Olive’s knees almost lost power, but her desire to keep their mouths close gave her the strength to keep standing. “I’m trying not to be that girl who gets a boyfriend and ditches her friends. Help me.”
His laughter puffed against her lips a half-second before he kissed her, light and tender, but so potent she swayed toward his broad chest. “Something to drink, ladies?” Rory said, throwing a brief glance over her head.
“Beer,” Leanne said without missing a beat. “Beer sounds great.”
Rory shook his head but didn’t take his eyes off Olive. “Nice try. You’re getting sodas.” He pressed his mouth to Olive’s ear. “I’ll make you a white Russian later.”
Heat propelled into her belly like a torpedo. “Okay,” she said, wetting her lips. “What am I going to make you?”
“Happy.”
He ran a hand over her hair and backed away, reluctance in every line of his rangy body. “Go have fun. I’ll find you.”
A moment later, he’d been swallowed up in the crowd’s current, although his dark head was still visible above the majority of the carnival goers. Olive watched him go, already regretting her plea for help so she didn’t neglect her friends. Still, his willingness to comply when they were both obviously dying to be alone? It made her like him even more. Like the unselfish man he was. Even if she had an intuition that he’d be selfish later to make up for the delay. God, she couldn’t wait for him to be selfish with her.
Her friends walked up, flanking her on either side.
“Just do it,” Leanne muttered.
Olive squealed. Honest to God squealed, turning heads of passersby.
“Thank you. I just had to get that out.”
“Understood,” Leanne returned.
They continued walking and chatting, taking a right into the carnival entrance, which led them just off the boardwalk, where the rides had been erected in a large plot of empty land. Darkness had fallen completely, the blinking, rainbow assortment of lights turning everything in their path into a dreamy kaleidoscope. The smell of salty ocean air mingled with the scent of funnel cake, the crowd a moving sea of animation. Exhilaration danced over Olive’s arms, like she was walking inside an electrical current, her laughter coming more freely than it ever had.
“So how did you meet Rory?” asked one of the girls from study group.
“He rescued me,” Olive answered, trying not to let her eagerness to talk about Rory show. “I was reading and walking at the same time…”
All three girls nodded in total understanding.
“And I was just about to step into the path of a speeding bus. But he pulled me back.” She tucked some hair behind her ear. “A-and then a couple days later, he rescued me from drowning. I got caught in the rip current.”
Everyone had stopped walking, their jaws halfway to the ground.
Leanne’s expression was one of pure betrayal. “I’m only finding this out now?”
“I was embarrassed! Sorry sorry sorry.” Wincing, she gave Leanne a quick hug and continued weaving her way through the crowd, encouraging the girls to follow. “So yeah, that’s how we met. And then we took a weird break. But then he had to save me again from a bar fight…”
Olive trailed off, feeling a crease form between her eyebrows. Had Rory really saved her three times? Wow. Stringing all those events into a few sentences made her not only seem kind of pathetic and accident prone, but for some reason a niggle of discomfort was crawling up her spine now. She’d wondered since the beginning why Rory seemed so infatuated with her. She was a shrimpy bookworm with a gap between her front teeth who couldn’t even legally buy alcohol. He was drop-dead gorgeous and cool and caring and loyal.
He was guilty, too. Carried so much guilt, in fact, the weight was practically visible on his shoulders. If I’d been there, I would have saved her. Hadn’t Rory said that? Was he drawn to Olive because she’d needed saving? The way he hadn’t been able to do with his mother?
Now that she didn’t need constant saving…how long until he lost interest?
The carnival sounds around Olive grew muffled, her friends’ conversation fading away until she could only hear the dull thudding of her own heart. A cavern opened in her stomach. Or maybe it had never sealed up in the first place. After the first time she’d been disregarded by her parents for not being exactly right.
Olive felt a hand on her waist. Breath warmed her neck and a familiar voice broke through the haze that had descended.
“Hey, sunbeam.” Concern was thick in Rory’s tone. “Look at me. What’s wrong?”
A roller coaster trundled past overhead at top speed and a group of children ran by laughing, propelling the world back into its usual rhythm. At first there was only the outline of Rory’s head, surrounded by blinking lights, but he steadily came into perfect view, worry creasing his handsome face.