Fish Out of Water (21 page)

She nods, though she doesn’t look convinced. “What did Supervisor Clark say?”

I cringe, feeling even worse now.

“You didn’t ask him?”

“Well…” I should say it fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid. “He kinda caught me and Dylan kissing, and I was so embarrassed I chickened out.”

Her eyebrows go up. “You were making out at work? You, Miss Responsible?”

“It was technically
before
work, but he came out back and found us and I wanted to disappear. I swear I’ll ask on Monday. I’m so sorry I didn’t—I didn’t know it would be hard to find something.”

She laughs to herself. “That’s fine. But what’s gotten into you?”

“What do you mean?”

She grabs another piece of pizza. “You’ve always been so, I don’t know, calm and in control. Dylan gets you all flustered.”

I want to argue, but her saying his name gives me this fluttery feeling. It’s freaky. “Is it that bad?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? Now that you’ve given in, it seems like you’re happy.” She takes a bite. “It’s okay to be happy, Mika. I might be miserable, but I still want you to be happy.”

I smile. “This is why I’ll never get tired of you, punk.”

She rolls her eyes, and I kick her shin. “Hey!”

“I know you don’t want me to say it, but I still think it’ll be okay. We’ll make it work out.”

She nods. “I don’t want you to say that, but keep doing it anyway. Maybe someday I’ll believe it.”

“You will.” In the meantime, I will hope for her.

Chapter 31

It’s Thursday, and I still haven’t asked Clark if he’s hiring yet. Shreya says it’s okay, but I can tell from her eyes she’s lying. I’m making the make-out ambush too big a deal, but it’s impossible for me to hold a conversation with my boss now. So much for time making it less awkward—the more I put it off the harder it becomes.

“Should I ask him?” Dylan says as we stand in the break room after my shift.

I eye Clark’s door, chewing the inside of my lip. “No, then he’d know how embarrassed I was.”

Dylan snorts. “Because he can’t tell by the one-word answers and crazy blushing.”

“Shut up.”

He pulls me closer. “Then do you want me to come with you?”

I put my head on his chest, the smell of him intoxicating. “Can we just go to lunch?”

He sighs. “If you don’t ask by Monday I will.”

“Deal. Where should we eat?”

“Hmm, I’ll think while I’m changing.” He pulls away.

I tug him back. “You’re changing?”

Laughing, he nods. “I don’t want to spend all afternoon in this uniform, so I brought extra clothes this time.”

“So I have to go to lunch wearing this alone?”

He kisses my cheek. “Don’t worry, you’ll be with me so no one will notice anyway.”

I shove him, and he runs off to the bathroom. Leaning on the wall, I try not to smile. I shouldn’t laugh about his cockiness, but something about it has changed since we got together. Or maybe I understand now that he’s kidding—he doesn’t really think much of himself at all.

Dylan comes out wearing gray plaid shorts and a dark purple t-shirt. He totally pulls off purple. “I think I need tacos.”

“Mmm, yes.” We bike to Su Casa, and this time Dylan buys my food despite my protests. “Why do you always want to pay?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s habit. Maybe I just like buying things for you—it’s funny how you get mad.”

“Why is that funny?”

“No one ever stopped me from paying before. They expected it.” Something clicks as he thinks about it. “But you always resist, even over something as small as a few tacos. I guess it’s a nice reminder that you’re in it for me, not the money.”

I roll my eyes. “What money?”

“When you say that, it makes me want to buy you everything.”

“You better not!”

“I’ll try.” He unwraps his taco, and we eat. We take our time biking to my house, soaking in the summer sun. On the less busy roads, we pedal side by side. There is much flirting.

As we put the bikes on my front porch, I say, “You probably shouldn’t act like we’re together around Betty. I have no clue how she’ll react.”

His brow furrows. “I don’t want to hide it just because she has a problem.”

“Well, I don’t want to get berated all afternoon.” I sigh, knowing he has a point, but hoping he’ll go along with this anyway. “Look, she has a big problem with people ‘mixing’. She can really fly off the handle about it. Since I don’t know what mood she’ll be in, please do this for me. I don’t want to deal with her losing it and calling me names.”

He glares at the door. “It bothers me that anyone would have a problem with us just because of that.”

