Saving Wishes (The Wishes Series) (18 page)

Gabrielle’s ringing phone sounded ten times louder than usual in the silence. She walked out of the room to answer it in private.

I waited for Lisa to start on me but it didn’t happen. She was distracted by rapping on the window. The afternoon suddenly got brighter. Unable to hide my smile, I walked to the window and slid it open.

“What are you doing?” I asked, grinning down at him.

“Is Gabi in there?” Adam whispered, pointing past me. I shook my head and smiled. “I came to break you out,” he said, grinning.

“She won’t let me go,” I said, half whispering my words.

Lisa’s chair made a screech. I rolled my eyes at Adam, warning him that she was coming.

“Hi Adam,” she purred.

“Hello,” he said politely.

“Are you here to save us?” she asked.

“Inadvertently.”

“Cool,” she replied, probably thinking he’d answered her in French.

“Charli, pass me your paper.”

I dropped the papers down to him. Caught by the wind, they fluttered to the ground in a messy heap.

“Sorry.”

Adam filled in the answers quicker than I could have read the questions.

“You’re cheating,” hissed Lisa.

“Technically,” I muttered, speaking more to myself than to her.

Adam passed the papers back. I didn’t even bother looking at them, focusing on him as he winked at me.

“You’re going to get caught,” warned Lisa, folding her arms and tapping her foot on the floor.

“She’ll only get caught if you tell,” said Adam, using his velvet voice to daze her.

“I would never tell. I’m not a snitch. I’m just pointing out that one way or another, Charli always gets caught.”

“I won’t let that happen,” he said. I couldn’t be sure that she’d recognised the menace in his tone. “Go,” he ordered, grinning at me.

I slid the window shut.

“How are you going to keep them quiet?” asked Lisa, pointing to Todd and David like they were the enemy.

I sat back, looking at my fellow inmates. David grinned at me but Todd remained stony-faced.

“Alright, from the beginning. A C C B C D….” I read, rattling off the answers on my page.

I heard the familiar sound of Gabrielle’s heels clicking on the hard floor. My voice got quicker and more frantic as she got closer and so did their writing. By the time she walked in, I’d given away all but the last four answers.

Jumping out of my seat, I was at her desk before she was, waving my papers at her. “Can I go now?”

“Eighty percent is a pass. Do you think you passed?” she asked, intent on torturing me some more.

“I’d bet money on it,” I replied, too smugly for someone begging for parole.

The room was so quiet I could hear her pen scratching across the page as she marked. Finally she spoke. “Eighty-six percent. Not too bad,” she praised.

Eighty-six percent? Impossible! Adam’s French literacy skills were slipping.

“Can I go?”

“Yes. I have better things to be doing too, you know.” Her tone was sharp but I was fairly sure she’d forgiven me already.

“Finally,” said Lisa, groaning out the word.

She picked up her bag and stormed out of the classroom before I’d finished packing my books. Todd and David handed their papers in and I walked out before Gabrielle finished marking them, hoping they’d had the sense to change a few of their answers. It was after four. Cursing myself for wasting so much of the afternoon, I rushed to the car park. Every atom of stress disappeared the minute I saw him. He leaned against his car, arms casually folded, looking more like an angel than a devious criminal who had managed to prematurely free me from detention.

Stretching up to link my hands around his neck, I smiled at him.

“What?” His voice sounded worried and I wondered if he knew the urge to kiss him to death was spreading across my chest.

“Nothing.”

He leaned so close that his lips brushed my mouth as he spoke. “How did we score?”

I couldn’t remember the mark on my test. I was having trouble remembering the subject matter at that point. “Ah, eighty something,” I murmured. “A very disappointing result.”

He laughed. “I could hardly give you a perfect score. I doubt today would have been the best time to showcase your newfound appreciation of the French language.” The mischievous sparkle in his eyes threatened to destroy my train of thought again.

“No, I guess not,” I breathed, leaning my face in closer to his again.

His lips brushed mine, just once, softly and sweetly. “You know what today is right?”

“Friday?” I was so flustered that I actually sounded unsure.

“Exactly.”

Alex and Gabrielle usually escaped town on Friday nights. They were prepared to take the long drive to Hobart for dinner, just so they could walk around town anonymously. Gabrielle was tired of the secrecy, but she loved him. The small gesture of being able to walk down the street while he held her hand made her remember why.

Adam’s hand rested on the small of my back, crushing my body against his. “So where are we going?” he asked.

“The beach,” I replied.

The sunshine was a welcome intruder on the winter’s day. It wasn’t enough to make me take my coat off, but it was bright enough to make-believe it was warmer than it was. The beach seemed like the best place to enjoy it.

We headed to the surf beach below Gabrielle’s cottage. Alex usually picked me up from her house when he dropped Gabrielle off after dinner. Maybe he thought I was more likely to behave there than at our house.

It wasn’t exactly deserted. A handful of surfers hung on the break and a few people making the most of the unseasonal sun meandered along the beach.

“Well this is cosy,” said Adam.

I sat on the sand and pulled him down beside me. “Do you want to leave?”

“No.”

I smiled and looked away, turning my attention to the ocean. The bright sun glinted off the spiky waves like diamonds.

“I saw you and Alex out there this morning,” he said.

“Did you?” I asked. “Were you down here?”

“No,” he said, “but you should probably know that I spy on you a lot when you’re out there.” His voice was unrepentant, his smile too cheeky to be sorry.

“Wow. Really?” My tone was dry, not at all surprised.

