“Not at all.”
“How old are you?” I ask him.
“Eighteen. I turn nineteen in September.”
“I’m a March baby.”
“I’ll have to remember that.”
He smiles at me, and I feel a fluttering in my chest.
He comes to a stop by a really fancy-looking Mercedes. It’s a really nice car.
“Is this yours?” I ask, impressed.
“Mmhmm.”
He unlocks the car and pulls the handle on the door. And it opens up. And when I say up, I mean, it literally lifts up, not opening like a conventional car door.
“Wow,” I say, my eyes wide.
“Yeah. It’s kinda cool, I guess.”
It’s more than cool. “So, you like cars?”
He shrugs. “I guess. Yeah, they’re okay. My parents bought it for me on my eighteenth birthday.”
“Well, they must really like you—a lot.” I give a teasing smile.
“Not really.” He looks away, not before giving me a tight smile.
His body language screams tense, and I really wish I hadn’t said anything.
But, now, I think I see the reason for that loneliness I first saw in him.
Absent rich parents maybe?
But that car must have cost a fortune. That’s some serious money. I got that he was wealthy. Most people in Malibu are. And the beach house he’s staying in wouldn’t have been cheap. But the kind of money this sort of car would go for is so beyond out of my league that I wouldn’t know what to do with it even if I had it.
And it serves to remind me of just how poor I am.
Maybe he won’t want to date me when he finds out that we are polar opposites. Or maybe that’s just a really shitty thing for me to think. I’m guessing he knows I don’t swim in his end of the pool, considering I’m spending my summer working at the Shack.
But poor girl and rich boy? You know what people always think in these scenarios. And I don’t want to be that girl ever. Or quite possibly I’m seriously overthinking this. I mean, we haven’t even been on a date yet.
“So, you’re kind of rich, huh?” I say quietly.
He shifts, like he’s uncomfortable, his eyes still not on me, but off in the distance.
I’m starting to get that being rich isn’t necessarily a good thing for him.
His hands find the pockets of his shorts. Then, his eyes finally come back to mine. The color in them is so vibrant that it momentarily takes my breath away.
“I am. Is that a problem?” he asks, taking my words from before and giving them back to me.
“No.” I shake my head, letting a smile on my lips. “So long as you don’t try to buy me a car or anything,” I joke, trying to lighten the air.
He chuckles, the tension in him visibly easing. “I’ll try to refrain from doing so.”
“Good,” I say, slipping into the leather seat. “Because I can’t drive.”
He shuts my door, and I buckle in. He gets in the driver’s side a few seconds later.
“So, where are we going?” I ask.
He puts his seat belt on. “You hungry?” he asks me.
“Sure. I could eat.”
He turns the engine on, and the radio comes on in the middle of Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer.”
“I love this song,” I tell him. “It reminds me of…summer.”
He glances at me, and I snort out a laugh, causing him to smile so wide that it’s dazzling.
“You want the top down?” he asks.
It takes me a minute to realize that he’s talking about the car. At first, I thought he was asking if I wanted his top down…to which I would have said, Yes, please.
God, I’m such a pervert.
Adam must know the direction my brain has taken as he lets out a low chuckle that I feel everywhere. My cheeks start to redden. He presses a button on the dash, and the top goes down, letting the sun in. Then, he pulls out into the street.
We drive for a while, the conversation flowing freely. We’ve just gotten on the interstate when we get on the subject of surfing. Adam tells me that’s why he’s in Malibu, to surf. Which isn’t surprising. It’s why most people come here.
“Do you like to surf?” he asks me.
“I work at a surf shop. It’s the law. I think Grady would sack me if I didn’t like surfing.”
He laughs. “We should go surfing together.”
“Today?” I squeak. “It’s a bit late in the day to catch any good waves, and I don’t have my board or any swimwear.”
“No. I meant, another day.” He looks over at me.
Heat erupts deep inside me. “Are you asking me out on another date?”
“Maybe.” His eyes go to the road ahead, but there’s a definite smile touching his lips.
“Isn’t that a dangerous thing to do?”
“Dangerous?” His eyes flicker back to mine.
“Well, we haven’t even had this date. By the end of it, you might decide that you never want to see me again.”
Another look. “I highly doubt it.”
“You never know though,” I say. “And you can’t be sure until this date is over. So, at the end of this date, if you decide you want to see me again, then ask me again.”
His eyes come to mine, holding a second longer this time. “I will.”
His eyes release me, and I let out the breath I was holding.
Glancing out the window, I see that we’re getting close to Point Dume.
Adam indicates a turn and then pulls onto the street, and parks the car. “Do you like pizza?” he asks.
“I do.”
“Good.” He climbs out of the car. “Any toppings you don’t like?”
“Olives and anchovies. But I’m cool with anything else.”
Stopping, he leans back into the car. “I swear, you are the girl of my dreams.” He gives me a cheeky grin. “Wait here. I’ll be back in five, ten max.”
The girl of his dreams…holy wow.
It’s more like twenty minutes before Adam comes back to the car. I would have started to get worried, thinking he’d ditched me, if I hadn’t been sitting in his fancy car.
“Sorry about that,” he says, sounding a little out of breath, as he gets back into the car, pizza box in hand. “Took longer than I thought.”
“You want me to hold that?” I refer to the pizza box.
“That’d be good. It’d be pretty awkward to drive with.” He smiles.
I take the box from him, placing it on my lap.
So, he’s not taking me out for dinner. We’re having take-out pizza.
I am so down with that.
He is doing the exact opposite of what I thought he would. And it makes me like him even more.
“Oh, and I got you this.” He holds out a rose in his left hand, which he was apparently hiding at his side.
“There was a flower shop next door to the pizzeria,” he explains.
I can’t speak. I’m staring at it, surprised and overawed. And it is crazy because it’s a damn flower. But it’s a flower…from him.
“Too cheesy?” He gives me a lopsided grin as he bites the inside of his lower lip, making him look even handsomer.