Endless Summer Part 1

Endless Summer.

Jennifer Echols.

Dedication.

This book is for all the readers of The Boys Next Door who asked me to write a sequel. I would not and could not have done this without you.

Acknowledgments.

Thanks to Simon Pulse, for believing in this book; Emilia Rhodes, for a smart edit; my literary agent, Nicole Kenealy, for taking care of me; Erin Downing, for reading an early draft and offering terrific suggestions; and as always, my critique partners, Catherine Chant and Victoria Dahl, for sticking with me every step of the way.

Chapter 1.

Adam boosted me from the concrete embankment onto the narrow ledge that ran all the way down the highway bridge. From here I'd have the perfect platform to spray paint our names on the six-foot wall separating us from the cars-that is, if nothing went wrong.

I could have painted LORI LOVES ADAM right where I was, above the embankment. At least technically I was still on dry land, or over it. But his brothers would call us lightweights. They'd been more daring when they painted their own names. Using each seam in the metal wall as a handgrip, I walked carefully along the ledge. The embankment fell away. I was over the lake.

A quarter of the way across, which seemed respectable enough, I stopped. Shaking the can of spray paint with one hand and hanging onto the bridge for dear life with the other, I turned to look behind me. My house, Adam's house, and Adam's parents' marina lay across the water from us, but I couldn't see them in the starlight. Only a few lights edging the marina dock shone in the summer night, their reflections rippling in the water. Everyone must have been p.o.o.ped from the festival on the lake that day.

Not a single boat motor broke the silence-only the occasional clackclack, clack-clack of a car pa.s.sing on the other side of the concrete wall and a nervous vibration through the bridge.

"Kkkkkk," came radio static. "You on the bridge. Lori McGillicuddy. This is the police."

I glared at Adam standing on the ledge beside me with his hands cupped over his mouth to sound more like a police radio. He wasn't holding onto the bridge at all.

"You startled me," I said. "What if I'd fallen?" The lake wasn't far enough below to kill me, but the impact might still hurt. And we were not here for his adrenaline rush.

We were doing something romantic, and we were in it together.

He touched my elbow. "I would have caught you."

He probably could have. What he lacked in good judgment, he made up for in strength and coordination. Of Endless Summer course, the poor judgment often trumped the strength and coordination, which accounted for at least one of the times in grade school he'd broken his leg.

But his fingers on my elbow made my skin tingle. His skull-and-crossbones pendant glinted in the starlight, and his strange light blue eyes watched me in the hot darkness. Though I was precariously balanced and about to deface public property, I used my own poor judgment to lean forward and kiss him.

He seemed surprised for a split second. Usually he was the one to start things between us. Then he slid his hands into my hair and kissed me back.

I felt the paint can slipping through my fingers. Gripping it harder, I loosened my hold on the bridge. I was falling.

He pulled me closer and held me steady. "Even I think this is not the best place to make out," he breathed.

"If you say so." I was kidding. Personally, my bravado had pitched off the side of the bridge along with my balance.

"I could have fallen instead of you," he said in mock outrage. "Oh, wait, I already fell." He touched the tip of my nose with his finger. "For you."

"Awwww!" I cried. "Adam, that's so sweet!"

He grinned. "Did you like that? I thought of it about an hour ago, when we were in your bas.e.m.e.nt looking for spray paint. I've been saving it."

"I did like it. You are a very good boyfriend. Who would have guessed?" With a final moony gaze at him-G.o.d, we were such idiots, but it was fun to be an idiot in love -I turned back to the bridge and scanned the surface for a clean s.p.a.ce to write our names. Over the years it had gotten crowded with graffiti. Just above me was AOAN LOVES LOKI, which Adam had painted very sloppily last weekend, then crossed out when we had a fight. I could have moved farther down the bridge or reached higher up for a blank slate, but I was not as fond of playing Tarzan as Adam was. Finally I decided on a s.p.a.ce down low that had been painted over so many times, it would make a nice dark backdrop for my red paint. I shook the can one more time, held it out to Adam to pry the top off, and crouched to write.

"You're sure you don't want me to do it?" he asked.

"No thanks. When you want your name written legibly in graffiti, you have to do it yourself." He laughed. "I was in a hurry, and the paint ran when it rained. Besides, you knew what I meant." Smiling, I started the first downward leg of LORI LOVES ADAM. "Yeah, I knew what you meant." In only a few minutes I was finis.h.i.+ng the M. "There. Some couples swap cla.s.s rings to show they're together. Some people switch their online profiles from single to in a relations.h.i.+p. We commit a misdemeanor."

He took the paint can from me. "The police chief 's son's name is up here, so I wouldn't be too worried. Come on." He headed for the sh.o.r.e, placing one battered deck shoe in front of the other, but still barely holding on to the bridge, his fingers brus.h.i.+ng the metal. Just following him seemed dangerous.

