“They haven’t had time to get excited. Nobody knows we’re coming,” Lucas mumbled.
Mom had left the house at twelve-thirty that afternoon, and true to her word, was back three hours later. I don’t know what she did in those three hours, but it was like the just caught my husband cheating on me catastrophe had never happened. Logan gave my dad an awkward hug before he took off and Lucas ignored him altogether. As angry as I was at my father, I was too shocked to respond the way I wanted. I let him give me a tight squeeze, at which point he whispered that he’d find a way to make everything right. Then he walked out the door and that was that.
I spent the next few hours alone, wondering how Dad could have been so utterly stupid. Forget the fact that I couldn’t believe he’d cheat on my mom—she was pretty, kind, funny and a hard worker—everyone loved her. But he was an intelligent guy, so how could he have been dumb enough to get caught? That’s what happens when you care more about your work than your family. I guess he hadn’t realized that the last day of school was always a half day and that mom always took the afternoon off so we could celebrate. Normally, the house would have been empty until three. But holy crap…bring your grad-assistant-turned-mistress to the house? Really Dad? What an idiot.
I leaned forward and rested my hand on my mother’s shoulder. Her eyes were getting droopy. “Do you need me to drive?”
She replied with a tired smile, “No, sweetheart, I’ll be fine. We’ll be there in about twenty minutes. But thanks for the offer. You’re so good at taking care of me.” She reached over and turned up the radio, effectively putting a stop to the conversation. It’s like she knew I wanted to ask her how she was doing, but planned to continue as if nothing was wrong. It was creepy how calm she was. I knew she was only holding it together for our sake, but I also knew that eventually her emotional damn would break, and it wouldn’t be pretty.
Six Weezer songs later, we pulled up at Gran and Pop’s house. Thank heavens they’d opted not to live in a retirement community. It’s bad enough they ended up in Florida, the old people capital of the universe. At least they were in a big city with lots of stuff to do. Disney World was less than thirty minutes away and the beach was only an hour. Plus, their house was nice, even if it was small. I don’t know if my mom was serious about not going back to South Carolina, but if she wasn’t, we couldn’t stay here indefinitely. Logan and Lucas really would kill each other. The three of us usually shared the guest room all summer. For a few months it was bearable, but with no official end in sight my dreams of being an only child might become a reality.
“Oh good, you’re here,” Gran crooned, rushing out the door, screen slamming behind her. She must have been waiting by the front window. She had great stamina for an old geezer. It was almost one in the morning.
“Hi Mom,” my mother replied as Gran wrapped her in a tight embrace. Words were exchanged in hushed tones before my grandma let go of her and moved on to me.
“Levi, you’re getting so big. You’ll be a full-grown man before I know it.”
“I’m afraid I’m still the runt of the litter.”
“Nonsense. You’re plenty tall. Kissing a boy as tall as Logan is just plain awkward. Ask any girl.” Gran smiled at me and winked, then moved on to hug my brothers. I was five-eleven on a good day. Lucas was closer to six-one and Logan was six-three. I was pretty sure I’d stopped growing, but Logan was still inching toward the sky. At least I was the most athletic, so I had that going for me.
Lucas is the pretty, brooding, emo rocker type. He wears eyeliner, studded bracelets and vintage band T-shirts with groups like The Cure on the front. Can I say two words? Skinny. Jeans. Dudes don’t belong in pants that look like they were painted on, but for some reason the chicks dig him. He is a decent guitar player, and he sings ok, I’ll give him that much. Hunter took up the drums a couple years ago and last summer the two of them spent most of their free time pretending they were a band in Hunter’s garage.
Logan’s the clown of the family, a trait often bestowed on the youngest child. He spends most of his time with his nose stuck in the television, which is a shame, because with his height, he could excel in sports. But he’d have to care about stuff in order to play sports, and Logan doesn’t care about anything except videogames, junk food and pulling off practical jokes. He’s generally good for a laugh though. Especially at Lucas’s expense.