I hold in my sigh. Dylan has probably never had to deal with any kind of prejudice. I can’t imagine what it’s like, but I take his hand and stand firm. “If she wasn’t sick, I wouldn’t ask, okay? But she is, and I worry about her. Since she’s gotten here, her memory has already gotten worse. She could think we’re my parents or that you’re her dad or something weird and I can’t predict the triggers. It’s easier this way.”

“You really care about her, don’t you?” he asks.

The question takes me off guard, but the answer is even more surprising to me. “Yeah, I guess I do. When she first got here I didn’t understand what she was going through, but now that I do I feel like it’s wrong to hate her for something she can’t control. Maybe if she could, she’d change her mind now. But she can’t.”

“Fine, I’ll do it because it means so much to you.” He gives me a long kiss. “Guess I’ll have to wait for our date for more of this.”

I narrow my eyes. “That’s why you’re really mad, isn’t it? You can’t just kiss me all afternoon.”

“Let’s go inside.” He pulls me toward the door, avoiding the question. We’re met with laughter inside, and I’m relieved. Joel, Shreya, and Betty lounge on the couch watching what I’m pretty sure is
Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Dad loves that movie, but I still don’t get why.
The Princess Bride
is way better.

Joel stands when he sees us. “Mika, did you know Betty can quote this entire movie?”

“Really?”

“She does an uncanny impression of the Black Knight.”

I smile, wondering if this is why Dad likes the movie. Did they watch it as kids? Suddenly I’m picturing him, Uncle Greg, and Aunt Jenny huddled around an old TV in a run-down trailer watching this with their mom. Maybe not all his memories are bad ones. “So she was okay today?”

His smile cracks for a second. “She talked a lot about her father abandoning them. We put in the movie to distract her.”

“Huh.” I look over to Betty, still laughing with Shrey. “She’s mentioned that before, but I don’t know anything about it.”

He nods. “Better figure it out now before she forgets entirely.”

“Yeah.” The thought is sobering. It feels like there’s a clock ticking away my chances of getting to know my grandmother better. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Of course, sweetie.” He looks back and forth between Dylan and me, his smile sly. “You two behave yourselves.”

My eyes go wide—he sure picked up on that like a bloodhound.

Dylan laughs. “I’ll try.”

I smack him, hoping Betty didn’t hear. “Shh. Get to work.”

“Psh, taskmaster.”

He heads to the laundry room, and I sit down next to Shreya on the couch. She doesn’t look away from the TV, and I know I’m in trouble. “Let me guess, you still haven’t asked.”

I hang my head.

“It’s been a week.”

“I know. I’m a horrible friend.”

She sighs. “You’re not. I wouldn’t be mad if I had more options, but this job hunt is a huge fail. If I don’t have a paycheck soon I won’t have a phone. Plus, I wanted to give some kind of rent to your parents.”

“Shrey, you don’t have to do that,” I say.

She purses her lips. “I feel so useless.”

“You’re not.” I put my arm around her. “I swear I’ll ask tomorrow.”

“I’m asking on Monday if she chickens out,” Dylan says as he wheels the fresh water barrel to my room. “I got your back, Shrey.”

He disappears, but she still smiles at the hall. “He’s really sweet, Mika.”

“Who would’ve guessed, right?” I bite my lip, torn between staying here with Shreya and going to my room with Dylan. But I can’t leave her with Betty like that, especially when she’s been here all morning.

She elbows me. “Go.”

I look at her, surprised.

She rolls her eyes. “Your angst is suffocating. I’ll watch Betty.”

I give her a big hug. “You are the best friend in the whole entire world.”

“Pretty much.”

Tiptoeing to my room, I peek in. Dylan is hard at work scrubbing my tanks, then he pauses to look at my pictures. He puts his finger to one and sighs happily—I have never felt so wanted in my life. I step inside and shut the door behind me.

He jumps, but when he sees me he smiles. “What’re you doing?”

I shrug. “Making sure we have privacy.”

He drops the scrubber, and we meet in the middle. He wraps his arms around my waist, his lips urgent on mine. It’s been way too long since I’ve kissed him like this, and I plan to get my fill.

