“Is that any way to speak to your teacher?” I gasped, trying to wipe my nose in the most discreet way possible. “Disrespectful!”
Oliver laughed at me trying to push my wet hair out of my face. “You look like you got attacked by seaweed,” he said, then reached over and tried to help me. “Here, sorry. But you had it coming.”
I let him move a lock of wet hair out of my eyes, his thumb just brushing my forehead as he swept it back. I had a comeback on the tip of my tongue, but when he looked at me and smiled again, it melted away in my mouth, leaving nothing but a smile behind.
“I don’t think I’m gonna go to Drew’s party,” he said.
“Wait, what?” The conversation had suddenly taken a drastic turn. “Why? What just happened here?”
“I don’t know.” Oliver shrugged and looked over his shoulder toward, I realized, the same guys who had harassed me a few minutes earlier. “I just . . . I’m not really good at parties. With, you know, other people.”
Realization dawned. “Oliver, how many parties have you been to?”
“Um.”
“That’s what I thought,” I replied. Of course, Oliver hadn’t been going to ragers while his dad kept him hidden from the world. For years, even though he was living in the biggest city in the world, it was probably Oliver and his dad—only Oliver and his dad.
“You have to come tonight,” I told him. “It’ll be fun, and Caro and Drew and I will all be there.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know anyone else.” He scratched at his arm and looked down at his board, avoiding my gaze. “I mean, I barely know them.”
“Well, you’re not going to get to know them if you stay home with your mom and Rick and the twins,” I pointed out. “And they’re great, but I can’t lie, it’s not exactly Social City over at your house.”
Oliver stared out at the horizon.
“Just come on,” I urged. “You said yourself that you didn’t want to be stuck at home with the twins watching you. Look, if you hate it, we can leave. If people are mean to you, I’ll beat them up.” I lifted my arm and flexed my muscle. “See? I’m pretty strong. And intimidating, too.”
“Really.” Oliver seemed both amused and deeply unimpressed.
“Really,” I told him as we bobbed in the water, listening to the small waves crash behind us.
“Fine,” he finally said, then pushed himself back up on his board. “You win. I’ll go. Now c’mon, the towering surf awaits!” He gestured toward the (very flat) ocean and I hopped up on my board next to him.
“You really do suck at this,” I teased him as we started to paddle out farther. “I’m just taking pity on you.”
“We shall see!” he yelled. He paddled faster, just out of my reach, the way he always seemed to be.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
After surfing, we went over to Caro’s so I could give her a ride to the party. “Come up!” she yelled from her balcony, half her head in hot rollers and only one eye completely made up. “I’m not ready yet! Tell David to let you in!”
“Caro’s older brother,” I filled in when Oliver gave me a questioning look. “He’s cool. He’s mostly stoned.”
“Ah,” Oliver said as David opened the door. His eyes were heavy, like a basset hound who desperately needed a nap. “Hey, dudes,” he said to both of us. “Oliver! Cool. Good times.”
Oliver looked at me again but I just brushed past David, grabbing Oliver’s wrist and dragging him behind me. “Hey, David,” I said, then whispered to Oliver, “Hurry, before he starts a conversation.”
“He can have a conversation?” Oliver asked.
We went upstairs to Caro’s room that she shared with her older sister Heather. There was a pile of laundry in the hallway, right next to an empty laundry basket. We stepped around it and went into Caro’s room.
It was always easy to tell Caro’s side of the room: it was organized to an alarming degree. Drew once asked Caro if she used a ruler to make sure everything was at right angles. When she just blinked at him and said, “Obviously,” we became a little worried. But if you shared a room with Heather, you would probably be a complete neatnik, too.
Because Heather, like I said before, is a natural disaster disguised as a human being.
“Welcome to hell!” Caro said cheerfully, waving us in and around a pile of shoes, none of which matched. She gestured to a bottle of hand sanitizer that was on her desk. “Use it if you feel like you have to,” she told us. Oliver was still in the doorway, his eyes wide as he took in the scene. “I know,” Caro said when she saw his face. “It’s a lot to contemplate.”
“It’s like watching two movies at the same time,” he replied.
“Right?” Caro cried. “I mean”—she gestured to Heather’s side of the room, where there was a huge pile of sheets and blankets that presumably hid a bed—“she could have a family of kangaroos under there and I wouldn’t know. If I don’t show up to class next week, just assume that it’s because I’ve been stampeded by kangaroos.”
I gingerly stepped around the shoes and went over to Caro’s side, sitting on the floor next to her desk. (The bed was so neatly made that I was afraid of mussing the hospital corners.) There were pens and pencils lined up in alternating order on her desk and highlighters in ROYGBIV formation in a plastic cup next to them. I didn’t need to open the drawer to know that her Post-it notes were organized in the exact same way.