I was the only responsible one of the bunch. I took school seriously, always on the honor roll, even with AP classes. I lettered in lacrosse and swimming as a sophomore, and I even held a steady job during the off season working as a junior sports referee. We all had that Nordic look to us—blond hair, blue eyes, medium complexion—and we were all decent looking, I suppose. But I would’ve liked to be at least a little taller. The height was wasted on Logan.
“Grab your things and head inside,” Mom instructed. “It’s late and we don’t want to wake the neighbors. There’ll be plenty of time to catch up in the morning.”
“Sorry dear, you must be exhausted after the day you’ve had and the long drive.” Gran tried, but couldn’t hide the look of pity that washed across her face. “You boys are in the same room as always; your beds are ready to go. Lisa, I’ve got the pull-out couch made up for you in the office. It’s not a bedroom but at least you’ll have some privacy.”
“It’s perfect Mom, thanks.”
“Lucas, come get your makeup bag. I’m not carrying your girly crap,” Logan complained while digging through the trunk.
“It’s not a makeup bag, it’s a toiletry tote. And I’m not surprised you don’t know the difference since you have the personal hygiene of a Viking.”
“If you carry eyeliner in it, then it’s a makeup bag.”
Lucas gave Logan a flat look but let the comment slide. I mean, Logan was kind of right.
I grabbed my suitcase and duffel out of the trunk, then started to walk inside when Lucas stopped me. “Hey man, can you carry this? My arms are full.” He held the makeup-bag-slash-tote in my direction. I was also carrying a suitcase and a duffel, and wondered why he thought it would be any easier for me to carry the extra piece of luggage. Our loads were equally full. Lucas gave me a pleading look and I sighed, which he translated as go ahead and give me your bag, I’m here to serve you. He shoved the handles of the tote into my open mouth and I clamped down with my teeth. Then he headed inside without so much as a thank you.
“Are you hoping to borrow his blush later?” Logan smirked. My mouth was busy acting as a hand so I couldn’t give him a witty retort, and my hands were busy too, so I couldn’t make a crude gesture. I settled for a dirty glare and marched past him into the house.
When I got into the guest room, Lucas was busy setting up on the bottom bunk. Logan smashed past me, causing me to drop all my bags, and yelled, “I call top bunk!” He lunged through the air and landed with a bounce on the mattress, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling.
“Guess that leaves you with the trundle, Levi.” Logan grinned like the Cheshire Cat, enjoying his moment of glory. The trundle had the kiddy mattress, long enough, but with half the padding. He knew I was the peacemaker of the family and that I wouldn’t argue. Arguing was a waste of time, I never won. So, I pulled out the trundle and readied myself for two months of getting stepped on every time someone got up to take a wiz.
“Stop being a butt.” Lucas hit Logan through the mattress.
“Why don’t you come up here and make me?”
“Why don’t you both shut up?” I groaned as I dropped onto the tiny trundle mattress, face first, and pulled my pillow over my head.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my brothers, and I’m pretty sure they love each other. Even if they have a warped way of showing it. But the amount of testosterone in our house sometimes reaches cataclysmic levels. In the fall Lucas will be a senior, I’ll be a junior, and Logan will be a sophomore in high school. We’re all just under eighteen months apart. Mom said there was no point in wasting her prime child
bearing years. And, since being pregnant sucked, she just wanted to get it over with. At the time, she must not have been considering how chaotic it’d be having three teenage boys in the house.
“Nose goes on the light,” Logan sang out, finger already glued to his face. Lucas and I threw our index fingers to our nose at the exact same time.
“Tie goes to the oldest. Sorry man.” Lucas grinned at me.
“More like tie goes to the laziest.”
“Who cares, I still win.” He punched his pillow a few times, trying to get comfortable.
I picked up one of my shoes and chucked it at the light switch. My aim was impeccable and the light flipped off.
“Nice shot,” Lucas grunted.
“I knew there was a reason we kept you around,” Logan added.
See, I told you they loved me, they were just extremely bad at expressing or showing it. “Goodnight losers,” I called out. Maybe my terms of endearment could use a little work too.
. . . . .
The next morning, I was woken suddenly by a giggly feminine voice. “Wake up, sleepy head.” The visitor bounced on my mattress repeatedly. I’d know that voice even if I was deaf. I pretended to be asleep until she got a little closer, then grabbed Summer before she could squirm out of my reach. I pulled her down on the mattress, her back to my front, so she wouldn’t get a whiff of my wicked morning breath.
