Endless Summer

Sean snorted into his coffee.

Mom silenced him with her stare. en she turned it back on me. “Trevor McGillicuddy called me and woke me up in the middle of the night. Imagine how embarrassed I was that my son had his daughter out at all hours, after he has been so good to us. He did some fancy legal footwork to get Cameron out of that speeding ticket.”

“And his second speeding ticket,” I said.

“And his second speeding ticket,” she acknowledged.

“And he got Sean out of his speeding ticket.” I took the opportunity to remind her how horrible her other sons were. Since I’d been driving for only three weeks, I was still golden, at least in that area.

Sean mimicked me in a bratty tone. “And he got Sean out of his speeding ticket.”

“That is not the point!” Mom yelled. “You expect me to call Lori’s father and tell him you had Lori out until six a.m. because you fell asleep?”

“Well, we did.” at’s all I said, though I wanted to tell her we’d gambled away the night and my granddad’s life savings at the Indian casino in Wetumpka. She was acting like we’d done something that awful.

Judging from the look on her face, you’d think I’d gone ahead and said this. Sean didn’t help by prompting me, “Why’d you fall asleep? What were you doing before that?”

Mom watched me expectantly, as if she wanted to know the answer to that question too, and as if my older brother had just as much right as my parents to interrogate me.

“Nothing,” I said.

Sean laughed.

“Nothing?” Mom yelled.

No, not nothing. e highlight of the night, at least for me, had been when Lori wrestled me down on the seat of the truck, straddled me, held my wrists above my head, and kissed my neck. She’d pretended she’d overpowered me. I could have easily pushed her off me, but I didn’t. It was very sexy. I could still feel her lips on my neck.

God, that had felt good.

“Adam!”

I jumped when Mom hollered at me again. My hand was pressed to my neck where Lori’s lips had been. I put my hand down. “Maybe not nothing, but not what you smutty-minded people are thinking.”

“You just stayed out all night with the girl you’ve had a crush on since you were four,” Mom said, “and nothing happened? What do you take me for, Adam?” I wondered how my mom knew I’d had a crush on Lori for so long. at was creepy. But what I yelled back was, “What do you take me for? What do you think I did to her? You think I’m stupid?”

“No!” Sean gasped.

Normally Mom would have rushed to my defense over that sarcasm from Sean. Of all the things Sean and Cameron picked on me about, my ADHD and my tendency to flunk school because of it was the one topic that was off-limits, at least while Mom was around.

This time she said, “I’m begi

“Adam, your father and I want to help you, but we can’t if you don’t help yourself. You’re not doing yourself any favors with that attitude.”

“What attitude? I don’t think I’m being helped right now.”

“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” Mom snapped. “I was worried sick last night. Your father was worried sick.” Dad shrugged.

“Trevor was worried sick about his only daughter staying out all night on her sixteenth birthday,” Mom shrieked, “and you don’t even take it seriously.”

“It’s hard to take seriously when I’m in trouble for something I didn’t even do,” I shouted back.

“Son,” my dad said.

“What!”

He stared at me for a few long seconds, letting me know I’d crossed the line, before he answered. “Shut up and listen to your mother.”

“Lori’s father will calm down,” Mom said. “He always does. When that happens, your father and I will talk to him about letting you see Lori again. But in the meantime, you must exercise some restraint. Stay away from her, just as he wants, or we won’t be able to put in a good word for you.”

“Okay. I’m about to work with her for eight hours at the marina, but I’ll take a blindfold.”

“You will work on opposite ends of the marina until further notice,” Mom said. “You may not go out with her. You may not date her. You may not be her boyfriend.

Clear enough?”

Damn. Lori was right. Only it was worse than her being grounded from going out. I was grounded from her.

I stared at Mom, the embodiment of evil sitting across from me in a red bathrobe. Sean had told me since we were kids that I was adopted. He and I looked a lot alike, unfortunately, so I’d assumed he told me that just to be mean. Now I knew he’d told me the truth. A real mom couldn’t be that cruel.

“You can’t do that,” I breathed. “No.”

“I can,” she said, “and I am. Lori’s father informed me at about three thirty this morning that if we found the two of you alive, you would not date each other again. I have to agree with him until you show us more maturity.”

I turned to my only chance left. “Dad,” I pleaded, “this is so [cuss word you never, ever say in front of your mother] ridiculous.” Mom gaped at me. So did Sean. e difference was that Sean was half smiling, and Mom looked like she might climb over the table in her bathrobe and stab me with the butter knife.

Even Dad shook his head and said, “Consider yourself lucky. Lori’s pop wants you to go to jail.”

“But for now,” Mom seethed, “go to your room.”

Like I was five! Punished for this made-up adult behavior like I was in kindergarten. “No,” I said. “I have to get ready for work, and I’m hungry.”

“Go to your room!” Mom and Dad yelled at the same time.

Just as well. I was begi

As I rounded the corner, I almost collided with Cameron crouching on the bottom step. His eyes widened at me. I’d caught him listening.

He recovered and said, without missing a beat, “I thought you were going to pull it off until you said [cuss word you never, ever say in front of your mother].”

“Thanks for your support,” I grumbled. “You left me there to bleed out.”

He held up his hands. “I don’t have a dog in this fight.”

I elbowed him as I passed him on the stairs. “If you were in this shit, I would have helped you.”

“How?” he called after me. “By setting the curtains on fire to create a diversion?”

At least Sean couldn’t follow me. He and Cameron shared a room when Cameron was home from college. I’d had my own room since I was five and Sean wrote on my face with permanent marker while I was asleep. I reached the top of the stairs, stalked into my room, and slammed the door hard enough to bounce every football trophy on my shelves.

I leaped across the room to catch last year’s tenth grade player-of-the-year trophy, presented to me at a ceremony that Sean had laughed all the way through. I carefully set it back on the shelf. But I was thinking that Sean and Cameron had a point. I was a loser. If Cameron had stayed out until morning with his brand-new girlfriend-who-was-like-a-daughter-to-Mom, Mom would have thought that was fine. Her firstborn could do no wrong. And if Sean had done it, he could have talked his way out of it.

Whereas I’d dug my own grave. I couldn’t do anything right.

I fished my cell phone out of my pocket and pressed the button for Lori’s house. Her dad might answer, but that was okay. We couldn’t get in any worse trouble.

One ring. We should have run away after all. Two rings. I’d saved a couple thousand dollars of my money from working at the marina over the years. I had known it would come in handy someday. I’d always suspected I’d end up on the run from the law sooner or later, since I was forever getting blamed for things I didn’t do. ree rings. e money would tide us over until we both got jobs at a marina in a different town. Of course, we would need references from our previous employer. I doubted Mom would cooperate.