An unorthodox smile grew on his lips. He let it sit between them for several long seconds before speaking. “I’m not sure why I’d make fun of yours when that’s mine.” He pointed at a white vehicle parked on the other side of the lot.
It was a decommissioned police cruiser. The force’s crest had been scraped off, and it didn’t have the light bar on top, but Makani recognized it from school. Everyone knew that Ollie drove a police car—a gift most likely bestowed upon him by his older brother, a cop—and their classmates ragged him about it mercilessly. Makani suspected he kept driving it just to prove that he didn’t give a shit.
“So, why were you laughing at me?” she asked.
Ollie rubbed the back of his neck. “Not you. Me.”
Makani didn’t know if it was the summer swelter or the culmination of seven months of unrelenting tedium, but she sensed . . . something. She walked toward him, slowly. Her bare legs shone. “And why were you laughing at yourself, Ollie?”
He watched her approach, because it was clear that she wanted him to watch. He waited to reply. When she stopped before him, he tilted up his head and shielded his eyes from the sun. “Because I wanted to speak to you earlier, but I was too nervous. Makani.”
So, he knew who she was.
She smiled.
Ollie stood up from the milk crate, and his silver lip ring glinted in the sunlight. She wondered how it would feel between her own lips. It had been too long since she’d kissed anyone. Since anyone had wanted to kiss her. Get a hold of yourself. Makani took a physical step backward, because it was impossible to converse when they were standing that close. Chest to chest. And she was, above all things, intrigued by Ollie.
She nodded at his paperback. “I never see you without a book.”
He held it up so that she could see its cover: a cluster of men hanging out the doors and windows of a moving train. She didn’t recognize it, so he explained. “It’s about an American who travels from London to Southeast Asia by train.”
“Is it a true story?”
He nodded.
“Do you read a lot of true stories?”
“I read a lot of travelogues. I like reading about other places.”
“I get it.” Her smile returned. “I like thinking about other places.”
Ollie stared at her mouth for a moment, distracted. “Any place but this one,” he finally said. But it was clear that he was referring to the greater Osborne, and not this very specific place beside Greeley’s Foods—this place that contained her.
“Exactly,” she said.
He leaned against the brick wall and melted back into the shade. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to regain his disinterested cool or if he was simply shy. “You’re from Hawaii, right? Are you going back there after graduation?”
Makani’s heart stuttered. She searched his eyes—such a searing blue—but it was unlikely that he knew. The Hawaiian media had withheld her name, though that hadn’t stopped social media. It hadn’t stopped her from needing to change her name.
“I’m not sure,” she said cautiously. “What about you? Where do you want to go?”
Ollie shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Anywhere, so long as it’s not here.”
“What’s keeping you from leaving now?” She was genuinely curious. A lot of their classmates never made it to graduation.
“My brother. And the money.” He gestured at his apron. “I’ve been working here since I was fourteen. That’s when they’ll let you bag groceries.”
She’d never heard of someone her age holding down a job for that long. “Jesus. That’s . . . three years? Four?”
“I would have started earlier if they’d let me.”
Makani glanced behind them at the desolate Main Street. Greeley’s Foods faced a meager row of mismatched awnings—a tanning salon, a real estate office, an upholsterer, and a bridal shop that still had prom dresses in its window display. She’d never been through any of their doors. “I wish I could get a job.”
“No,” he said. “You don’t.”
His conviction irritated her. She’d wanted to apply at the Feed ’N’ Seed, where Darby and Alex both worked, but she’d been firmly denied. “I do. But according to my parents, my job is to take care of my grandmother.”
Ollie frowned. “Does she need help? She’s always seemed fine to me.”
Makani was startled . . . until she realized that he must see her grandmother here at the store. Grandma Young was notable enough; few black people lived in Osborne. His brother had probably even had her as a teacher. “She is fine,” she said, sliding into her usual half-truth. “My parents are just using her as an excuse.”
“For what?”
“For sending me four thousand miles away. Parents are the fucking worst, you know?” Her regret was instantaneous. It wasn’t fair to say things like that in front of someone who didn’t have any parents at all. She winced. “Sorry.”
Ollie stared at the asphalt for several beats. When his gaze returned upward, his expression was detached, but she could still see a struggle underneath. It wasn’t difficult for her to imagine how awful it would be to live in a town where everyone, even the new girl, knew that a drunk driver had killed your parents when you were in middle school, and that your brother had moved back home from Omaha to raise you.
He shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“No, I’m really sorry. It was a shitty thing to say.”
“And I’m sorry that your parents are the fucking worst.”
Makani wasn’t sure how to respond—Was that a joke?—so when Ollie’s mouth split into a grin, her heart skipped like a scratched vinyl record. She didn’t want to ruin the moment. “All right, all right. I’d better get home.” She strolled back to her car and shook her head. But as she opened the door, she called out, “See you next week, Ollie.”
Ollie bit his lip. “See you next week, Makani.”
There was nothing else to think about, so, for the next six days, Makani thought exclusively about Ollie. She thought about his lips and her lips and pressing them together. Pressing more than their lips together. She entered a fever state. She hadn’t had a boyfriend since moving to Nebraska. Makani pleaded with her grandmother to let her take over the grocery shopping. She tested out words like responsibility and maturity and strung together other words like valuable, learning, and experience. She won.
When Makani pulled back into the lot, Ollie was sitting on the same milk crate. He was reading a book and eating a red Popsicle. Makani went straight toward him. He stood. His expression didn’t give anything away, but she felt the truth of it in her bones: Ollie had been waiting for her.
She stepped inside his personal space.
Ollie bit his lower lip over the silver ring. It slowly slipped back out.
When he wordlessly offered her the Popsicle, she went for his mouth instead, because she’d long ago—six days ago—decided that being forward was the best way to approach a guy with his sort of reputation. Their first kiss was wet. Cold tongue and sugary fruit. Cherry, Makani thought. His piercing was warm from the summer sun. The surgical-steel hoop pushed against her lips. It felt dangerous.