I snuggled close like she was a teddy bear and whispered into her hair, “Mmm, Veronica, what are you doing here? If my mom catches us, we’ll be in so much trouble.”
I was rewarded by a sound smack on the arm and I laughed out loud.
“Veronica? Who the heck is Veronica? You never mentioned a girl named Veronica.” Summer pouted.
“That’s because I don’t know anyone named Veronica. But if I did, I bet she’d be hot.”
Summer wiggled from my grip and knelt next to the mattress. “You’re such a dork. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you guys were coming a week early.”
“I didn’t know we were coming a week early until twenty hours ago.”
“Well, you could have texted me on the way down. Duh.”
“Sorry.” I sighed. “I guess my mind was a little preoccupied yesterday.”
“I’ll say. I walked outside this morning to turn on the sprinklers and saw your car in the driveway. I almost marched over in my pajamas so I could yell at you. Why’d you guys come down yesterday?”
“It’s a long story, one I’m not prepared to share before I get some breakfast.”
“And brush your teeth.” She wrinkled her nose and I pinched her in the ribs. She laughed hysterically before continuing, “Gran’s making eggs and hash browns. Lucas and Logan are already eating, you better hurry if you want some. Go take the world’s fastest shower and get your butt downstairs. After the eggs I’ll take you out for second breakfast.”
“What am I? A hobbit? How many breakfasts do I need?” I asked, chuckling. “And by the way, Joe’s Sno Cone Shack is hardly a suitable breakfast.” I smirked, already knowing exactly what she had in mind.
“That’s why it’s a second breakfast, silly goose. Get up already.” Summer smacked the back of my leg, then bounced out of the room. I stood up, wondering how long I could get out of spilling the current drama in my life. Knowing Summer, not long. As I grabbed my towel and headed off for the world’s fastest shower, I couldn’t help but think…if anything could get me through this summer, it’d be my Summer.
CHAPTER 2
“Hey Mom, we’ll be back in an hour or so. Summer and I are going to Joe’s,” I called to the back porch where her, Gran and Pop were engaged in a serious conversation. Gran looked sympathetic, but Pop looked angry enough to kill someone.
“Ok kids, have fun. Take your phone and text me if you decide to go anywhere else.”
Logan cleaned off his third plate of eggs and shoved the last bite in his face. Then he spoke with his mouth full, “Dude, bring me back a blue raspberry sno-cone.”
“Sorry,” I replied, “sno-cones are for winners.”
Lucas snickered. “That means you can bring one back for me.”
“They’re also for dudes or chicks. Not dudes that look like chicks.” Logan beat me to the punch. Looks like he was really going to punish Lucas for the eyeliner phase.
“I don’t hear the ladies complaining,” Lucas replied casually, then looked at Summer. “You like the eyeliner, right? Gives me a Johnny Depp, bad-a-rocker-pirate kind of vibe.”
Summer didn’t reply with words. She only nodded her head in the affirmative. She’d had a crush on Lucas since she was twelve and for some reason turned into a bumbling fool around him. Stuttering and blushing, the works.
“See, Logan. Maybe if you took some tips from me, you could snag yourself a woman.”
“If I took tips from you, I’d probably snag an infected tear duct or wicked case of pink eye. And the only women I’d be able to get are the kind that like bad-a-rocker-pirates. Whatever the hell those are. Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.”
“Logan, language…” Mom warned through the sliding patio door.
“Damn, that woman has bionic hearing.”
“Logan!”
“Sorry, Mom!” he yelled back through the screen, then muttered under his breath, “Damn and hell are barely bad words.” He grabbed a can of Coke out of the fridge and made his way to the family room to turn on the television.
“Let’s get out of here while we still can.” I pushed Summer toward the carport door, opening it for her. “See you guys later.”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do…” Lucas winked.
“So, we can pretty much do anything then?” I answered flatly and shut the door.
