The Perks of Hating You ( Perks Book 2)

by Stephanie Street

  “Wrong. So very, very wrong. Instead, a fruit battle ensued.” She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and swiped until she got to her photos. “Check this out.” She leaned into my shoulder, making me suddenly very aware of her. She smelled like strawberries. I focused on the picture on her phone. She was right, it looked like a war zone. A very colorful war zone. She scrolled through three or four pictures and then stopped on a picture of three boys and her. They were all covered in fruit. But they were smiling.

  “Looks like they had fun.” I turned my head. My nose was just inches from her dark hair.

  She breathed a laugh. “Yeah, I think they did.” She turned to look up at me and gasped, realizing how close we’d become. I watched as her eyelids closed slowly over her golden-green eyes. And then she sat back, inhaling a quick breath. She clicked her phone off and stuck it back in her pocket. All business. “I’m glad I’m done, though.”

  I turned back to my potato salad. “What are your plans, now? Aren’t there still two weeks before school starts?”

  She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders a little. “Not sure. Sleep in. Catch up on Netflix.”

  I laughed. “Sounds fun.”

  Suddenly, Blythe’s dad clapped his hands. “Alright, everybody. We have an announcement to make.”

  All four adults were grinning like maniacs and it made me nervous. What did they have planned now? Wasn’t it enough that we moved thousands of miles?

  Blythe’s little sister, Joy, bounced around her father’s legs. “What is it, Daddy? What is it?”

  David Richardson laughed and patted her on the head. “Well, sweetheart, I’ll tell you. We-” he paused for effect, his gaze resting on each of us before he continued, “are going to the beach!”

  Wait. What?

  “What?”

  I glanced at Blythe when I heard her voice the very question running through my head. She turned to me.

  “The beach? Where?”

  I shrugged and turned back to our parents who were struggling against the swarm of little bodies surrounding them.

  “Okay, okay!” Blythe’s dad called out with an indulgent smile. “Rog, you want to tell them?”

  “You bet, Dave.” My dad bent down, resting his hands on his thighs above his knees putting him closer to Joy’s excited pixie face. “We, the Richardson and Thomas families are going to Cape Hatteras!”

  The kids erupted into cheering and dancing. Blythe and I looked to each other.

  “Where the heck is Cape Hatteras?” I asked.

  Blythe shrugged and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket once more, presumably to Google Cape Hatteras. I figured it was a good idea and dug mine out of my shorts pocket.

  “Cape Hatteras is made up of three islands. Hatteras, Bodie, and Ocracoke in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North Carolina.” Blythe looked up from her phone. “North Carolina?”

  “Oh, no,” I groaned. “How long of a drive is that?” Because I’m pretty sure I just spent a week in a vehicle with my brothers. I opened the maps app on my phone and plotted the route. “Holy shit!”

  Blythe’s eyes widened. “What?”

  I turned to face her, my expression grim. “It’s like a twelve-hour drive.”

  “And we leave in the morning!” My dad shouted above the fray.

  “Holy-,” Blythe paused to glance at me, “crap.”

  See what I mean? Adorable.