Divine (27 page)

Jonah laughed from his
crouched position next to me and reached his hand across my lap to
adjust some of the stereo's settings. “Yeah, I had an extra
sound system I put in here for you. I told you I was gonna make sure
you were set up good. And I hope you like the way everything looks on
it.”

To be honest, I didn't
listen to a word he had said. I was too busy reeling from his arm
hovering over my lap and his chest resting comfortably against my
thigh. While looking down at the gelled messiness of his hair and the
softness of his light brown eyelashes, I was diving into a seclusion
of wonderment.

“
Well, do you?”
he asked up at me with a waiting stare, his arm still stretched
seductively across me.

“
Do I what?”

He smiled widely and
dropped his eyes in embarrassment, letting out a quiet laugh in the
process. “I said I hope you like how it looks.”

“
Oh, yes,
absolutely! I couldn't have asked for anything better.”

A satisfied smile lit
up his face as he brought his arm back to his side, taking the touch
of his body away from mine.

My mom got out of the
car and shut the door softly behind her. “Jonah, is your mom
home?” she asked as she walked around to the front of my car.
“I'd like to say hi if she is.”

He stood up and looked
over at the front door of the house. “No, her car's not here.
She told me that she was going to the grocery store to get the stuff
for dinner tonight; that's probably where she's at.”

“
Well, that's a
shame. Maybe next time.”

“
Yeah, I'll tell
her you said hi.”

“
Okay,” she
nodded. “Well, I guess I'm gonna go home then. You two have fun
today.”

“
We will,”
I shouted from the seat of my new car. “Love you, Mom.”

“
I love you too,
sweetie.” She opened her door and lifted a foot onto the clean
mat inside. “Make sure she doesn't drive you both off a cliff,
Jonah,” she teased.

“
I'll definitely
make sure of that.”

She got in her car and
started the engine up, letting it run while waiting for us to move
out from behind her.

“
Are you ready to
drive this thing?” Jonah asked.

“
Yep,” I
nodded happily, “I was born ready.”

He pulled his
sunglasses back onto his face and nodded once before shutting my
door.

“
I'm so glad this
is an automatic,” I said as he opened the passenger's side door
and plopped down in the seat next to me.

“
Yeah, I'll teach
you how to drive a stick one of these days.”

I pulled my seat belt
across me and clicked it into place before nervously putting the car
into reverse. “Are you ready?”

“
Why are you so
nervous?” he laughed as I slowly backed the car out of his
mom's driveway. “You're a good driver; you've driven a lot when
we've gone places together.”

“
I know, it's
just a new car and I don't really know how it drives.”

“
It's smooth.
You'll be fine.”

I backed onto the
street and waved bye to my mom as we took off down the road.

“
Where should we
go?” I asked excitedly while thumbing through the music
stations on the radio.

“
How about the
cove?”

I looked away from the
road to give him a smile. “The cove sounds like a great place
to go.”

* * *

The
cove was looking beautiful like always with the rays of the warm sun
beating down onto the perfectly clean sand. There was a softness to
the waves that rolled
along
the shore, shushing the area around us and hugging us in a peaceful
solitude.

Jonah and I sat quietly
next to each other and stared at the enormity of the ocean in front
of us.

“
I really love
this place,” I sighed. I stretched my legs out and leaned back
into the warm sand. “It's amazing how all of the ocean is in
front of us, yet we're still here in this little area where the water
collects, like it's some kind of hiding place or something.”

Jonah laid back and put
his arms behind his head. “Yeah, I really love it here,”
he agreed as he looked up at the cloudless sky above us.

“
You know, you
were right about the weather. That night when we watched the
fireworks you said that the summers here usually weren't as cold and
misty as last years was. It's been pretty warm and sunny so far this
year.”

He brought an arm out
from behind his head and slid his glasses down the bridge of his
nose. “See, I told you,” he said with a mild cockiness as
he cut his eyes over at me.

“
I know, I know.
Hey, I'm admitting that you're right; give me a break.”

“
I know I'm
right,” he joked. He pushed his glasses gently back onto his
face and put his arm back behind his head, looking like a model
posing on top of the sandy ground.

“
I know I'm
right,” I mocked him, giving him the best “Jonah”
impersonation that I could come up with. “And you know why I'm
right,” I continued in a husky voice, “because I'm Strong
Jonah, and I'm good with water, but I don't let anyone know what that
means, especially Summer.”

He laughed and shook
his head at my impersonation. “I don't sound like that,”
he grumbled.

“
Yes you do,”
I grinned as I waited for his comeback. It was so nice to be back
with him again and engage in our playfulness with each other.

“
Well you know
what you sound like?” he asked.

“
Go ahead, give
it your best shot.”

“
I'm Summer,”
he teased in a high pitched voice, “and I have this awesome
ability but I don't use it at all. In fact, I don't even try. Like,
at all. Never.”

“
Oh, you think
you've got me all figured out, don't you?” I playfully shot
back.

“
Yeah,
I
do
have you figured
out.” He looked up at the sky and waited for me to
shoot
back at him. After a few seconds of my silence, a small smile formed
on his
undeniably sexy mouth.
“You don't have anything to say back to that, huh?”

