“About college?”
He bit his bottom lip, looking out toward the dark ocean. “About me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He turned to face her. “I can’t offer you anything. Even if I get a different job, it’ll be years before I save up enough for a house. And I’ll never learn the things you’ll learn at Pembroke. You’ll be two hours away—”
“I was thinking about that, actually.”
“Which part?”
“The two-hours-away part. Simmons accepted me. I could cut the commute in half.”
His shoulders dropped. “But you wanted Pembroke.”
“I wanted to go farther away from home. I don’t anymore.”
“I don’t know that it makes much of a difference. You—”
“I could come home more often. You could come see me more.”
Tony looked at her plaintively. “It’s not the distance. You’ll be in a whole different world. And I want that for you. But you can’t pretend you’ll still want to be with me when you’re there. You’ll meet someone else, someone in school. Someone who will be able to give you everything you want.” He looked back toward the shore, where the moon reflected silver far out over the waves.
Evelyn took his face in her hands and turned it back to her. “What I want is you.”
“Evelyn.”
“Stop. Just stop. I don’t care where we live, and I don’t care what you do. I care that you’re honest and good and kind, and you do the right thing even when you don’t have to. I care that you see me. The real me. And you make me better.” He opened his mouth to speak, but she shook her head. “No, you listen. I didn’t tell you to take me on a date because I liked how you looked. Sure, you’re handsome, but that wasn’t it. Do you remember the day Julio stole the candy from my father’s store?”
He looked at her in surprise. “Your father—？”
“No, I was there. I saw you. What you did. And I thought to myself, That’s what I need. Someone to keep me honest. To make me want to do the right thing. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I get away with a lot when people let me.”
Tony smiled despite himself. “Just a bit.”
“You don’t let me when it matters. Maybe that’s why I like the idea of you in a uniform.”
He finally laughed. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make everything okay all the time.”
She leaned against him. “It’s a gift.”
He pulled her back to face him again. “You are good, you know.”
“I know that. No one else really does, which is how I like it. But I like knowing that you do.” She saw a cloud of worry still sitting on his brow and climbed up onto her knees to kiss the lines from his forehead. “Listen. I may go to college, but I’m not going anywhere. You hear me? You won’t get rid of me that easily.”
His hands went around her waist, and she felt a tingle of excitement at the touch, moving her lips down to brush his, an urgent heat moving down through her chest to her belly and continuing south. “I do love you,” she whispered as he held her tighter, kissing her more intensely. He pulled her onto his lap, and she wrapped her legs on either side of him, his hands roaming from her waist to her back, around to the sides of her breasts until he suddenly wrenched her off him and back onto the bench seat.
“What’s the matter?”
“We—I—we can’t.”
Evelyn looked at him in confusion. They hadn’t gone far, of course, but they had gone farther than this.
“I want you,” he said plainly. “But I want to talk to your father. I want to do this right.”
“Are you—？” She held her breath. Was he saying what she thought?
“No. No. Not in a car at night with you on my lap. No.” He went silent. “But if your father agreed . . . ? Is that something you would . . . want?”
Her heart was beating so hard she thought her chest would swell until it burst out. She had never felt such an ache before. “Yes,” she whispered. “But he’ll never agree.”
“Then we start wearing him down.”
“How?”
He smiled and kissed her forehead. “You’re not the only one who can be charming. Let me try first.”
“We’d be better off eloping.”
“Never.”
She shook her head. “If I promise to be a good girl, will you keep kissing me?” He took her face in his hands and kissed her lightly again.