Endless Summer

Wednesday night we went mud riding. I wore my sensible shoes this time—rubber flip-flops that could be hosed off. I knew this wouldn’t sound very romantic when it got back to Sean or Holly or Beige. I also knew that, just like the other nights, I would stand on my porch with Adam and get the simplest, most shiver-inducing kiss. And then it would be over. The next morning, we’d go back to being friends.

ursday night we scored. So to speak. We’d pla

e wound Rachel had inflicted on him must have healed enough that he could stand being around her and Sean. Or he must miss her so much that he was willing to take a more active role in making her jealous. Either way, this was our big chance!

Slamming down the phone, I rushed upstairs to exchange my Skechers for Steve Madden pumps and my tank top for something that said elegance, sophistication, Express. is was how I was supposed to talk about clothes, right? Naming the brands as if I cared? Another coat of mascara and a run-through with the comb attachment to McGillicuddy’s razor and I was ready, baby. Snap!

Sean’s truck was parked in the driveway behind the pink truck. He’d already brought Rachel over. I swallowed and tried to slow down my breathing as I pressed the doorbell with one shaking finger.

Almost immediately, I heard Adam bouncing inside. He jerked the heavy door open. “What are you doing? You don’t have to ring the doorbell, dork.” Dumbass! He’d called me a dork loudly enough for the Thompsons to hear three houses over. Talk about romance.

I was about to whisper acidly that he wasn’t doing a very good job of falling head over heels in love. en I noticed he was wearing his black T-shirt printed in white with a life-size rib cage. Adam looked best in black. e color reflected darkly in the hollows under his high cheekbones, not to mention the bruise under his eye, and made his strange light eyes stand out that much more. The skull and crossbones glimmered at his neck.

He raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to say what I’d opened my mouth to say.

I was speechless. So I grabbed his arm and spun him around at the same time. He was surprised. I managed to pin his arm behind his back for about two seconds before he shook loose and grabbed me.

“Now you’ve asked for it.” He scooped me up, threw me over his shoulder, and held both my wrists in one hand so I couldn’t tickle him. He kicked the door closed and hiked into the living room.

Pausing, he took a few steps toward Sean and Rachel watching TV on the sofa. ey sat close together in the dark room. I wouldn’t have been able to tell whose limbs were whose, except Sean didn’t shave his legs. ere was a love seat where Adam and I could have settled. en Adam thought better of it—too close for comfort—and hiked across the room.

“Hello, Sean. Good evening, Rachel,” I called cordially, upside down.

Rachel gave us a half-hearted pipsqueak greeting. Sean shouted at us, “Can you keep it down?” Hmph! Clearly he was in a jealous rage. Adam and I exchanged a knowing look as he slid me onto the desk in the corner. Still holding my wrists immobile, he fished in a drawer and brought out a long object.

I squinted at it in the dark. “Not the stapler!” I cried.

He gri

“Please,” I gasped, “not the Liquid Paper!”

“Shut up!” Sean shouted.

Adam and I widened our eyes at each other like we were offended and hurt. I shook my wrists out of his grasp and reached behind me for a red Sharpie out of the pencil cup. Smoothing my hand across his chest (shiver), I made a red mark across the bottom right rib printed on his T-shirt, the rib I knew he’d broken. Or was it my other right? “What ribs have you broken?”

He looked down at his shirt. “This one,” he said, pointing.

I made a red mark across that rib. “What else?”

“Mm.” He stretched his shirt out at the bottom so he could see it better, and pointed to the opposite side. “ese two.” He watched as I made neat red marks across those ribs. His chin was close to my cheek.

“Both of you act crazy,” Sean said smoothly, “like you’re off your medication. Or like you’re going to a shrink.” I didn’t look at Adam. I didn’t think I looked at Sean, either. But I had an impression later of Sean’s face glowing white and then blue in the light of TV, and Rachel in the shadows beside him. I thought the medication comment was meant for Adam. I knew the shrink comment was meant for me.

I capped the marker and stuck it back in the pencil cup. “I’ll see you later,” I whispered, sliding around Adam and hopping down from the desk. I had to get across the room and outside without being further humiliated, which meant I must not fall down in my high heels. Or cry. I even closed the front door behind me without making any noise.

And then Adam burst through it and slammed it behind him, shaking the house. “Lori!”

“Shhh,” I said with my finger to my lips, backing off the porch and into the wet grass. I didn’t want to shout about what Sean had said. It was bad enough when we were quiet about it.

Adam collected himself as I watched, taking a deep breath through his nose, with his eyes closed. en he opened his eyes and said, “e five-minute date does nothing to make them jealous.” He formed his first finger and thumb into a circle. “Zero.”

I swallowed. “I can’t.”

He stepped closer to me. “Sean has a way of finding that one thing that will make you feel so good about yourself, or so bad about yourself. at’s why you love him.

That’s why I hate him. You knew this when you went fishing.”

I was too discombobulated to make a joke about my lures. I just wanted to get away from their house. “I’ve had enough of boys for today, I think.” He frowned. “Are you sure?” He rubbed my arm. My hair stood on end.

Shivering in the warm night, I put my arm down by my side, where he couldn’t reach it. “Too much of a good thing. It’s strange, but even cheese fries can get tiresome.”

“I’ll walk you home, then.”

“No,” I said, “I’m sorry. I’m just done.”

He watched me carefully for a moment, lowering his head to look into my eyes. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye.”

He walked back into the house and closed the door softly.

I stared at the door knocker, tree frogs screaming all around me. I had done the wrong thing. I wanted to be in the house with him. And Sean.

Sean had said something like that to me only once before, just a good-natured joke as we passed each other in the hall at school. I’d started to cry. e office had called my dad (again). Dad and McGillicuddy and I had had a Big Talk about it that night, wherein I told my dad that my business was not his to tell Sean’s parents about, and wherein McGillicuddy promised to have a discussion with Sean about keeping his mouth shut. Apparently he had, because Sean never said a word to me about it again. And if he told the whole school, they were very discreet and didn’t let on to me that they knew. Which would have been out of character for them, because they were bitches.

at first time happened not long after I went to the shrink, so Sean probably was just experimenting to see what I’d do. is time, he must have mentioned it because he was trying to hurt me. And if he’d tried to hurt me, he was in love with me and jealous of Adam. I knew this because when he wasn’t in love with me and jealous of Adam, he ignored me and was quite pleasant to me.

Therefore, the plan must be working! Hooray! So I should go back in there, flirt with Adam, and press the issue.