“It’s nothing,” Bastian said, tightening his arms around Summer. “Just drop it, Abs.”
“No. It’s not nothing.” Summer shifted. “But it was just really stupid and I try not to talk about it.”
“I am the queen of stupid,” Abby said. “The time I cut my own bangs. The tattoos. All three of them. Introducing my best friend to my brother.”
“I dated Raf,” Bria said, pointing at a boy with shaggy black hair, skinny jeans, and an Exorcist T-shirt.
“Hey!” The boy got up to join their circle. “Was it that terrible?”
“It was not my finest hour.”
“I was mostly dating Bria because her dad could help out my band,” Raf said.
“I hooked up with Alyson Kane once,” Ben said, shaking his head.
“That is barely forgivable,” Bria said.
“Truth.” Abby slammed down her beer.
Summer looked from face to face, caught between wanting to play along and the need to keep her past in the past. Especially with Bria’s history and Bastian in her future.
“I lost a kid once while babysitting,” Dolores said.
“No way,” Abby said.
“I did. I fell asleep on the couch and he got out of a window. That child was the devil. Worst part?” She straightened. “He was the principal’s kid.”
“Dude.” Ben laughed. “You lost your principal’s kid?”
“I found him at 7-Eleven stealing Milk Duds. I promised not to tell his dad he was stealing, and he promised not to tell his dad I let him escape.”
“So Lor lied to the principal of her Catholic school about losing a kid,” Abby said. “How bad can it possibly be?”
“I, um.” Summer’s voice faltered. “I thought I was helping my friend. I shouldn’t have been driving and I knew that. When the cop pulled me over . . .”
“Oh wait!” Raf grinned. “I heard about that.”
“What?” Summer’s face blanched.
“Yeah, there was a video.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, like it could make her disappear. “The dash cam.”
“Seriously, how much did you have to drink to get that drunk?”
“I was scared too.”
“You were drunk?” Abby said, but it was less a question and more a realization as things had to be clicking into place.
“Oh,” Raf said. “I thought they knew. The video is everywhere.”
“I wasn’t that drunk.” Summer lurched to her feet. “I mean, I was, but I didn’t hurt anyone.”
Bria gave her one horrified stare before she fled into the kitchen.
“Bria!” Ben shook his head and ran after Bria before he could get any words out.
Summer turned to Bastian, but the same disbelief registered on his face. “I didn’t.”
“You …,” he said.
“I . . .” She backed away. “Tobey and Lola got in a fight and he was going to drive. He was way worse than I was.”
“Wow.” Abby blinked. “That’s . . . wow.”
“I had to drive him home. I couldn’t . . . I had to. I only had like four drinks.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Bastian said, rising to stand in front of her.
“Because I was stupid. It’s the biggest regret of my life. But I’m not . . .” She trailed off. Here she was, exposed at last. Naked, guilty, ashamed. Betrayed. These were her friends and yet they’d reacted just as badly as she’d always feared.
“The drunk driver that hit Bria and her mom?” Bastian said, his voice low enough to cut to her core. “Her mom died in the crash. She was eleven.”
Summer sucked in her breath, forcing the bile back into her stomach. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s not really something she tells everyone about. If you’d told me, I could have helped you.”
“That’s why you have the community service,” Abby said. “And why you moved.”
“That’s why you quit competing,” Dolores said.
“I quit because of the wipeout,” Summer said, her voice coming out harsher than she meant.
“What were you thinking?” Abby said. “Why would you hide this?”
“I needed a fresh start,” Summer said. “I drove drunk, at night, on a bad road. I nearly ended up wrapped around a guardrail or in the ocean. Would any of you have given me a chance if you’d known?”
“You should have told me,” Bastian said. “I thought you trusted me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it mattered. I thought my past didn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t change how I feel about you, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t know about it.” “‘No regrets.’ That’s what you told me, right?”
“Your past is in the past, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences.”
“Don’t you think I, of all people, know that? I’m a failure. I’m a drunk. I’m a screwup. I know!” She stumbled toward the back steps.
