Free Real Live Boyfriends by E. Lockhart Page B

a bit and then went out on the dock to mess with the video camera.
    I was trying to figure out how to shoot something dark with sunlight behind it, fiddling around with settings and playing snippets back to see how my shots turned out, when I heard the putt-putt of a motorboat.
    “Did you run out of gas again?” I shouted when Gideon was twenty feet away.
    “No,” he yelled. “I’m full.”
    “Do you need a Band-Aid?”
    “No.” He cut the engine and tied up.
    “What do you need?”
    “A driver.” He climbed out and bopped me on the arm, dude style.
    “What?”
    “You ever wakeboard?”
    I rolled my eyes.
    “But you water-ski.” He said it like a statement.
    No. I didn’t. I mean, I had been out on the Van Deusens’ boat before while other people were waterskiing, the summer after freshman year, but the one time I tried to actually get up on water skis I had fall en flat on my butt within two seconds.
    “Hasn’t Evergreen started yet?” I said, to change the subject.
    Gideon wasn’t fooled. “Yeah, but it’s the weekend.

    Okay, so you don’t water-ski. But aren’t you some kind of awesome swimmer?”
    “I’m on the team at Tate,” I said. “But I’m not taking home a lot of ribbons.”
    “It’ll be easy for you,” he said. “And driving the boat’s really fun. No roads. Nothing but the wind on your face.”
    Was I really going out on a boat with Gideon Van Deusen?
    When I completely had a boyfriend?
    “I’ll
    teach
    you,”
    said
    Gideon,
    smiling.
    “Wakeboarding is actually easier than waterskiing for a lot of people.”
    “Um. I gotta ask my dad,” I said. “Will you wait here?”
    “Sure.” Gideon immediately lay down on the dock.
    “I’ll just absorb some sun.”
    I went into the house, but I didn’t ask my dad. He was mumbling something about his mother into a dried-out peony plant. What I did was call Noel.
    He hadn’t called me that day, or the day before. I hadn’t seen him since Thursday night.
    The cell went to voice mail.
    I tried again.
    Again voice mail.
    The third time I left a message. “Hey, it’s Ruby. You want to go get ice cream with me tonight? I have a craving for Mix. Maybe coffee with Heath bar and chocolate chips. Call me right now if you can go.” Then I sat on my bed and waited for him to call me back.
    And waited.
    And he didn’t call.
    I don’t know why I was surprised.
    I put on a bathing suit. The Speedo my parents got me for team practice, nothing cute.
    And still, I sat on my bed.

    And still, the phone didn’t ring.
    I put on a cotton vintage skirt and a T-shirt. Flip-flops.
    I grabbed a towel.
    I looked at the phone.
    Noel was my boyfriend. But he wasn’t my real live boyfriend anymore.
    Fine.
    The water was insanely cold, and it took me five tries to get up on the wakeboard. When I did, my legs felt like jelly and the sun was in my eyes—but I was up, and light was glinting on the water, and I was cutting in and back across the wake of the boat, and I was laughing and screaming both together and it was just gorgeous. The universe seemed golden for a minute.
    Then I was over my head in the bitter water, and Gideon was steering the boat around to pick me up, and he was laughing. “Don’t stick your butt out! The moment you stick your butt out it’s over.” He reached his tan arm down and I grabbed it and he hauled me up onto the boat. “You wanna go again?”
    I nodded.
    So I went again.
    And again.
    And then it was a long time before I fell.
    I drove for a while, and Gideon attempted numerous tricks, many of which failed. He was trying to get airborne, but most of the time he just crashed into the water, laughing. When he got tired, we floated for a while. I was cold and he gave me his fleece hoodie to wear. We drank Cokes from a cooler and ate these weird organic cheese puffs Gideon brought.
    I thought, and not for the first time, that Gideon would make an excellent boyfriend. As I watched him driving the motorboat back toward my