“Now?”
I let out a laugh. “I can’t go out with you now. I’m working. But I get off at five—”
“She’s finished for the day.” Grady comes over, handing my bag to me.
“What?” I turn to him, taking the bag being pushed at me.
He has this huge grin on his face. “I think you deserve some time off.”
“But, Grady, the money. I need—”
“It’s covered, Evie. Just go out and be seventeen. Have some fun.”
I stare at him for a moment. “Okay. Thank you,” I say tentatively. “But I will make up the hours.”
He chuckles at me, shaking his head, as I start to move away, Adam with me.
“See ya, Base.” I wave at him.
“Later, Evie.”
I follow Adam through the store and out the door he holds open for me.
“So, you’re seventeen?” Adam says the second we’re outside.
“I am. Is that a problem?” I never considered how old he was. I mean, he’s clearly older than me. Well, he looks older.
“Not at all.”
“How old are you?” I ask him.
“Eighteen. I turn nineteen in September.”
“I’m a March baby.”
“I’ll have to remember that.”
He smiles at me, and I feel a fluttering in my chest.
He comes to a stop by a really fancy-looking Mercedes. It’s a really nice car.
“Is this yours?” I ask, impressed.
“Mmhmm.”
He unlocks the car and pulls the handle on the door. And it opens up. And when I say up, I mean, it literally lifts up, not opening like a conventional car door.
“Wow,” I say, my eyes wide.
“Yeah. It’s kinda cool, I guess.”
It’s more than cool. “So, you like cars?”
He shrugs. “I guess. Yeah, they’re okay. My parents bought it for me on my eighteenth birthday.”
“Well, they must really like you—a lot.” I give a teasing smile.
“Not really.” He looks away, not before giving me a tight smile.
His body language screams tense, and I really wish I hadn’t said anything.
But, now, I think I see the reason for that loneliness I first saw in him.
Absent rich parents maybe?
But that car must have cost a fortune. That’s some serious money. I got that he was wealthy. Most people in Malibu are. And the beach house he’s staying in wouldn’t have been cheap. But the kind of money this sort of car would go for is so beyond out of my league that I wouldn’t know what to do with it even if I had it.
And it serves to remind me of just how poor I am.
Maybe he won’t want to date me when he finds out that we are polar opposites. Or maybe that’s just a really shitty thing for me to think. I’m guessing he knows I don’t swim in his end of the pool, considering I’m spending my summer working at the Shack.
But poor girl and rich boy? You know what people always think in these scenarios. And I don’t want to be that girl ever. Or quite possibly I’m seriously overthinking this. I mean, we haven’t even been on a date yet.
“So, you’re kind of rich, huh?” I say quietly.
He shifts, like he’s uncomfortable, his eyes still not on me, but off in the distance.
I’m starting to get that being rich isn’t necessarily a good thing for him.
His hands find the pockets of his shorts. Then, his eyes finally come back to mine. The color in them is so vibrant that it momentarily takes my breath away.
“I am. Is that a problem?” he asks, taking my words from before and giving them back to me.
“No.” I shake my head, letting a smile on my lips. “So long as you don’t try to buy me a car or anything,” I joke, trying to lighten the air.
He chuckles, the tension in him visibly easing. “I’ll try to refrain from doing so.”
“Good,” I say, slipping into the leather seat. “Because I can’t drive.”
He shuts my door, and I buckle in. He gets in the driver’s side a few seconds later.
“So, where are we going?” I ask.
He puts his seat belt on. “You hungry?” he asks me.
“Sure. I could eat.”
He turns the engine on, and the radio comes on in the middle of Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer.”
“I love this song,” I tell him. “It reminds me of…summer.”
He glances at me, and I snort out a laugh, causing him to smile so wide that it’s dazzling.
“You want the top down?” he asks.
It takes me a minute to realize that he’s talking about the car. At first, I thought he was asking if I wanted his top down…to which I would have said, Yes, please.
God, I’m such a pervert.
Adam must know the direction my brain has taken as he lets out a low chuckle that I feel everywhere. My cheeks start to redden. He presses a button on the dash, and the top goes down, letting the sun in. Then, he pulls out into the street.
We drive for a while, the conversation flowing freely. We’ve just gotten on the interstate when we get on the subject of surfing. Adam tells me that’s why he’s in Malibu, to surf. Which isn’t surprising. It’s why most people come here.
“Do you like to surf?” he asks me.
“I work at a surf shop. It’s the law. I think Grady would sack me if I didn’t like surfing.”