“Summer.” Bastian stopped on the last stair of the deck. “Don’t run away from me.”
She bit her lip to keep from crying, but didn’t turn around. “I’ll call you later.”
“Summer.” He said her name like a plea. Like a prayer.
She kept walking.
Chapter 28
The clanking in the kitchen intensified the buzzing in Summer’s head until she couldn’t ignore it any longer and she stomped down from her room to confront it. The tension and trauma of the football game the night before were too fresh and sharp to deal with more noise and confusion.
“Keiki!” Dad grinned at her from the stove. With just his board shorts on and his hair still wet, he looked like he’d walked out of one of his promo posters. Larger than life, less approachable. Less familiar. “Just in time for bacon and eggs.”
“I thought you were in San Diego this week.” Summer settled on a chair. “It’s only Saturday.”
“I came up last night.” He looked up from his cooking. “Your mom asked me to be here for the wedding, but I wanted to be here for your follow-up appointment too. How you feeling this morning?”
“Tired.” She stifled a yawn. “Aching.”
“Not hung over?”
She shook her head. “Sober as a judge.”
“I’ve known plenty of alcoholic judges.” Dad flipped an egg into the air. “But I trust you. Did you and Bastian have a good time at the game?”
“Until they found out about the DUI.”
“Shit. That bad?”
Summer sighed and poured herself a glass of orange juice. “Yep. And should you be swearing in front of me?”
He winked at her. “You know I’m a bad influence.”
She laid her head on the table. “I don’t know what to do. How did I eff this up so bad, so fast? I mean, it was one terrible decision and I just can’t get away from it.”
“Give it time and space.” He slid a plate with an egg toward her. “And should you be swearing?”
“Eff is not even swearing.”
“Both of you need your mouths washed out.” Mom waltzed into the kitchen and dropped her purse on the kitchen counter. “The open house is canceled because I closed a deal in the wee hours of the morning instead.”
Summer’s heart swelled a little. Whatever else might be weird between them, Mom’s happiness did make things better. “Congrats.”
“How are you so damn good at this?” Dad asked.
“Language!” Mom swatted his arm. “Besides, you know how good I am at selling things.”
“Yeah. I seem to remember that.” His voice softened and a moment of heaviness settled over the room.
“So.” Mom cleared her throat. “With the wedding coming and no school next week, I thought maybe we could have a girls’ weekend at the spa. Get you all relaxed before your appointment? What do you think, Summer?”
“Ummm.” A weekend alone with Mom, trapped in mud masks and being force-fed tea by some bronzed mandroid named Renaldo, didn’t have a whole lot of appeal.
>
She picked up her phone to text Bastian. The silence was getting too loud.
“You should go,” Dad said. “I can occupy myself until your appointment on Monday.”
“You’re sticking around until the wedding?” Summer asked.
“Yep. Your mom asked me to walk her down the aisle.”
“I thought it would be nice to have your dad be part of my special day.” She beamed at him.
Summer’s stomach rolled. “You guys are so weird.”
Mom shrugged. “It’s only weird if you make it weird. Now. Spa weekend? You could invite a friend.”
Bastian hadn’t even read the text.
On second thought, it might not be such a bad idea to duck out for a bit. “Yeah. Sure.”
“Good! I have to run back to the office to file some things, but I’ll make some calls.” She hurried into the living room.
“I should head out too.” Dad dropped his plate in the sink beside the frying pan. “Don’t want to miss the good waves.”
“Be careful,” Mom said, returning with a stack of papers. “I heard the surf’s a little choppy today.”
“Maybe for amateurs.” He winked at her, prompting a giggle.
“You guys are so weird!” Summer said.
“I’ll see you later, sweetheart,” Mom said with a quick short hug. “Bye, Cody.”
“I’ll see you soon, Rach.”
Summer groaned and marched over to the sink, taking out her confusion and frustration on the poor, unsuspecting dishes.