“
Nope, I guess
you're right about me.”

He turned his head and
watched me behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses. “Hey, you
know I'm just messing with you, right?”

“
Yeah, I know,”
I nodded softly. “But you're right.”

He brought his hands
out from underneath his head and sat up next to me, pulling his knees
up and resting his arms on top of them. “No, I'm not right. I
shouldn't have made fun of that part of you.” He moved his
glasses onto his head and rested his cheek against his bicep as he
apologetically looked over at me.

I smiled softly at his
handsome face, thankful to have him so close to me again. “Well,
I need to start working on that part of myself,” I admitted.

He let out a lengthy
sigh into his arm. “Well, why don't you try to do it now?”

“
Now?”

“
Yeah, why not?
I'm here with you; we can do it.”

I looked out at the
ocean and sighed heavily into the crisp sea air. “I don't know,
Jonah, I'm too afraid that it will work and I'll take us someplace
dangerous or something. And what if something goes wrong and I get
separated from you somehow?”

He kept his eyes on me
as I looked ahead at the moving water. “Well,” he slowly
began, “why don't you think of someplace to go that's in the
ocean? You can take us anywhere in the world, and I mean anywhere,
and as long as you're in the ocean, I'll always be able to find you.”

I looked over at him
and smiled. “Really? Is that what your water ability is? You
can find someone in the ocean wherever they are?”

He nodded and laughed
gently next to his arm. “Yeah, something like that.”

“
So, there's more
to it then?”

“
Okay, we're
getting off the subject now; we're supposed to be talking about you.”

“
Well, I'm not
sure if I want to end up in the water. I mean, I'm not the best
swimmer, and the ocean's scary.”

“
Yeah,
it can be pretty scary.” He looked out at the water with a look
of deep
concentration as he
thought about somewhere I could try and teleport to. “I think I
know of a good place for you
to go.”

“
Is it in water?”

“
No, but it's by
the water. It's in Hawaii, actually.”

“
Hawaii?”

“
Yeah,” he
nodded while looking over at me. “It's a huge cliff that
overlooks the ocean; my dad took us there when I was little. I
remember standing on the edge of it and when I looked down there was
this huge drop to the water.”

“
Did you guys
jump off of it?”

“
No, the water
had a bunch of sharp rocks right underneath the surface. It wasn't
meant for jumping off of, but we had a picnic up there; it was pretty
cool. If you go there I'll know exactly where to go to find you if
you can't get back.”

I nodded softly as I
thought about the enormous cliff. “Well, how am I supposed to
know where to go if I've never actually seen it?”

Jonah sighed and
twisted his head from side to side, giving his neck a rub to get the
tension out of his muscles. “My mom has a picture of us sitting
on it somewhere; I wish I had it. I guess I'll just have to tell you
exactly what I remember, and you can try to imagine it. It's worth a
shot, right?”

“
Yeah, I guess
so,” I agreed nervously.

He turned toward me and
sat with his legs crossed on the sand. “So, you need to touch
me, right?”

“
Um, yeah. I
really doubt this is going to work, though.”

He
took my hands into his and gave them a gentle squeeze. “You're
just practicing, so try not to worry about whether it's going to work
or not. Just remember, if we
do
end up teleporting and you lose me, just get to the ocean and I'll
find you.”

I looked into his blue
eyes and nodded. I knew that I was safe with him, that wherever I
went he would find me.

Just make it to the
ocean.

“
Are you ready?”
he asked.

“
Yeah, I think
so. But we should probably stand up.”

“
Oh, okay.”
He stood up first and pulled me up to my feet. “How's this?”

I
looked down at the space between us; it was about the same distance
that my
mom and I had stood
away from each other the last time I had tried it. “I think
this is
good.” I smiled
anxiously up at him and then closed my eyes tightly to block out the
brightness of the sun.

“
Okay, well,”
he slowly began, “it's a giant cliff in Hawaii that overlooks
the water as far as you can see . . .”

I concentrated hard and
peered into the darkness of my eyelids, trying to form the vision of
the cliff in my mind as he fed me the details.

“
As you walk up
to it there is a single palm tree on the side that sways in the wind,
almost as if it's welcoming you to pass and peek over the edge. The
cliff itself travels out into the air and forms a point at the end,
and leaves only enough room for one person to stand at the very tip
and look down at the water.”

The image slowly came
forward through the blackness in front of me. The more he described
it, the more clearly I could see it in my mind. Everything that he
said appeared perfectly in front of me.

This is actually
going to work.

“
The sea below is
a crystal blue and is so clear that you can see all the pointy rocks
that rest underneath the waters surface . . .”

His deep voice slowly
faded away as the loud piercing noise that I had feared the most
filled my ears, announcing that it was time to move into the perfect
representation of the immense cliff. I took a small step forward but
stopped as the image suddenly began to shake wildly around me like I
was caught in the middle of a forceful earthquake. Intense zapping of
electricity waved throughout my veins and took over my blood, making
me feel both alive and terrified at the same time.