Endless Summer

He shook his head. “We would sacrifice the short-term for the long-term goal. We would be obedient.”

“Like dogs.” I hadn’t forgotten his woof at my dad.

“Something like that.”

“I think my plan would be better. A lot faster.”

“I’m not playing.” He took my hand again. “Tell me you’ll wait for me. Please.”

I probably would have tried to talk him out of it if I’d thought he was just jealous of Sean. I mean, honestly, higher than a rock-bottom C average? Adam? at would require him to make a B in something. But there was more to it than that. He lifted his chin when he talked about my dad being proud of him and our whole town worshipping the ground he walked on. He didn’t just want to get out of this awful sitch we were in. He wanted to earn his way out.

I swallowed and said, “Okay.”

“Okay?” He hunched down so his face was even with mine and looked straight into my eyes. “Really?”

“Really.” My stomach hurt when I said it.

He sighed. His whole body went limp with relief on the sleeping bag. “Thank you. You won’t be sorry. Now, there’s one more thing.”

“Oreos are poisonous? en I’m screwed.” I laughed. “Hey, then it really would be like Romeo and Juliet, if we both ate poisonous cookies and died here in your tree house together.”

He stared blankly at me.

“Adam. Everybody has to read Romeo and Juliet. Did you flunk ninth grade English?”

“I made a D-minus. No, that’s not what I was going to say. I was going to say, I was so happy that night we made out, and I’ve been kicking myself since then that we fell asleep. Now we won’t get any more time together until Christmas, maybe not then, maybe…” Not ever. I was afraid that’s what he was thinking. I didn’t say it.

His chest rose and fell with a deep breath. “Before we say good-bye, I want a do-over of that night. Just this one last night with you.” He leaned over me. My body sparked again, like a match held to fuel that burst into flame all over. He pressed down on me. I leaned up to meet him. Our mouths met for that doozy of a kiss I’d been waiting for.

For a few minutes we enjoyed what we’d been missing. He drew back, trailing short kisses across my cheek, into my hairline. He whispered in my ear, “I love you, Lori.” I reached down and found his warm hand, calloused from wakeboarding and yard work and bottle-rocket burns. I rubbed my thumb in his palm and turned my head so I could look into his light blue eyes, which seemed to glow in the candlelight and the dark. “I love you, too.” He winced. He blinked. This was about to go very bad, because Adam was going to cry. “I miss you,” he said, and his voice broke.

“I’m not gone yet.” I could hardly bear the thought of being without him until Christmas or after, but seeing him cry would be even worse. So I pushed him down into the softness of the sleeping bag and tried to make him forget.

“Still alive?” I asked him an hour and a half later.

He chuckled. By now we’d been in the tree house so long that I’d become nocturnal, like the foxes who used to hang out here. e candle had burned low, but I could still see every curve of his face and every golden hair in his baby beard as he lay on his side, watching me. The worry lines between his brows were gone.

I touched the space where the lines had been, then took my hand away. “I’d better go. I wouldn’t want to miss my curfew.”

“You make no sense whatsoever,” he said, but he must have agreed with me, because he sat up and ran his hands back through his hair to detangle his curls.

“It’s the principle of the thing. I’m coming home before curfew, as I discussed with my dad. He simply does not know who I was with. Or that I was out at all. Details.” I waved them away.

He caught my hand and shook it, the deceptively basic first move in the secret handshake we’d started when we were in first grade. “One last time?” We shook hands upside down, with a twist, high five, low five, pinky swear, elbows touching.

“And add this.” He traced the tips of his thumb and finger across my lips, zipping them. “Keep your mouth shut, and I promise to keep mine shut. With football stardom and my GPA in the bag, we’ll be dating again before you know it.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I rolled over to the ladder and climbed down, reluctantly watching our cozy nest disappear above my head. Adam didn’t bother with the ladder. He jumped down beside me and took my hand. We walked through the dark forest like nothing was wrong.

And nothing was. We would stay apart. My dad would come to his senses. We would get back together. But this future was predicated on Adam starting as quarterback, keeping up his grades, and generally making good. As McGillicuddy had said on the sad morning after my birthday, Sometimes what Adam intends to do and what he actually does are two different things.

“I worry,” I admitted.

“Why do you worry?” Adam’s voice came from above me. He’d been taller than me since fourth grade or so, and I’d never gotten used to it.

“You like a challenge,” I said.

“Yes.”

“You like danger.”

“Sorry.”

We reached the edge of my yard, as close as I dared come to my house without fear of being overheard. I turned to him and said softly, “I worry that you’ll lose interest in me now that I’m not a dangerous challenge.”

He stroked the back of my hand with his thumb. “You are the one way I’m normal. When I’m with you, I don’t feel like there’s anything wrong with me.”

“There’s not anything wrong with you. You’re high-spirited.”

“I sound like a horse.”

“You are like a horse.” He was exactly like a colt incessantly dashing around the paddock and leaping away from the fence for no apparent reason.

“Like a stallion?” He pressed his lips together, trying not to laugh. He was so adorable.

“That’s a good note to say good-bye on,” I said. “I will remember you just like this, feeling your oats—”

“Ha!”

“—and whi

“Good.” Gently he kissed my forehead. Then he squeezed my hand and let me go.

With a deep sigh of regret, I walked toward my house alone, looking up at my bedroom window. After about ten feet I stopped, turned around, and walked back to where Adam still stood. “How do I get back inside?”

He closed his eyes. Probably he was counting to ten, which was very mature of him—and I would have been proud of his self-control, except that it meant I had screwed up.

He opened his eyes. “You are mine,” he said slowly, “and you are blonde, and I love you, but damn. You get back inside by using your key.” I licked my lips. “What key?”

“The house key you put in your pocket before you jumped out your window.”

I glanced behind me at my house, which suddenly loomed like a haunted mansion, monsters lurking inside. Widower monsters with OCD. “I need to work on this disobedience thing, because I am not good at it.” I could still joke with Adam, but my heart raced. “What do I do? Can you pick the lock?”

“I can’t pick the dead bolt. Use the spare key hidden under a fake rock in the flower bed.” ough his words were reasonable, I could hear the same rising panic in them that I felt.

“We don’t have a fake rock,” I said tightly. “My dad works with criminals and thinks he has a bead on them. Burglars know all about the fake rock. Besides, he’s sitting with Frances in the den. No matter what, he’ll hear me when I unlock the door.”

“Wait out here with me until McGillicuddy comes home and sneak in with him,” Adam said.

Now that was a good idea. McGillicuddy would protest, but he wouldn’t really rat me out when it meant such dire consequences for Adam. I was so relieved! I grabbed Adam in a bear hug.

The kitchen door swung wide open at the same time all the outside lights flicked on, blinding us.

I jumped away from Adam.

“LORI ELIZABETH McGILLICUDDY!” my dad roared.