“It’s all right.”
“I’m really embarrassed,” she said, “about this whole conversation. I hope you don’t think I was trying to make the moves on you or anything.”
Backtracking. He didn’t blame her. He felt mildly embarrassed for her, too. But it’s not like she didn’t know he had a girlfriend.
“Oh, I didn’t think that at all,” Mark lied. He decided the kind thing to do was to help her out.
She breathed relief. It was exaggerated and fake, and he accepted it as genuine.
“Good!” she cried. “I mean. I am not one of those girls.”
He smiled. She fidgeted with her skirt and then walked to the door.
“I just wanted to get a guy’s opinion on why so many of them date girls younger than them.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,” Mark said.
Drew shook her head. “No big deal.” She stood in the doorway waiting for him to say something. He remained silent, waiting patiently to leave. “Okay then. I’m off.”
Mark had a feeling she wouldn’t come around so much after that. And he was right. He rarely saw her in the coming weeks, and he was happy for her absence.
“I still don’t understand why you wanna hang out with us,” Oliver said. He stared out the car window as Cadence drove him and his three friends to the skate park. “But thanks for driving.”
“I needed to get out of the house,” she replied. “And thanks for letting me tag along.”
Oliver screwed up his face in thought. “You’re welcome? And, you’re not gonna make us pitch in for gas or anything, are you?”
Cadence laughed. “No.”
“Then you can hang out any time, Cay,” Wesley said from the backseat. “We love showing off for the ladies.”
Cadence giggled.
“You have to promise to be impressed and clap for us,” Charlie piped up.
“You do something awesome, and I will,” Cadence replied.
“Stop flirting with my sister,” Oliver groaned. “That’s gross.”
“Oh, let ‘em,” Cadence replied airily. She winked at Charlie in the rearview mirror.
He clutched his chest and feigned a heart attack.
“I would totally date you if you weren’t taken,” Charlie said.
“Dude!” Oliver snapped.
Charlie, Wesley, and Pete laughed hard.
“Calm down, Ollie,” Pete said. “Nobody’s moving in on your sister.”
“Good, ‘cause I’d beat the hell out of you,” Oliver replied.
Cadence rolled her eyes and turned into the empty parking lot.
“Um, guys? The park’s closed,” she said, pulling into a parking space.
The boys snickered.
“Sweet, sweet Cadence,” Wesley said. “We’re about to show you some awesome fun.”
They unbuckled their seatbelts and clambered out of the car. Oliver popped the trunk and doled out the skateboards.
“Wait,” Cadence said. “We’re gonna break in?”
“Uh, yeah. And by breaking in, we mean climbing through a hole in the fence,” Pete explained.
“Seriously?” Cadence said. “I don’t know . . .”
“Oh, chill out. If you wanna wait in the car, that’s okay,” Oliver said.
“No, I don’t wanna wait in the car!” she replied. “That’s totally lame.”
“Totally,” Charlie echoed. He looked her up and down. “Come on, Oliver’s tiny big sister. Don’t be scared. We’ll take good care of you.” He held out his hand to her, and she didn’t think twice. She took it and let him lead her to the hole in the fence.
All five snuck through just as the sun set and the security lights flashed on.
“Aren’t there cameras?” she whispered to Charlie.
“No,” he whispered back. He squeezed her hand, sending shivers up her arm. She was alarmed at how happy it made her feel.
Charlie was the cutest of all of Oliver’s friends. He stood at 5-foot-11 with a buzzed head. He was so opposite of the scruffy, hair-in-the-eyes look that most high school boys sported. His eyes were Caribbean blue, and he always looked right at Cadence’s face when he talked to her. He was much too confident for a seventeen-year-old, and it rattled her.
She admitted her attraction to him when she first met him. Well, she admitted it to herself, not him. It faded quickly once she realized how disgusting dating one of Oliver’s friends would be. He kept up his flirting with her throughout high school and ramped it up her senior year when he thought she was single. When she was secretly dating Mark.
Charlie released her hand and pointed to a safe place for her to sit. She settled on a bench and watched the boys fly off ramps, flip their skateboards, fall on the concrete with grunts and groans, and cheer each other on with whoops and laughter. She cheered for them, too, especially when Pete skated over to her to retrieve a joint from his jacket pocket.
“No, Cay. You’re on driving duty,” Oliver pointed out.
“No, I’m not,” she argued.
The boys laughed.
“Let her take one hit, little brother,” Wesley said. “She needs it.”
“Yes, I do,” she agreed emphatically.
Oliver thought for a moment. “It won’t change anything,” he said to her. “Mark will still have been married when you go home.”