A Love Like the Sun

Chapter 18 The Sun Finding Me

Santa Monica Pier is packed with people, but Issac and I came dressed like tourists to fit in properly. He has on a bucket hat, colorful glasses, a Surfs Up T-shirt, and orange swishy shorts. I’m wearing a jean jumper, white skippies, and a short black wig that I might take to Rhode Island. At the ticket booth, he confesses that this adventure is mostly for him. “No one ever wants to do these kinds of things with me out here,” he says.

I could leave it, but I’m curious. “Not even Melinda?”

“Especially not Melinda.” He laughs while we walk through the entrance, and I watch him place our tickets in his wallet. The action fills me with a small joy. Later, he’ll use them in a collage to remember us cramming ourselves into seats for every kiddie ride in the park, sharing a cotton candy the size of my head, spending entirely too much time competing at the water gun race.

We play balloon darts, and after Issac loses for the seventh time, he convinces the employee to let him buy me a stuffed animal.

I hug my polar bear under my arm while we walk. “You’re a cheat.”

He shrugs and picks a flower from a pot on the ground, pockets it. “This is our first real fake date, can’t go out like that because they made the games impossible to beat.”

“But I won you something.”

Issac’s got a stuffed frog hanging from the top of his shirt. I flick it.

“Oh, this?” he says. “You cheated to get it. You weren’t standing behind the white line when you threw the dart. I tried to alert the employees with my eyes, but I could tell they felt bad for you.”

“Boy, shut up,” I say, and pull him toward the Ferris wheel.

By a miracle, we almost make it through the whole park before someone sees through Issac’s disguise. He’s about to get pulled in for a picture when I propose that we run for our lives. He laughs and laces our fingers, and we take off through the crowd. Once we reach the boardwalk, we catch our breath and dip into a souvenir shop to buy palm tree key chains for Mom, a lighter with Harry Styles on it for Lex, and an oversized T-shirt with the words you wish you could printed across the middle for Kat. Issac insists on buying me a hermit crab with a yellow shell and a yellow tank and has the man behind the counter fill it with artificial plants.

The sun is starting to set when we reach the beach. He pulls me through white sand, toward the water.

“Make a wish,” he says, picking up several seashells. I think of Wildly Green while I blow on them, and he throws them into the water.

“Your turn for a wish,” I say.

His eyes crinkle at the corners. “I already made one.”

A wind blows in from the sea and my belly does a somersault wondering if his wish had something to do with me. But why would it?

I wiggle my brows at him. “You want to go skinny dipping?”

He looks like he’s considering it before we see a small crowd coming toward us. They might not have noticed Issac, but we run for the car anyway. I’m exhausted, the afternoon fatigue hitting my bones, but this is the most fun we’ve had in so long. I know that I miss Wildly Green, miss home, but wonder how much I’ll miss him after summer ends and we’re back to trying a cross-country friendship again.

I wrap a seat belt around my hermit crab tank and tell it to be safe on the drive, then climb up front with Issac. He brings the top down on his Oldsmobile as he heads for the freeway, and then we just drive. I slide out of my shoes and sit cross-legged, enjoying the smell of sea and wet sand on our skin. Issac takes videos of my feet on the dash and me in his glasses and says he loves the way the sun finds me.

“If we didn’t have to go to the listening party, I’d want to do only this for the rest of the night,” he says. “But I’m excited you’ll get to meet Shida.”

I dance in my seat, squealing at the thought that the Shida Anala will be recording a new song at an infamous studio, and I will be sitting right there.

“I’m not even nervous,” I say. “Maybe the hermit in me has gone.”

Issac laughs. “We’ll see for how long.”

“Get that smug look off your face,” I say.

“This is just my normal face,” says Issac. We’ve been back at the condo for two hours, and I’ve spent all 120 minutes of them asking him how much I’d hate myself if we ditched the listening party and stayed home to eat pizza. “There is no we on this one, Ni. I’m going. I’ll be swaying to her music by myself. Feel free to stay here and order takeout.”

I get behind him while he adjusts his outfit. “Seriously? You’d be cool with that?”

“No,” he says, eyeing me from the mirror. “You’re going with me. End of story.”

A warmth pools in my stomach at the serious look on his face. Still, I sulk. “You’re not my daddy.”

He fixes the collar on his shirt, a hint of a smile crossing his lips, and if I didn’t know any better I’d swear he was thinking, But I could be.

I turn from the mirror, wishing away my wild imagination with a deep breath. Franklin the hermit crab is on the nightstand. I poke his shell to make sure he’s still alive before agonizing over what to wear. The ridiculous number of outfits Lex and Katrina helped me pack aren’t even outfits anymore. They are pieces I can’t put together, that won’t look good enough. Issac picks the black dress up off the bed by its straps. I tell him I’ll be overdressed, and he insists there’s no such thing around here. “Don’t be surprised if you see someone in a ball gown tonight.”

“But you look so…regular,” I say.

Issac glances down at his outfit with a frown. “Thanks, I guess.”

“You know what I mean, big head.” He’s wearing black cargo pants with a soft-pink designer-print shirt that has an embroidered flower over the breast pocket. He’s also wearing it open, revealing a slice of his dark chest and the two delicate gold chains that sit there. He throws on a jean jacket and hikes his My Hero Academia socks up high. The outfit looks perfectly put together and completely casual all at once. It took him zero effort to get ready, just like in high school when he’d manage with what little his foster family passed down, and whatever my mom could afford to buy him. Meanwhile, he sits on the bed and watches me scramble, going in and out of the bathroom and trying on four different outfits for him. Each time he says That looks perfect, I groan and take it off.

The cycle repeats until he reaches to touch my side, asks, “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

Seconds pass. Then, “What if I said I’m nervous everybody will be scrutinizing me because I’m your…girl?” My cheeks flush at the word. Issac sucks his bottom lip. “Especially after you had someone like Melinda on your arm. And with the articles out, you know people there might be able to tell that I nickeled and dimed it to put whatever I wear together. How will you feel if they say something?” I hate how insecure I sound. It’s only ever been this bad in high school when I didn’t know how to make my thrifted outfits look as cool as Issac did.

But he responds by wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling me closer to where he’s sitting on the bed. When he rests his forehead against my stomach, it sends an image to my brain: us like this, but my belly big and round.

I stiffen in his embrace, suddenly short of breath. Where the hell did that come from? Issac aside, I don’t even know if I want kids. What’s wrong with me?

“I wish you wouldn’t worry,” he finally says. “You’re one of the best dressers I know. Nickels and dimes get you on the same level, or further than most of them, and they have stylists to help. Even Melinda has a stylist.”

His words make my heart return to a nearly normal rhythm. I take a chance and look down at him. “Yeah?”

He smiles, and says, “Ni, you could look like laundry day, and I’d still think you were the baddest there.”

“Now you’re just being silly.” I laugh and push him, thankful for the space that follows.

He’s quiet for a second, and I wonder if he feels something shifting between us too. He runs his fingers over the fabric of my green dress on his bed. “This feels smooth. And it’s my favorite color. Wear this one.”

I can almost hear Katrina and Lex squealing. “You sure it’s not too fancy?”

He stands and towers over me, giving me a great view of the defined lines of his neck. “Get your fine ass in the bathroom and put it on. We’re going to be late.”