Endless Summer

“Why, hell no, I ca

His eyes widened in admiration. “That would be awesome!”

I was getting good at this. I gave him a peck on his stylishly stubbly cheek, patted his ass, and walked into the living room.

Every head snapped up to watch me.

Including Adam’s. ere were thirty-something people in the shadowy room, and I saw him right away. He sat on the couch with Rachel, exactly where Sean had sat with her the night he insulted me. Adam wasn’t wrapped around Rachel like Sean had been. He wasn’t touching her at all. He was talking to her. ey could have been friends.

So they weren’t doing anything to make me jealous. All he did was look up at me with such fury in those blue eyes that I knew I was going to throw up.

“Help,” I croaked, putting a hand on Tammy’s shoulder.

She looked around at me. She looked at the boys she’d been talking with: Cameron and McGillicuddy. “Can Cameron help you?” she asked me coldly. “ey’re his brothers, so he could help you better. Bill and I were talking.”

Hadn’t she heard Sean’s blitzkrieg rumors? I wasn’t pretending to hook up with Adam to get Sean. Surprise! I was pretending to hook up with Sean to get Adam, and if ever something was giggle-in-the-bathroom material, this was it. I was calculating how much of this to divulge to her while Cameron and McGillicuddy were listening, when something else clicked in my brain. “Are y’all going out?”

“Yes!” McGillicuddy beamed.

Tammy beamed too, then tried to hold the smile as she realized she’d been busted.

“So,” I said to Tammy, “when you told me you came to the last party to see me, really you were using that as an excuse to see McGillicuddy.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” Tammy said distantly, a tone she’d never used with me before. e tone Beige used all the time. “I guess I didn’t understand you and I were that close.”

“I guess it was my mistake,” I said.

“I want to go back to college,” Cameron said. “Linear Differential Equations class will seem so relaxing after this summer.” McGillicuddy frowned at Tammy, then moved toward me like he would pull me aside and talk to me. But McGillicuddy didn’t go out much. He’d actually asked someone out! I didn’t want to mess up this thing with Tammy for him. Not over some weird girl-jealousy that I didn’t even understand completely.

“I gotta do something,” I mumbled, pulling the skull and crossbones from my pocket. This took a couple of tries when my fist got stuck.

Across the room, Sean stood with some of his many friends. Down by his side, where the crowd couldn’t see, he motioned to me. Rachel and her friends were right behind him. If I went to him, he’d make sure they saw everything that counted.

From the sofa on the other side of the room, Adam glared at me.

I took a step toward Adam. e force of his glare was like a magnet turned the wrong way against another. I took another step toward him and felt the force in my stomach. I would never be able to reach him in the face of such force. Plus Scooter Ledbetter was trying to start a mosh pit in the center of the room. So I skirted the force like I was headed out the door to the deck. Then, when Adam bit his lip and looked down, I snuck past the repellant force and plopped next to him on the couch.

“Here.” I held out the skull and crossbones in my sweaty palm. Attractive! It didn’t matter any more. “Look,” I said in a rush, “I didn’t crash into the pontoon boat to get Sean. Even I am not that unbalanced.”

His mouth moved so little that I almost thought he used telepathy to tell me, “I don’t believe you.”

“No shit. And I’m sorry about the PDA with Sean. I don’t know what I was thinking, Adam. I want another chance with you, and I know that wasn’t the way to get it.”

“That’s okay,” he said so brightly, so unlike him, that I knew something evil was coming. “I like Sean taking my seconds.”

“See, that’s the problem,” I snapped, angry again despite myself. “You say you love me, but you’re always looking over your shoulder for Sean.”

“And you’re always looking over your shoulder for Sean. Or Holly, or Beige.” e Foo Fighters song booming through the room ended at the precise moment he said,

“Or whoever’s made you change from what you were into a first-class bitch.”

Only a moment more of silence ticked by before Fall Out Boy started. But the damage was done. People at the edge of the crowd were slow to start dancing again. ey thought we couldn’t hear them over the music as they yelled in clear voices, “Did you hear what Adam called Lori?” I told myself he wouldn’t have said anything so horrible to me if he weren’t jealous. Of course, I’d told myself the same thing when Sean mentioned the shrink. But Sean was Sean, and Adam was Adam. And while I was trying to use my intimidating brain power to turn myself into water vapor and vanish into thin air, Adam snatched the skull and crossbones from my open palm. “I have just the use for this,” he said as he stomped out the door to the deck.

I left my sparkly shoes on the floor next to the couch. I knew that jig was up. But even in my bare feet, I didn’t make it outside before Adam was on the ground far below, halfway to the dock. Possibly he’d jumped over the deck railing.

I dashed down the stairs. Sean called to me from the deck above me. I dashed faster. This was no time to save face. I had a terrible feeling about that skull and crossbones.

Sure enough, by the time I’d pushed through the crowd in the yard and the wall of people on the dock, Adam was sitting with the boys playing quarters. I stepped forward to stop him. It was too late. Instead of a quarter, he bounced the pendant on the dock. And instead of ringing the cup, the skull and crossbones slipped between two planks, into the lake.

“Ohhhhhh!” said the other boys.

“Get it,” I told Adam.

He said thoughtfully, “No.”

I pictured it sinking through the water, but it wasn’t heavy enough to stay in one place on the bottom. e current would sweep it away if he didn’t hurry. “I bought it for you!” I shrieked.

“I wore it for you,” he said evenly. “And now I’m through with it.”

I shoved back through the wall of people, jumped into Mr. Vader’s personal fishing boat tied on one side of the dock, and grabbed a big waterproof flashlight. I didn’t have to push through the wall of people on my way back because they saw me coming and got out of my way. I walked straight through the game of quarters, scattering frightened boys. I sensed rather than saw Adam’s hand reach for my ankle and miss as I hopped into the lake in my adorable clothes.

e water was warm and black. Oops. I clicked the button on the flashlight and directed the beam underneath the pier. e water was only about eight feet deep here, so I was able to kick down to the rocky bottom, where I thought the pendant had fallen through.

In the eerie green light, I saw it glinting on a big branch the boys had lodged under the dock to attract fish. at was bad enough, because wood got slimy in water. But this was worse: the pendant glinted from its resting place in A GLOB OF BRYOZOA clinging to the branch. Ugh, ugh, ugh, and the pendant moved as the bryozoa bobbed in the current. Any second now, the skull and crossbones would tumble deep into the lake, lost forever.

My breath was gone. I swam toward the surface to collect one more breath. I didn’t expect half the school to be peering over the side of the dock, watching for me in the darkness. That was okay. I was on a mission to PLUNGE MY HAND INTO THE BRYOZOA OH MY GOD. I took my breath and dove back down—

And someone on the dock grabbed me around the waist. Someone strong who wasn’t dislodged from the dock when I struggled. Adam lifted me backward out of the water.