Ryan eyes the beers in our hands when we reach him. “What the hell, Priscilla?” he says with a laugh. “I thought you were getting beer for all of us.”
I look at the drink in my hand and then at Oliver’s. I didn’t even notice he only ordered two beers. I guess my mind is preoccupied.
“That was my fault,” Oliver says. “I distracted her. Here, Tina can have this one.” He hands his beer to Tina, then motions for Ryan. “I’ll go back with you.”
He shoots a scolding look at me before turning and walking away with Ryan.
“What was that about?” Tina asks as I sit down next to her.
I shrug, taking a sip from my plastic cup. “What?”
“You and Oliver have been weird ever since we picked you up from the rest stop. Did something happen?”
“No,” I say a little too quickly.
She raises an eyebrow. Leave it to Tina to notice every little thing, even if what she’s implying is way off base.
“Really, nothing happened,” I insist. “He’s just annoying.”
She lifts her beer to her nose, gives it a sniff, and grimaces before setting it down without drinking it. “Ryan better come back with something I like,” she says.
The guys return a little while later. Because he knows her so well, Ryan hands Tina a new drink.
She looks at the can. “A Straw-Ber-Rita?” she says. “Aw, thanks babe.” She gives him a kiss as he sits down next to her.
I look at her drink and pout. “I didn’t know they had those.”
I wait for Oliver to pass me and sit on the other side of Ryan, but he takes the empty seat next to me. He hands me the same drink Tina has, then takes my beer for himself. I watch him, parting my lips to thank him when Tina interrupts from across me: “Hey, Oliver, stop annoying Priscilla.”
Oliver frowns at her and then me. “Huh?”
I shush Tina. “Nothing.” I lean toward Oliver so that I can keep my voice low enough so that Tina doesn’t hear. “When is he going to go through with it?”
Oliver glances at Ryan before turning to look at me. When he does, I’m caught off guard by how close his face is to mine. From this distance, I can see that there are streaks of green in his brown eyes that I’ve never noticed before. I feel my gaze lowering to the stubble along his jaw, and over to his lips. I pull my focus back up to his eyes.
The hate that was there before is gone, replaced with the mild dislike he usually reserves for me. “There’s going to be a message on the jumbotron,” he says. “It’s a whole big thing he planned out.”
I look up at the big screen. I was wrong earlier. Tina might not care for basketball, but she’s going to love this.
“Did you give him the ring?” I ask.
He nods. “When we went back for your drinks.”
I reach for my drink, but before I can pick it up, Oliver grabs my hand and holds it steady in front of his face. “I still can’t believe you got sperm painted onto your nails.”
I hear his words, but it takes a minute for me to process them because all of my attention is on the fact that his hand is touching mine. Such a simple act short-circuits my brain. His fingers feel warm on my hand, and even though he probably only holds it for a few seconds, it feels like it’s been minutes.
When he lets go, I release my breath. The oxygen returns to my blood, and I can think straight again. He raises an eyebrow, making me realize how weird I must have acted during the last however-many-seconds that his hand was on mine. I can feel my blood rush to my cheeks. My whole body feels too warm. I want to crawl underneath my seat and hide from him, but I can’t, so I settle for clearing my throat and pretending like nothing happened.
“What’s next?” he asks. “Summer squashes that look like penises?”
I snort. “That’s perfect. Just don’t tell Tina.”
She turns away from Ryan to look at me. “Don’t tell me what?”
For a moment, I’ve forgotten that it’s not just me and Oliver in our own little world, and other people can hear us too. I turn to look at Tina. She watches me expectantly, her eyes darting back and forth between me and Oliver.
“Nothing,” I say with a shrug.