Chapter 32

It’s hard to focus on our sand sculpture when I have a date with Dylan in a few hours, but I try anyway. Shreya needs these days at the beach more than I do—she’s in her element, carving her side of the Taj Mahal like a pro. Last Saturday we made a coiled cobra, and the battered remains of it stand about fifty feet away from us.

“Lots of people today,” I say. We’ve gathered a crowd that presses down on us in a thick circle. “I think we’re getting famous.”

She smiles. “Maybe we’ll have to move beaches, throw people off.”

I laugh. “Yeah, if they keep crowding in on us like this.”

“Can you people back up?” Olivia calls from her perch on a towel next to us. “You’re in my sun!”

The crowd thins at her command. I don’t know how she does that, but she’s always had a dominating presence. She turns so she’s on her stomach, grinning at us. “That better?”

“Yes, thanks.” Shreya doesn’t take her eyes off the sand, the wall needing to be perfect to support the heavy domes on top.

“Do you need to be tanner?” I ask Olivia. “You’re about as brown as a white girl can get.”

“I like the sun! Leave me alone. I don’t need another Mika Skin Cancer Lecture.”

I laugh. “Oh, fine.”

Time passes slower than ever today. I love being with my friends, but at the same time I’m so excited for this date I can barely contain myself. It’s nice to spend so much time with Dylan at work, but it’ll be even better to do fun things with him, to hold his hand and wear normal clothes and not be interrupted by customers. I’ve already planned to wear the fish shirt he bought me, plus my best jeans. Casual but cute. Perfect for the Aquarium.

“Mika,” Shreya says.

I look up, wondering if that wasn’t the first time she said my name. “Yeah?”

She snorts. Crap, she obviously had to repeat herself. “What do you think of this arch? I swear it’s not centered.”

I tilt my head, analyzing the middle one. “I can’t tell.”

She gets up and walks away to get a better view. I follow her. The sculpture is starting to look like the Taj Mahal, and will look even better when we carve in the details. “Maybe it’s fine.”

“I think it is. Once we do the one on the left it’ll look right.” I nudge her. “Too bad you can’t make money off this, because you’re really good at it.”

She nods. “Well, we make a good team. If only we could travel to competitions. I’ll do the other arch—you’re losing focus every second.”

“I am not!”

Olivia laughs. “Mika, you are so head over heels it’s not even funny. Though how could you not be? Dylan’s gorgeous. You should bring him around more so I can at least enjoy the view.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m trying to be a good friend here. You guys are important to me, too, and I know you don’t like me bringing my boyfriends along.”

“That’s not true,” Shrey says, digging into the sand to make the third arch.

“We just didn’t
like
your other boyfriends.” Olivia pulls out a water bottle from our cooler.

I laugh. “You never said this while we were dating!”

Olivia shrugs. “Not really our place to tell you who to date, is it? But I like Dylan. He fits with you, and he’s funny.”

“I agree,” Shrey says. “So stop tiptoeing around us.”

“Fine.” I try to focus on the sculpture, but it doesn’t work. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that my friends approve of Dylan. Because if they like him, then it means this is more serious than I might be ready for. With my other boyfriends, I knew my friends wouldn’t like them, and that made it easier to find a way out when I wanted.

With Dylan, I don’t
want
a way out.

I set down my carver, my hand shaking too much to do the fine detail. I’ve put myself in a place where I’ll be the one losing if we break up—I don’t like this feeling. If he left…I can’t even think about it. I knew I was taking a risk liking him, but I’m in so deep I could drown.

“Mika?” Olivia says. “Are you okay?”

I try to shake it off. “It feels like things are getting serious so fast, and you guys liking him…it’s just weird.”

She throws sand at me. “That’s how it’s supposed to be! Just chill out and enjoy it. Both of us would love to be in your situation, you know.”

Shreya nods shyly. “In time, yes.”

I get the sense they’ve been talking about me when I’m not around. It doesn’t feel like they’re jealous, but something feels off. Shreya and Olivia usually tell me everything. Right now I’m sure that’s not the case.

“You’re right. Sorry.” I take a deep breath and force myself to listen to Olivia. Why should I be afraid? Dylan hasn’t kept his feelings secret. I hold on to that, savor the truth of it, and smile. “I better get going. I need to shower and look nice.”

“Have fun,” Olivia says. “And don’t worry, I’ll take care of Shrey all day.”