We reached land and hiked up the embankment, over to the city boat ramp, then into the parking lot. The streetlights gently lit the trucks and empty trailers of the night fishermen. No one stopped us as we walked up the steep asphalt to Adam's truck. We'd gotten away with it.

My fingers were raw from my death grip on the bridge, and my bare toes were rough. Other than that, everything had gone perfectly my whole sixteenth birthday. After our huge fight last night, Adam and I had gotten back together today. We'd had a great time at the lake festival. We and our brothers had performed a wakeboarding show for an enormous crowd. Not even Adam had broken a bone. And now we'd spray painted our love for each other on the bridge without a single mishap? This night was Too Good To Be True.

As he opened the pa.s.senger door for me-he never locked the doors, because he liked to tempt fate-I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window. Even after my test run in a life of crime, my hair was gorgeous, I tell you. It clumped a little in the humidity, but it looked like I'd created that piecey effect on purpose with styling gel. I was a vision of blonde loveliness.

That was the last straw. A day this happy and good hair, too? Now I knew something awful was about to happen.

Adrenaline had propelled me through my artistry on the bridge. That started to drain away now. Fatigue set in-from wakeboarding in the festival show that afternoon and worrying the last few days about whether Adam and I would ever get together.

"What's wrong?" he asked from behind me, tossing the paint can in the payload.

"I'm having a good hair day."

"I hate it when that happens." Gathering my hair and pus.h.i.+ng it forward over my shoulder, he kissed the back of my neck.

I s.h.i.+vered in the heat. The adrenaline came rus.h.i.+ng back, and I was not so tired.

"The night is young," he growled between kisses. "I have an idea of what we can do now. We've kissed before." Kiss. "We've made out." Kiss. "But we've never made out as an official couple, in the privacy of my Secret Make-Out Hideout."

I turned to look sideways at him. I found I couldn't do this without denying him access to the back of my neck. So I gave up on the sly look and enjoyed his soft lips on my skin. "You have a Secret Make-Out Hideout?" I whispered with my head bent.

"I do." His low voice against my neck sent chills through me. "Just for you."

"What are we waiting for?" I hopped forward through the open door, into the truck.

"You won't regret it," he said before he closed the door and rounded the truck to the driver's side.

I missed him for ten seconds, looking forward to the instant he slipped back inside the truck and we laughed together again. Decision made. It wasn't my first bad judgment leading to an Adam-Related Catastrophe, and it wouldn't be my last.

Chapter 2.

"Adam," Lori whispered. I'd known her all my life. I was used to her scent of warm skin and water. But in the last couple of weeks she'd started wearing perfume. I caught another whiff of it every time she shook my shoulder.

Without opening my eyes, I sniffed deeply, inhaling all the perfume I could get. Her hair tickled my face. I nuzzled her neck.

"Adam Vader." Now her voice sounded pinched, like she was clenching her teeth. "I am trying to remain calm so as not to alarm you, but wake the h.e.l.l up already."

That made me open my eyes. She lay on top of me, looking down at me. I couldn't see her features clearly in the shadowy cab of my truck. Her long blonde hair cascaded around me and glowed pink in the light of sunrise.

Sunrise!

"Oh, G.o.d." I sat up, dumping her off my chest and onto the pa.s.senger side. For the perfect end to a perfect day, I'd driven her here. My secret make-out hideout was a point of land jutting into the lake with a dirt road leading to it, a primo lot that n.o.body had built a house on yet. It was at the other end of our neighborhood, and we could actually see our houses and my parents' marina from here. My truck was hidden from their view by the trees around us, which was the beauty of it. I loved having the upper hand for once in my life.

But that was last night. Now the sun peeked over the highway bridge in the distance and reflected in the smooth lake.

"What time is it?" I looked toward the clock in the dashboard of my truck, which hadn't worked since probably 1995.

"I don't know," she said. "My cell phone went in the lake with me a couple of nights ago. I'd say five thirty or six." I pulled my own cell phone from my pocket. "It's five fifty-three, and my mother's called me eleven times."

"Why didn't it ring?" Lori wailed.

"My brothers kept texting me about hooking up with you. I turned off the sound." Which was shooting myself in the foot. My brothers were good at making me do that. I turned the key in the ignition and threw the truck into reverse. We backed through the cloud of our own dust, which billowed through the open windows and glinted in the sunlight. As soon as I hit a clearing with more room, I jerked the truck around in a hasty three-point turn and hit the gas.

"Stupid," I muttered. I would get in trouble for staying out late. She would get in more trouble because she was a girl, and her dad was kind of high-strung. Plus, we'd slept all night on that abandoned point with the windows open. I should have protected her better. Maybe I'd watched snippets of too many action movies, but it seemed to me that falling asleep with a woman was just asking for snakes.

Lori crossed her arms and rubbed her hands up and down her skin, warming herself. The air was heavy with humidity, and chilly. This was the coldest part of a summer day in Alabama. "Faster," she said.