We started toward Joe’s Sno-Cone Shack in silence. It was only a half mile up the road, but I was glad for the moment of peace. It didn’t last long though, as I knew it wouldn’t. Summer wouldn’t let me off the hook so easily.
“Are you going to tell me what happened? Or am I going to have to beat it out of you?”
“What kind of beating are we talking about here?”
“Funny,” she replied sarcastically.
“Sugar first,” I demanded as I nodded my head to an open service window. Joe’s was literally a five-foot by five-foot shack at the edge of the parking lot in a strip mall. The only thing he sold was sno-cones. Only one size—gigantic—but in every flavor imaginable. For three bucks it was totally worth your money. Since it was only nine in the morning, it had just opened and we didn’t have to wait, which was nice. In two hours there’d be a line twenty feet deep. Such a simple idea. Maybe he’d sell me a franchise.
Joe’s cute teenage daughter was at the window. She had brunette hair and big doe eyes. Her name was Autumn and she worked there every summer. While I’d been busy drooling over Summer last year, and Summer had been pining for Lucas, Lucas had been ogling Autumn. No matter how hard he flirted, she wasn’t very receptive. Autumn was all smiles for me though and that drove him nuts. It was a small victory, but I’d take any win I could get. Of course, it also meant that I was smack in the middle of a love square. Forget the love triangle thing, my love life couldn’t be that simple. I wasn’t that lucky.
“Hey Summer,” Autumn greeted. “Levi! When did you get here?”
“Last night,” I answered with a smile.
“You guys want the usual?”
“You know it.” Summer’s head bobbed.
“No Lucas?” Autumn asked hesitantly, looking around behind us, as if she expected Lucas to pop out from a bush and startle her.
I grinned. “Not yet, but I’m sure he’ll be along to pester you shortly.”
Autumn rolled her eyes and handed us our sno-cones, one watermelon and one banana.
I watched Summer give Autumn a wad of dollar bills, while simultaneously slurping some of the juice from the lip of the paper cone. “OK, you’ve got your sugar,” she prompted.
“Yuck, I don’t know how you can eat a ban
ana sno-cone. That’s such a weird flavor,” I teased, then thanked Autumn and headed for a near-by bench in the shade.
“Nice misdirect. Now, you have about thirty seconds to tell me what the heck is going on or I’ll turn you over my knee and whip your butt.”
I grinned. “Promise?”
Summer pursed her lips together and pinned me with a disapproving stare.
“Fine, here’s the short version. We came home from school yesterday to find Dad’s hot grad assistant driving away from the house, Dad trying to scurry into his clothes, and Mom crying in the bathroom. I don’t know what she saw before we got there, but she called him an adulterer and he didn’t deny it. Then she told us to pack our bags with anything important because we were leaving in three hours and we weren’t coming back.”
Summer gasped and I looked away in shame. Not as much shame for what my father had done, though it was unforgivable, but shame that I was about to cry. I was a sixteen-year-old boy. I should have been big enough to hold back my tears, but they were pooling rapidly. I didn’t want her to see me so weak. Logan hadn’t cried. Lucas barely seemed to care. Even Mom hadn’t cried in front of us. I wouldn’t be the only one to break down over the situation. Summer obviously noticed the tears, but was cool enough not to say anything.
“I’m so sorry Levi,” Summer whispered. She slid closer to me and grabbed my free hand, lacing our fingers together. Then she rested her head on my shoulder and we sat in silence until our sno-cones were gone. Finally, she looked up at me and asked the major question. One that, surprisingly, I hadn’t given much thought to yet. “So, are you guys really not going back? Does that mean you’ll be moving down here?” Her eyes got wide and I knew she was trying to be tactful by holding back her excitement.
I shrugged and pressed my finger to the corner of my eyes to stop the leak. “I don’t know. Mom sounded serious when she said we weren’t coming back. But that isn’t very realistic. Even if they decide to get a divorce, and we moved down here, we’d have to sell the house. Or at least go back for all our stuff. And that decision would have to be made pretty soon because we only have ten weeks before school starts again. Lucas will be pissed if he has to move before his senior year. If we do stay, we can’t live with my grandparents forever. There’s not enough room.”
Perfectly You (The Perfect Series Book 2) Page 24
