Endless Summer

“Wait a minute,” Rachel protested over the idling engine and the bubbling lake. “I thought we would really get some wakeboarding tips.”

“Are you kidding?” Lori shouted. “You chicks are hopeless.” Rachel and Tammy laughed with her as the boat floated backward and then idled forward, toward her dock.

We watched them go. McGillicuddy stared at Tammy’s ass in that bikini. Sean pined after Rachel. Cameron seemed astounded at the whole sight—Lori had never entertained girlfriends before—but it was impossible to tell which girl he was looking at.

And I decided that if I ever went out with Lori again, I would install ten or twelve alarm clocks in the truck to wake us up, just in case. Being grounded from her was torture.

Finally McGillicuddy said, “I’ll go get some wax.”

“Thanks, man.” I appreciated him helping me meet with Lori.

“Better you than Cameron,” McGillicuddy grumbled. “I know where Cameron’s been.”

Sean snorted.

Cameron said, “I already told you, I did not come on to Lori.”

He’d better not.

Half an hour later, I snagged two bottles of water from the fridge. I should have taken only one in case I was intercepted. But even though Lori and I had kissed a lot in the past week, Lori was squeamish about drinking after me. We’d shared drinks while riding around in my truck. She’d even used my toothbrush once. And I’d seen her hesitate. Probably because Sean had spit in her Coke ten years ago. If I were her, I would be grossed out for a long time too.

en I headed outside. e heat of the afternoon would take your breath away, but after the frigid air-conditioned house, my skin drank it in. I stuck the bottles of water in the mailbox, which couldn’t be seen from my house or Lori’s through the thick trees. She wasn’t at the road. Since hanging around our mailboxes would look guilty, she’d probably set off jogging. She was fast for a girl, but I could catch her.

Which way had she gone? We should have discussed this before. But if we’d agreed to go to the left or the right, she would have messed it up anyway. I gazed down the street dappled in shade, then turned the other way and jogged into the sun.

Normally I ran to detox my brain when Sean made me so mad I couldn’t think straight. This happened once a day or so. Ru

is time, ru

ree miles later, I’d returned to the mailboxes. at’s when I saw her jogging toward me from the other direction. Her blonde ponytail bobbed behind her. She wore nothing but a sports bra and very small ru

Lori’s brain, as usual, was a couple of steps behind her body. I swear she stared straight ahead without seeing me for a full ten seconds, listening hard to her music, daydreaming.

Then she broke into the biggest smile. She pulled out her earbuds and stuffed the cords into the armband that held the player. “Mr. Vader!” she called in the awful British accent she used when she thought somebody was mad at her. “We shan’t meet like this anon. ‘Tisn’t proper.” It was hard to stay angry. I did my best. “We weren’t even apart for twelve hours, and you flirted with Parker Buchanan.”

“I waved to Parker Buchanan.”

“You flirted with Cameron.”

“I knew you’d say that.” She reached me and put her hands on her hips, breathing hard. “He sat close to me in the boat so we could hear each other over the motor.” I believed her. The thing was—and I knew this was unreasonable—I didn’t want her talking to Cameron at all.

She bent over and put her hands on her knees. is gave me a nice view down her bra. “Cameron and I were talking about you,” she panted. “He said that you—” She straightened and looked around us at the woods. “We need to talk, and we can’t do it out here.” I stared her down, trying to stay mad at her, trying not to glance at her boobs.

She tilted her head to one side and gri

I pressed my lips together.

“You’re cute when you try not to laugh.” She tickled my ribs, which were more ticklish than usual because I wasn’t wearing a shirt.

I grabbed her hand. With the middle finger of my other hand, I traced the neckline of her bra. I asked appreciatively, “Sports bra or what?” Her green eyes widened, the same color as the wild trees behind her, and her lips parted.

Suddenly it was too hot, even for me. We stood on an asphalt road that had been melting in the sun all day. I could hardly breathe the thick air. Her heartbeat raced under my fingertip.

I put my hand down. en I walked over to the mailbox and slid out the bottles of water. “Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched?” I asked, handing her a bottle.

“Our parents may have mounted closed-circuit cameras in the poison ivy.” She uncapped the water and took a long drink.

“I wouldn’t put it past my mom at this point.” I drank too, then poured water over my head. Then poured some over hers.

She sputtered. “My hair just blew around a boat for nine hours, and I ran a few miles on the hottest day of the year. You’re ruining my look.”

“You’ll dry in thirty seconds in this heat.” I touched one finger to her wet lips. “And you’re beautiful. You’d have to work pretty hard to mess that up.” She moved her head ever so slightly. Her lips slid one millimeter against my fingertip, and electricity rushed through my whole body. I lost my breath again.

“Come on,” I choked out. With one last glance around our empty yards and the deserted road, I took her hand and pulled her away from our houses, toward the woods.

Adam let my hand go when we reached the side of the road. Blackberry brambles crowded the bank. As we tried to find a way through, it was every delinquent teenager for herself, apparently.

Out of habit I plucked a few berries and popped them into my mouth. Too late I remembered we were headed for a tryst in the forest together, not playing army with pinecone grenades and our brothers. I should not eat before kissing.

But three steps ahead of me, he plucked some berries on the fly too. Maybe this afternoon wasn’t as strange as I thought. Maybe we really were headed into the trees for a discussion, as I’d suggested. It was i

I picked a few more berries as I passed. Just as my cheeks puffed out to full capacity in mid-chew, Adam found a break through the thicket and up the hill. He turned around and extended his hand to help me up.

I froze, staring at him in the thick heat, leaves tickling my legs. Boys did not help girls. Not in my experience, anyway. When I was one of the boys, they tromped ahead of me and never once looked back to see if I was still there, much less in need of assistance. Boys had helped me only recently, when they wanted something.

No, this walk through the woods would not be i

Taking his hand, I said, “Fank woo.”

“Hm,” he laughed with his mouth closed.

We crashed through the forest. Since we were sneaking this time together, it seemed like we should have tiptoed along, but there was no way to walk quietly through dry leaves. It also seemed like his brothers and my brother would jump out from behind a bush at any second, or that a snake would fall heavily across my shoulders. Once Sean and Cameron had told me a story about snakes in the jungle dropping down on people from trees. en they hid in Adam’s tree house with a rubber snake and waited for me to pass by underneath. If I had not been six years old at the time and in perfect health, I would have had a heart attack.