The Road Trip(28)

‘And here you are,’ I say. ‘Already perfect.’

She huffs, a little laugh against my neck.

‘That’s nonsense. Nobody’s perfect. Definitely not me. Don’t do that.’

‘Do what?’

‘Make me your manic pixie dream girl.’

I drift back so I can see her face, indistinct in the darkness.

‘What’s that?’

‘You know, in films? The girl who’s there to help the hero find himself? She never has her own story.’

I frown. She often does this, turning a compliment into something uncomfortable.

‘I didn’t mean anything like that.’

‘Just because I know what I want to be, and where I want to live, and all that, it doesn’t mean I’m . . . done. I’m figuring things out too. I mean, God knows if I’m going to survive Teaching Direct when the summer ends.’

I shake my head, pulling her in again, no longer treading water. ‘You’ll be brilliant. You’ll be a wonderful teacher. A natural.’ I dip my head to kiss her. ‘You’re always teaching me new things.’

She smiles reluctantly, and I move closer, shifting her up so her legs wrap around my waist.

‘I worry nobody will take me seriously.’

‘Why wouldn’t they?’

She chews her bottom lip, stroking my wet hair back from my face. ‘I don’t know. People just don’t.’

There’s that rare, raw vulnerability in her eyes again; she’s watching me closely, and I have a creeping sense that this is some sort of test.

‘Maybe I give off a vibe. A low-potential vibe.’

‘Low potential?’ I pull back, genuinely aghast. ‘You?’

She laughs, low and throaty, and turns her gaze aside. ‘I’m just . . . I’ve always been kind of middleish. Middle sets in school. Average grades. The only thing about me that isn’t average is my height.’

She is pint-sized. I love it, how I can almost span her back with one hand, how she has to tilt her head right back to kiss me.

‘Addie Gilbert,’ I say, in a serious voice. ‘This is very important.’

‘What is?’

I lean forward so our lips are barely a centimetre apart. ‘You. Are. Extraordinary,’ I whisper.

‘Oh, shush,’ she says, breaking away from me and swimming backwards.

I lunge for her. ‘No, no,’ I say, as imperiously as I can manage. ‘Enough of this absurdity. You’re going to take this compliment if it kills you.’

She’s laughing now. ‘No, God, don’t start,’ she says, as she eludes me again, ripples slipping between my fingers.

‘You’re absolutely extraordinary. Do you know what people would do to be as together as you are, aged twenty-one? You don’t take shit from anybody, not even me, and I’m very charming.’ I lunge again, catching her ankle until she kicks away, giggling and spluttering. ‘You care about people – don’t think I haven’t noticed you trying to curb Uncle Terry’s excessive drinking, and helping Victor with the weeding since he hurt his back.’

‘Oh, please,’ Addie says, treading water in the deep end. ‘You’d have to be an idiot not to see Terry’s a liver problem waiting to happen. And I ought to have helped Victor with the weeding before he hurt his back. That would’ve been the above-average thing to do.’

I roll my eyes. ‘You care about doing your job properly. Even though it’s just me and Terry here, you’re still on top of everything, noticing every detail.’

‘So I got you a fresh towel this morning and sorted the dodgy fridge door. Big whoop.’ Addie ducks under the water to dart away from me, dolphin-style.

‘Addie,’ I say, getting exasperated. ‘It’s not about that on-paper nonsense, not really. It’s about all this. You’re just good at life. All of the important bits. I mean, you say I’m always talking about finding joy and meaning and living in the moment, and I am – we all bloody well are—’

‘Well,’ Addie says, ‘those of us who have the luxury of time for musing on life’s meaning.’

‘Right, right, but I mean . . . you’re just so good at taking life as it is. Nobody I know does that.’

‘Everyone you know goes to Oxford University,’ Addie points out. ‘And, by definition, thinks too hard.’

‘Are you ever going to accept a single nice thing I say about you?’

She swims towards me, at last. ‘You can tell me I look beautiful tonight.’

‘You look beautiful tonight.’

‘Ah, now you’re just saying that . . .’

I grab her and tickle her as best I can in the water – she flails and splashes and laughs, her head thrown back, eyes shining with glee.

I chase her to the end of the swimming pool. As she twists, she spreads her arms against the pool’s edge, dreamlike in the darkness, and locks her legs around me again. We slow, chests heaving, then still. She rakes her fingers through my hair again, a little harder this time.

‘I like you, Dylan,’ she whispers. ‘More than I ought to.’

My pulse quickens. ‘There’s no ought.’

‘Course there is. Give it a few months, you’ll be off chasing the next blonde from Atlanta. You with your romantic notions and your beautiful speeches and your notebook full of poetry . . .’ She leans her head back and looks up at the stars. ‘You’re going to break my heart, Dylan Abbott. I can feel it.’