In the three weeks I'd had my license, I'd driven as fast as I could every chance I got. Most people, Lori included, thought this was not a good idea. It was a rush for her to tell me to go faster. I pressed the gas harder. "Are you sure you want me to take you home? We could run away together." I felt her looking at me across the cab. I met her gaze and held it for one second, two seconds, three seconds longer than I should have been keeping my eyes off the road.

The truck hit gravel. I swung the steering wheel to point the truck back onto the pavement.

She laughed. "Better not."

"You thought about it, though." I grinned.

"I did." She slid her hand onto my thigh, which was bare below my shorts. "Go faster."

I put more pressure on the gas. The engine revved higher, echoing weirdly against the dense woods flas.h.i.+ng past the open windows on both sides.

"No, wait, stop, stop, stop!"

I stomped on the brake and threw my arm in front of her to keep her from going through the winds.h.i.+eld before I realized she had put on her seat belt. (I had not.) The truck screeched to a halt. I expected to see the huge body of a deer I'd just missed as it crashed into the woods and escaped-but outside the truck, the morning was pink and still. "What is it?"

"Sorry," she sighed. "I just realized we need to pick up where we left off last night and enjoy it for a few minutes. I have a feeling we won't get to do it again for a while." Her eyes were sad as she said this. I should have bear-hugged her and comforted her. But when the girl of your dreams, who you've been chasing for years and have finally caught, tells you to make out with her, are you going to tell her you'd rather just hold each other for a while? Why, h.e.l.l no. I put the truck in park.

Then I put my hands on her face and kissed her. She opened her mouth. Funny that she'd been so unsure about this when we'd first fake dated a couple of weeks ago, but she caught on quickly. Sometimes she even took the lead. Like now. She drew back from the kiss, touched her lips so gently to mine, licked my bottom lip with the very tip of her tongue. A chill ran through me and I shuddered.

She kissed me again. "Mmm," she said. I thought she was telling me how much she enjoyed it. I agreed completely. When her shoulders shook, I figured out she was crying.

I kissed her cheek. "Hey. Don't cry." I couldn't stand to see her cry. She'd already bawled in the boat when we got together. I'd gotten a little watery-eyed myself, which my brothers loved. It had been such a relief to call her mine after wanting her so long. For the happiest day of my life, the one I'd dreamed about forever, we sure were crying a lot.

As it turned out, we would have good reason.

But then, in the truck, I didn't know this. I wiped her tears away with my thumb. "What are you crying about?"

"We're finally together," she sobbed, "and now we won't go out for the rest of the summer. My dad will ground me until Labor Day!"

"You don't know that." I ran my fingers through her hair. Now it was dark blonde, but as the summer went on, it would turn lighter until the front was almost white, just like every year. "We'll explain what happened. It was an honest mistake. Don't cry. Not yet." She was making me antsier than I let on, though. I pulled away from her, put the truck back in drive, and sped down the road.

"What did happen?" she asked. "Clearly we don't find each other as exciting as we thought." I laughed. "I remember you were biting my earlobe-"

"I remember biting your earlobe," she said dreamily.

"-but sleep finally caught up with me."

"Me too." She scooted closer to me on the seat and put her head on my shoulder.

I drove with my left hand and slipped my right arm around her waist. For thirty more seconds, she was my girlfriend.

Finally I parked in her driveway. "I'll walk you to the d-"

She slammed the pa.s.senger door and dashed through the trees to her house. One of her pink flip-flops flew into an azalea and she never slowed down. I don't know why she was in such a hurry. Seemed to me that 6:01 a.m. was just as grounded as 6:02.

Her father was already yelling at her when he opened the door. His voice faded and the bright rectangle of light shrank as he swung the door closed behind her.

I murmured, "Happy sweet sixteen, Lori."

I backed down her driveway, drove a few feet, and pulled into my own driveway. My mom must have heard my truck. She was waiting in our own open doorway in her bathrobe with her arms crossed.

Up until the moment I saw her, I'd planned to tiptoe into the house and hope n.o.body had missed me. It had worked for my brothers before. If I did encounter my parents, I would tell them the truth: Lori and I had fallen asleep, we never meant to be out until morning, and I was sorry.

But there was something about seeing my mother there, arms folded, ready for a fight, that p.i.s.sed me off. Instead of standing on the porch and apologizing to her, I squeezed past her into the house like nothing was wrong. And I said, "You're up early."

She grabbed the back of my neck and pointed me toward the kitchen. "Sssssssit. Down."

I huffed out a sigh and walked into the kitchen. It was a little early for everyone to be up and getting ready to go to work at the marina down the hill. My dad sat at the table, drinking coffee. He didn't share Mom's frazzled appearance, though. I doubt he'd lost much sleep over my status as a missing person. My oldest brother, Cameron, must have been asleep too-he never got up until the very last second-but my other brother, Sean, lounged at the head of the table, smirking at me. I gathered he was still mad at me for nearly breaking his nose when he jumped on me a few nights ago. The swelling had gone down and it seemed to be healing nicely, so I didn't know what his problem was.

"Sit down," Mom repeated.