“I’m sure you’ve seen the binoculars Gabi has in the lounge room. She would never admit it but she uses them to keep tabs on Alex when he’s playing penguin king. I find it much more interesting to spy on the penguin princess.” He suddenly looked pensive. “You’re different out there, you know.”

“How?”

“You’re strong out there. Fearless and unafraid, which confuses me. I hate the thought of swimming out there because it’s dark and you can’t see what’s underneath.” His low voice was thoughtful. I frowned, unsure of where he was heading. “It’s like the blackest kind of night, Charlotte, endless and dark, and it’s the place that you’re most comfortable.”

I felt embarrassed that he’d put so much thought in to it. “It’s not endless, Adam.”

“No?” he asked, turning back to me.

“No. The ocean has a horizon, sky above it, a beach on at least one side, and if I was unlucky enough to sink below the water I’d eventually hit the bottom.”

He raked his hand through the sand. “I love the way you see the world,” he marvelled.

“La La land,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“Alex tells me I live in La La land,” I explained. “I think he worries that when I go away, I’ll find some hippy commune on a deserted island, start wearing hemp clothing and stop shaving my legs.”

He grinned. “Nicole will be pleased.”

My face twisted at mention of her name. It was a reminder of the ground I had to make up. I hadn’t treated Nicole well over the past few weeks. We’d spent years wasting away hours planning our big adventure, but since Adam had hit town, it had barely rated a mention. Nothing about our travel plans had altered since we were eight years old. But I was beginning to realise that was a lie. When all was said and done, if the perfect boy laying beside me in the sand were to change his mind about taking me with him, I would go.

Had I become that fickle? Would I seriously consider breaking my best friends heart to preserve my own? Yes I would. And I hated myself for it.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

I shook my head.

He gently pulled me back onto the sand. I gazed upward, lost in the view of the clear sky, but his eyes never left my face. For some reason, he only ever saw the good in me.

15. Surprise

Time alone with Adam was the thing I craved most. More than sunshine, clear skies and food, as it turned out.

“You’re not hungry?” he asked, watching me from the opposite side of the dining table.

“Not really,” I admitted, placing my fork on my plate.

Gabrielle was like Jekyll and Hyde. One minute she was holding me against my will in her dreadful French class, and the next she was making sure there was dinner in the fridge for us.

“So if we’re not going to waste time eating, maybe we could use this time together a little more productively,” he suggested, flashing me an errant grin.

“Did you have something in mind?”

The calculating look on his face told me he did. He made enough room for me to sit on his lap. I twisted one of the buttons on his shirt – which is where I kept my focus, avoiding his eyes.

“We could work on the boat,” he suggested.

The way he held me tighter when I tried to stand up made me think he seriously considered scraping paint off a boat a good way to spend a night alone.

“No,” I said crossly.

I struggled harder against his grip and he released me immediately. I put some distance between us. Adam remained seated, a bulletproof look on his face, obviously plotting his next move.

“Just for an hour or two,” he pleaded, unsuccessfully trying to conceal his smile.

“You’re crazy. It’s dark and cold, and that’s a stupid way to spend our night together.” I waved vaguely at the black windows.

“I have a surprise for you,” he admitted.

“What? A new power sander?”

“No,” he murmured. “The one Alex lent me works just fine.”

“So, what is it?”

“You’ll see,” he replied, giving nothing away.

He stood and pulled me to him, and as his lips melted on to mine I closed my eyes, concentrating on nothing other than remembering how to breathe. I felt too weakened by his touch to speak. I didn’t even notice when he stepped away to grab our coats. By the time I opened my eyes he had his on and was holding mine out. The metal press-studs snapped loudly as he buttoned my coat all the way up to my neck, as if I was five years old.

“I don’t want you to be cold,” he explained, grinning craftily. “Okay. Ready?”

“No.”

“I’ll make a deal with you.” His tone was sweet but the look on his face convinced me he was still scheming.

“No deals.”

“I’ll go surfing with you in the morning if you come out to the shed with me tonight.”

I saw no lack of honesty in his eyes. He’d made no secret of his acute dislike of the ocean – the thought of swimming in it at least.

“Really?”

“You have my word, Charlotte.” He placed his hand on his heart.

“Fine,” I surrendered. “Let’s get this over with.” He picked the throw rug off the couch on our way out.

His surprise had nothing to do with the boat. He slid the huge shed door open and the fluorescent light flickered a few times before settling, casting enough light for me to see that the boat looked exactly as it had the last time I’d seen it.

Something in my expression made him smile. I watched in silence as he walked to the far end of the shed, picked up an old milk crate and brought it back. Bundling up the throw rug as a makeshift cushion, he dropped it on the crate.

“Sit, please. I just have to find something.”

I got the impression we were going to be there a while. Adam rifled through boxes of tools and the pockets of a coat he’d left there earlier, searching for the surprise.

“If you tell me what it is, I could help you look for it,” I suggested.

“I can’t believe I’ve lost it,” he said, glancing across at me as he upended a box of junk on to the shed floor. “I only picked it up this afternoon.”

“Is it big or small?”

“Small.”

“Well, the light in here is not very good,” I reasoned. “Why don’t you wait until morning?”

Ignoring the mess he’d just made, Adam stepped over the pile of tools and headed back towards me. I met him half way, happy to take his hand when he reached out. He stood in front of me and I studied his face closely. His eyes were never cold and piercing as blue eyes often are. They were cerulean, intense and deep, like the rest of him. Finally, his lips, cold from the night air connected with mine, sending a shudder through me.