lie than have to move themselves into a two-bedroom condo and drive a Ford Focus. And Caro's parents . . .”

“Caro's parents should have stopped at five kids,” Caro said, reaching for the soda again. “Because they have no idea what she does all day and don't really care, either.”

“Can we please have a moment of silence for Caro's decrepit family life, especially her sister Heather?” Drew said, solemnly placing his hand over his heart.

“
Especially
Heather,” Caro said darkly, but let Drew give her a one-armed hug, anyway.

“Well, that's that,” Drew said brightly. “The four of us are fucked.”

Oliver raised his burrito into the air. “To us!” he said dramatically, sounding like one
of the newscasters that had reported on him time and time again. “And to the future!”

We all cracked up at that, clinking our half-eaten burritos in the air as we laughed. “To us and our terrible futures!” Caro echoed. “Now who's hogging all the red sauce? Seriously, you guys, stop doing that.”

I grinned up at Oliver, who kissed my forehead and then tossed Caro one of his own packets.
This is perfect,
I thought to myself.

And that afternoon, for one glorious hour, it was.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I
drove Oliver home as slowly as possible, trying to spend as much time with him as I could before I had to go back to the makeshift cell that was my bedroom. At the red light, we kissed until the car behind us started honking, and even though it took a few extra seconds before we were able to untangle ourselves from each other. “How much longer is this going to go on?” Oliver asked as we sailed through the intersection, still holding hands over the front console. “Did your parents say how long you'd be grounded?”

“Nope,” I said. “That's part of the fun, the wondering without asking.”

“And you're not going to ask.” Oliver sounded dubious.

“No way!” I said. “What if that makes them ground me for even longer?” I pulled into our driveway and put the van into
PARK
very,
very
slowly. “Want to get the mail together?”

Oliver started to laugh as he gathered up his backpack. “I do, actually,” he said. “We are so pathetic.”

“The worst,” I agreed. I wanted to keep holding his hand as we walked, but I knew my mom was home and I wasn't willing to risk her seeing us. It hadn't even been twenty-four hours and I was already missing the ocean like crazy. Any more time added to my sentence and I'd probably start to go into shock from lack of salt water.

The mail was boring, like it always was: bills for my parents, flyers from grocery stores, a couple of envelopes addressed to
CURRENT RESIDENT
. “I wish people still wrote letters,” I said to Oliver as we both emptied the boxes. “Wouldn't that be cool? Like, you'd go to the mailbox and there'd be a letter just waiting for you?”

“I'll write you a letter,” he said.

“That might be the only way you'll be allowed to talk to me,” I said, and he smiled as he pulled a large envelope out of the box. “What the—oh, wow.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“It's from Columbia,” he said. “University. In New York.”

“Let the college wooing begin!” I cried. “Did you write for info?”

“No, but it's actually my favorite school. My dad and I used to go up to the campus when we lived in New York.” He was looking at it almost reverently, and I tried to imagine what he was picturing: wrought-iron gates, brick buildings, cool fall air and the crunch of his dad's shoes walking through leaves as Oliver did the same.

“Columbia'd be cool,” I said, trying not to drop anything as I balanced my backpack, the mail, and my keys. “You could go back to New York.”

“Are you kidding? If your parents won't let you go to San Diego, there's no way mine's letting me go back to New York. She'd probably try to move into my dorm with me.”

“She'd be your roomie!” I said. “You could take classes together, be study buddies . . .”

“Oh my God, stop,” Oliver said, but he was laughing, too. “Just stop talking. I don't even want to think about rooming with my mom.”

“I'd watch that reality show for sure,” I told him. “Like, number one on the DVR, no question.”

“Emmy!” My mom's voice rang out from the front door. “Time to come in.” She sounded unamused, to say the least.

“The warden calls,” I whispered to Oliver, who kept his face serious even though his mouth twitched. “Okay!” I yelled back at her, then “accidentally” dropped one of the envelopes. “See you tomorrow?” I said to Oliver as I stooped to pick it up.

“Nice move,” he said, smirking at me. “And yeah. Hope you get out on good
behavior.”

“Emmy! Now!”

“Yeah, don't hold your breath,” I said, then blew a kiss in his direction before turning around and trudging up the driveway and into the house.

“You know you're not allowed to spend time with Oliver right now,” my mom said the second the front door shut behind me.

“My day was fine, thanks,” I replied. “And yours?”

“Emily.”

I sighed. “Mom, I drove him home and we got the mail, and now I'm here. Inside. You always overreact.”

She just held out her hand for the mail and I gave it to her before going upstairs. “Your dad's working late tonight,” she called after me, and I paused on the stairs' landing. “And I have to cater a benefit over in Irvine, so you'll be on your own. I put dinner in the refrigerator for you.”

Wait for it,
I thought.
Wait for it . . .

“And you know no one is allowed over tonight while we're gone.”

There it is.

“I know, Mom,” I said. “The details are pretty clear.”

“Well, seeing as how you've been lying to us about so many other things.”

She was flipping through the mail, not really paying attention to me, so I gave her one good eye roll before going up to my room. Again, the urge to slam the door was overwhelming.
Maybe that's what I'll do while I'm home alone,
I thought.
Slam my bedroom door a few times. Another wild and crazy night at Chez Emmy.