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I shake my head. “Sorry, can’t swim.”
He raises a brow at me but grins nevertheless. “We gotta fix that, then.”
“No, thank you,” I say, feeling the presence of my tuck more than usual.
He purses his lips, walking out of the water to stand fully on land. The water drips off his lean, muscular body as he pulls the suit from his skin. His wet hair still sticks to his face. The mess of brown frames his face almost perfectly.
“So, you like the water but can’t swim?”
“Nope.”
Before I can even process his presence, Oliver is standing in front of me. He’s only a few inches taller than me. I’ve always cursed my height. Other than the basketball guys, I was always the same height or even taller than most guys at my school.
Other than Dalton.
The thought of him causes a bone-chilling shiver to run up my spine. Not the same kind Oliver caused last night. I tilt my head up to meet Oliver’s gaze, and once again, I feel that warm tingle. He’s staring at me with an expression I don’t understand. It feels like he’s trying to study my every feature. I back away subconsciously to avoid him looking directly at my face.
He reaches forward, softly taking my wrist into his hand to stop me. A second later, he twirls my body around and pulls me into his chest, wrapping his arms around my waist and lifting me off the sand.
“A little water won’t kill you!” he cheers.
“Oliver!” I cry out. “I’m not wearing a swimsuit. I don’t want to get my hair wet.” My stomach rages with nerves as we inch closer to the water. I can’t go in the water. It will ruin my makeup and make my clothes cling to uncomfortable spots—the space between my boobs and the tuck under my skirt.
I thrust my elbow hard into his side, causing a groan of pain to leave his mouth, and he drops me. I recover quickly, but Oliver is on his knees, holding his side.
“Oliver, I’m so?—”
“Damn, you have a mean elbow. Okay, okay, no water.” He holds his hands up in defeat as a wave comes in, brushing the cold water over my feet.
“You can’t do that to a girl—especially when she does her hair and makeup.”
“Sorry, sorry. I should have known better.” His face glances up, eyeing me intently.
He’s studying me again.
I want to hide away, but his intense green gaze turns warm as he grins. “Let me make it up to you before I have work. Want to get slushies at the pier?”
CHAPTER NINE
Sally
I’ve never been greeted with so many smiles before. As a kid, you don’t pay much attention to the surrounding people—adults being high up on the ‘I do not understand’ list. I was too focused on my parents and their moods. The way they looked at each other. The grip of my father’s hands whitening his knuckles. It’s sad that I know he was restraining the urge to hit her.
He never raised a hand to me or my mom, but that didn’t mean there weren’t plenty of slurs being thrown out within the walls of our house.
Just on the way to the pier, Oliver was stopped three times. Each time, he was pulled into a full conversation. The first was a petite white woman with a blonde pixie cut and blue floral dress, aptly named Daisy. She started giving Oliver shit about having a new girl on his arm every week, which caused a little bit of heat to fill my body. I’m already getting jealous when I shouldn’t.
Oliver explained that Daisy was the recent wife of the head bartender at Water's Edge, though not everyone knows that. Maybe some secrets can be kept in this town.
The other two times we were stopped were by people whom Oliver had helped with repairs. I gathered that Oliver works mornings as a handyman of sorts around town. Then, in the afternoon, he works at Water’s Edge as a waiter or barback . On top of all that, he helps the kids on the weekend.
He basically works three jobs.
It doesn’t escape me that all three interactions called me Oliver’s girlfriend, and he didn’t correct them.
In Darien, if I were seen with a boy in public, the bullies would taunt him about being gay. I didn’t make many guy friends after that.
The Riptide Pier leads out onto the lake. The lake shore was always the part that attracted the most tourists in the city. At the beginning of the attraction, you have the physical shops. The actual pier area is filled with different vendors, from gift shops and pretzel stands to even freelance artists and magicians. I’m pretty sure we just passed a psychic giving a tarot card reading to a goth girl and her equally goth boyfriend.
