Chapter 17

I spend most of the next day at the pool, avoiding Matt's eyes. I'm sitting in the chair at the top of the slide, dictating when kids are allowed to slide down so it's pretty easy to avoid everyone in general. About an hour after I get there, I can tell Jake knows too, but it's something specifically about Matt that makes me…I don't know…embarrassed about what happened? Well, not really embarrassed but more like we're both vying for the same girl and he's seen one of my moves. It wasn't even my idea, exactly, since it's from the list but something about him finding me in such a compromising position with Emily makes me shiver. Not that anything happened in the pool. I know it's crazy thinking because he doesn't even know that I'm gay yet, but I can't help it.

Jake has spent most of the shift, trying to catch my eye and winking exaggeratedly when he does. I suspect he wishes he had been the one to find us last night and the thought makes me cringe. He might have actually gotten us in trouble.

I can't stop myself from playing that moment in the pool right before Matt caught us over and over again in my head. I imagine the way she was looking at my lips with something resembling lust in her eyes. The way her lips looked, glistening with the water of the pool, slightly parted, soft. I have to see her again and soon, but we don't yet have plans for something else on the list. Emily told me Kiera's coming home from camp soon and I have a feeling that will mean the end of all this time with her. When I cold Claire about it last night, she thought that I need to act soon too. Part of me wants to tell her before we go on the Huckabee Lodge lake trip that I like her. But I'm not entirely sure that I do want to tell Emily how I feel and I find out for sure that's she not interested. Maybe it's easier just to never know for sure but have this feeling of hope. She thinks of normal and right as being with Matt, the perfect boy, with the perfectly cute hair, and the perfect history with her. I know I'm being unfair, but I can't help it. Maybe the Huckabee Lodge lake trip can be my cutoff for telling Emily how I feel and I promise myself that no matter what happens I'll be okay with it.

I'm restless by the end of my shift. I'm lost in thought and so I don't hear my phone at first when it's ringing and I'm glad nobody else is up here on the slide deck when I see her name.

"Hey, Em," I say. "What's up?"

"Hey," Emily says, her voice crackling through the phone. "I know I said I was going to pack today, but I changed my mind. You wanna get out of here?"

I laugh with delight. "I thought you'd never ask."

We decide to go to Ocean City, Maryland for an overnight trip. I call my dad to let him know our plans and ask to borrow his surfboard, so we can both have one. The moment my shift is over, I run home to pack a few things and the surfboards and climb into the truck. Exactly an hour later, I roll up to her house and see her sitting on the porch steps with her bag. Her dad is pacing on the porch behind her, talking on the phone. I'm grinning at her, excited for a four hour drive to the beach near where my aunt Lisa lives where we can spend the night. Together. We're going on an actual adventure. Emily turns back to look at her dad and I wonder what she's thinking. Is she worried about him being alone for such a short period of time? If so, she needs this a lot more than I realized. They both do. Joe gives me a big wave. At least he might approve of me, even if Emily's mom never got the chance to. Emily stops on the last step of the porch and I can see the fear overtaking her. I can see her mind whirring with the possibilities of disaster and a part of me wants to jump out of the truck and hold her. She spins around to face Joe and I think for a moment she won't come. But Emily's brave.

"Love you," she calls to him and his eyes crinkle at the corners. I see him mouth something to her before she jogs the rest of the way to my truck.

"Surfboards, Blake? Two of them?" Emily says as she climbs into the truck and buckles herself in.

"It'll be fun. Not much harder than riding a bike," I say, smiling and thinking of my dad teaching me to surf when I was six years old. I picture his sun tanned arms holding my board steady, me tipping off the board and falling into the water. "And to prepare, my grandma made enough breakfast burritos to feed everyone in Huckabee."

It's noon already, but she knows how much I like them. I toss one to her, but she doesn't catch it and it hits her square in the chest. "Never too late for a breakfast burrito."

She takes a bite and I can see that Emily's face changes the same way mine does when I eat them. "This is incredible," Emily says and I nod in agreement.

"She makes them almost every morning and I still haven't gotten sick of them," I say as we drive through the winding Huckabee roads and I realize that I need gas to make the entire trip.

"My mom and I used to get scratch-offs here," Emily says when I pull into a small gas station. I step out and try to get the ancient pump to accept my credit card. "I once won big on the Bingo boogie card. I think I was in fifth grade."

"Oh yeah?" I ask, eyeing the pump that declines my card again. I give up and lean against the truck, staring at the pump menacingly. Emily pokes my shoulder and nods toward the store.

"You're going to have to go in and pay. These gas pumps are older than dirt," she says, looking at me sympathetically.

"No surprise there," I mutter as I head inside. I never thought I would miss the gas pumps in Hawaii, not that I used them very often since I didn't have a car there. I walk into the ancient building to find a woman in her thirties manning the counter, her eyes on the phone in front of her. My phone buzzes, a notification letting me know that someone I follow has posted their first story in a while and I see that Emily has posted a picture of the surfboards, which brings a smile to my face. I head to the snack area to pick up some road trip snacks before seeing the stack of lottery cards and deciding to grab a couple of those as well. I take it all to the counter and the woman doesn't look up until she hears the clack of the items on the counter. She scans them quickly and tosses it all into a white plastic bag that I take with me to the truck.

"What did you get?" she asks. I pull out Lays chips, a packet of Skittles, sour gummy worms, and a Hershey chocolate bar.

"And," I say, reaching into the back pocket of my jean shorts to show her the lottery tickets. Emily's face glows with pleasant surprise. I feel myself warm all over as she looks at it with some emotion I cannot name. "Pick one."

She reaches out, hesitating before picking the left one. "You feeling lucky, Emily Clarke?" Her eyes meet mine, shock in her face and I wonder if she is thinking of some other moment. For me, it doesn't really matter what's behind the scratchable plastic. Because there's no other way to describe this feeling, getting to share all of this with Emily. I feel lucky.

Emily smiles as she pulls a nickel out of her pocket. "Maybe a little."