In Waves | ✔️

10 | beach boy

It was a spur of the moment decision. A decision I won't bother picking apart because I'm too sidetracked by the buzzing of my hummingbird heart. For the first time in forever, I threw caution to the wind, and I jumped into a stranger's car. Going against a rule ingrained since childhood. But is Nate Miller still a stranger at this point?

As we're zooming away like robbers fleeing a bank, I look at him in the passenger seat shaking his getaway driver with so much infectious happiness that it washes over the shell of the car, engulfing everyone.

It's only been three days since the ice cream incident. Three days since I ever spoke a word to him, but it's getting harder to remember the days before he crashed in.

"So we've got a replacement DeMarco today, huh?" Blake says from behind the wheel, shoving Nate off.

"That's right. Lia," Nate twists in his seat, "you know Blake, Ollie, Clara. Guys you know Lia."

I'm squished in the back with Clara right next to me, and I try my best to act like I don't have the fresh image of her and Rob rolling around the sheets seared into my brain.

"What's up, little DeMarco?" Ollie offers me a fist bump, dreadlocks framing a kind face.

"So yeah, this is the crew," Nate says. "Minus Rob at home."

"And minus Alex at soccer tryouts," Clara adds softly, avoiding directly looking at me. Seems like we're both feeling the elephant in the room.

"Yep." Nate swings back to the front, adjusting the radio volume.

"Wait, Rob hangs out with you guys?"

"Only since he started sweating it up with Clara." Blake laughs, and both Nate and Ollie smack the back of his head.

"Sisters, dude."

I let out a weak laugh, willing the awkwardness splashing over me and Clara to evaporate. And with Oliver being her twin, he must be feeling that splash too.

I look over all of them, the dots connecting. Now that I think about it, Rob was probably at the beach with Nate on Sunday. This is the group he's been so preoccupied with this summer.

"Feels like Rob's always been part of the crew, though." Ollie shrugs. "He would've been fighting Blake to pull that fire alarm if he wasn't sent home."

My jaw drops. "That was you?"

Blake nods with pride, driving so fast the little surfboard hanging from the rearview mirror hasn't stopped swinging around, even though we're streets away from the school now.

"How else were we gonna get out of detention?" Nate muses.

"Breaking the law to ditch detention seems a little extreme," I say. "We could have just, you know, done the detention."

"On a day like today? Screw that." He's not facing me, but the lilt in his voice tells me he's smiling. "Breaking the law was totally necessary."

I watch the main street buildings mesh together into a colorful blur. "Why? Where are we going, anyway?"

"The only place these idiots would break the law for," Clara answers.

〰️〰️〰️

Blake pulls into the beach parking lot so fast that he almost knocks the side mirror off the car next to us. He helps Nate untie the stacked surfboards on the roof racks that I somehow missed. Ollie's getting wetsuits out of the trunk, Clara's tugging out sandy towels.

It's a set routine I watch play out from the sidelines, second guessing my rash decision to jump into this beat-up little Toyota. Like, the beach of all places? So not worth it. At least it's quieter than it was on the weekend.