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FOR MOM AND DAD
LOVE, BRAT
CHAPTER 1
Some of my best decisions have been the spur-of-the-moment kind:
Stopping at Kenny’s Ice Cream Palace between work and home and being the ten thousandth customer and getting free cones for the rest of the summer.
Not getting on that Six Flags roller coaster just before it got stuck and no one could get off for two hours.
Going to that college fair and meeting my boyfriend.
Finally sleeping with him.
Well, okay, in three weeks, anyway.
I just made that decision while sitting on the beach next to Lake Newman, and feel very secure in it.
Now I just have to tell my boyfriend.
We’re surrounded by friends, so I need to get him alone. Unfortunately, Hunter and his friend Steve are listening intently to Steve’s phone, trying to pick out new songs that will fit in their a cappella group’s repertoire.
But maybe Hunter isn’t concentrating too hard, because he was just kind of weirdly staring at Brynn Potts as she slathered sunscreen on her arms and legs.
Earlier, when I’d swum across the lake and stopped to catch my breath, I’d turned just in time to see him pick up a squealing Brynn and toss her in the lake, which wouldn’t have been a big deal if 1) Brynn wasn’t wearing a skimpy bikini and 2) Brynn hadn’t popped out of the water and chased after Hunter, the two of them giggling like crazy.
A nagging feeling of what I assume is some kind of biological “Hey, that’s my man” territorialism suddenly forced me to think about whether I was finally ready for condom-purchasing and the ensuing nakedness after all.
So I stride over to Hunter, sticking my shoulders back, and hope I look just as hypnotizing in my purple-striped one-piece.
“Hey,” I say, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“What’s up, babe?” he asks, his eyes closed. He’s “feeling the music,” as he likes to say.
“Want to join me for a walk?”
“Uh, maybe in a few minutes,” he says.
But in a few minutes, Brynn will probably be sitting on his lap, and even the idea of that sends a weird spasm of urgency up my spine, so I squeeze his shoulder, a silent way of letting him know I need to talk to him.
But he doesn’t get it. I feel like Hunter and I haven’t been in sync much lately, mostly because we’ve barely seen each other the past couple of weeks.
“I’d really like to talk to you about something,” I say, and that seems to catch Brynn’s attention, because she turns around, shades her eyes, and gives me a smile.
“Uh, okay,” Hunter finally says as he takes the earbud out of his ear.
I wait for him to pull on his sneakers and T-shirt and try not to be bothered that he seems a little annoyed by this interruption. I comfort myself by thinking about how excited he’ll be when I tell him I’m finally ready to sleep with him. The possibility of sex kind of trumps music at this point.
We follow the path away from the beach to the top of the small cliff overlooking the lake. He’s silent for most of the walk until we get to the top of the cliff, when he asks, “So, what’s up?”
My palms start to sweat. “Is everything okay between us?”
Hunter cocks his head. “Okay? What do you mean?”
You’re imagining the weirdness. Awesome, Mary Ellen. But I plow on. “I just feel like you’ve been a little distant the last week or so.”
Hunter rolls his eyes and puts his hands on my shoulders. “I’ve been so wrapped up in getting the Ringtones’ setlist together, I’ve been ignoring you, haven’t I?”
“So we’re cool?”
“Yes, and I’m sorry. And I want to find a way to make it up to you.”
Relief floods me and I smile. “Well, I’ve been thinking. You know how our camping trip is coming up?”
Hunter slaps his hand to his forehead. “Oh, crap, I still have to buy a tent.”
I try not to seem ruffled by this. “They’re on sale at The Sporting Zone. Maybe we can go there later this week.”
He nods. “Yeah, sure.”
That’s when Steve and some of the others on the beach start yelling up at us, “Jump! Jump! Jump!”
Even if my priority weren’t to drop this sex bombshell on my boyfriend, I’d still have no desire to jump right now. For one thing, I’m wearing my shoes, and my biggest pet peeve is having wet feet and not being able to take your shoes off. Second, I’m wearing the semi-pricey eyeglasses that I accidently tried on before seeing how much they cost, but my mom insisted on paying for (“You’ve worked so hard this summer and they look great on you; let me treat you,” she’d said), even though I think she’s had to bring lunch to work for the last three weeks as a result. I felt guilty enough letting her buy them given our family’s current financial state—I don’t even want to know how I’d feel if I lost them by jackknifing into Lake Newman.
Hunter just waves at everyone like he’s a politician or something.
I can’t hold it in anymore. “I think we should do it that night.”
“What night? I’ve got rehearsal every day this week.”
He still thinks we’re talking about The Sporting Zone.
“No, I mean do it. When we’re camping. Have sex.”
Hunter looks confused. “In the tent?”
Now, I’m a little
