The next day at lunch, Caro was sitting in the quad by herself, holding a bag from Del Taco and sucking on a huge straw. I thought about avoiding her entirely since I wasn’t exactly sure if we were friends again, but then she saw me and I walked over. “Can I sit?” I asked.
She moved her backpack over in response and I plopped down next to her. “So your parents didn’t kill you,” she said.
“No,” I said. “But honestly, I wish they had.” I tossed my backpack on the ground and groaned. “I’m so tired.”
Caro passed me her soda. “Oh, thanks,” I said, taking it from her.
“Friends share caffeine,” she replied, her voice quiet. It was the first conversation we had had since our fight last week and I knew a peace offering when I saw one. (Plus, any peace offering that involved a carbonated, caffeinated beverage was definitely going to be accepted by me.)
“So what the hell happened?” she asked. “And where’s Oliver?”
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 tens 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.