She’d just shoved the last of the silverware into the dishwasher when the doorbell rang. She wiped her hands on her cutoffs and made her way to the front door in hopes of shooing away whoever was disturbing her morning. She flung the door open and started.
“Abby.”
“I brought you a peace offering.” She stood on the front stoop with a DVD case and a grocery bag. “Cobracane and Oreos.”
Summer stepped back to let her inside. “I should be apologizing. Not you.”
Abby shrugged her shoulder. “We all make dumb mistakes. It threw me off guard and I kind of don’t do well with being off guard.”
“I seriously had no idea about Bria’s mom, and I swear I’ve never done anything like that before or after.”
“I know. So does Bria. We also know you. All is forgiven.”
“I don’t know about all . . .” Summer ran her hand over the soft fuzz on the side of her head.
Abby narrowed her eyes, and then looped her arm through Summer’s. “Bad sci-fi movie and sugar first. You’re not busy, right? Because I need some girl time.”
“Not until later.” She led the way into the kitchen. “My mom is dragging me off for wedding stuff.”
“Okay.” Abby slid onto a stool and folded her hands in front of her. “Start at the beginning.”
“The beginning?” Summer let her breath whistle past her lips. “I guess the beginning is the qualifier.”
“Last December? Lor said you disappeared after your first run.”
“Because I completely wiped out on a practice run. Completely. My ankle wouldn’t take weight and there was no way I was getting back on a board. When the producers saw the damage to my face, they refused to even let me try. Girl skaters have to be pretty.”
“The hell they do. You know that if one of the guys did that, they’d have it all over the news.”
“It just wrecked me.” Summer blinked back tears. “I had sponsors who wanted me and a really good first run and everything was finally going right. I was going to get some respect, be able to skate without getting groped, feel like I wasn’t wasting my life. And then, it was just . . . gone.”
Abby squeezed her hand. It was enough to break through the haze of memories.
“Anyway.” She scrubbed her eyes dry. “I basically tried to forget. I drank. A lot. I hooked up with anyone with a pulse. And then it all caught up with me.”
“Did Bas know before the party?”
She shrugged. “Most of it. I mean, not the details. Not the DUI. I wanted to put it behind me, you know?”
“Absolutely. Humiliation and me go way back.”
Summer stifled a chuckle.
Abby leaned in. “So I was on a date with my evil ex—like an actual date date. We usually just snuck around at school to make out. Anyway, he takes me to this fancy restaurant that’s totally not my scene, but I go with it because isn’t that what you do when you’re dating?”
“Sure.”
“He orders for me and I assume he’s made sure it’s copacetic for me and my absurdly specific allergies. Apparently, this mushroom burger is seasoned with Worcestershire. Boom: anaphylaxis!”
Summer laughed. “Sorry! I shouldn’t laugh. It’s just when you put it that way!”
“What is life without laughter?” Abby said with a wink.
“Okay. Sorry. I’m listening.”
“All right.” Abby readjusted on her stool. “So I am utterly at Evil Ex’s mercy. He gets me to the hospital, which is great, but instead of actually, like, staying with me, he calls Ben, drops me at the door, and sneaks off to hook up with some freshman.”
“What?”
“I didn’t find out until I found pictures of them on his phone. Apparently I’m ‘too intense’ and he didn’t have the guts to tell me to my face.”
“How did you cope? Because you look a lot better than I did.”
“Ignoring it hasn’t made it go away. Deleting the pictures hasn’t erased them from my brain. I don’t think the past is something we can put behind us. I think it just becomes a part of us.”
“So what do I do? I texted like an hour ago and Bastian still hasn’t read it.”
Abby shrugged. “Maybe he slept in late?”
“Ugh.” Summer buried her face in her hands. “I need that movie. Popcorn?”
“Movie theater butter?”
“Is there any other kind?” Summer asked.
“See, I knew we’re soul mates.” Abby hopped down from the stool. “So wedding stuff later?”
“Unfortunately.”
“It’s going that well?”
“Blah.” Summer held out a soda for Abby. “It’s not that I don’t like Pete. Seriously. He’s just not my dad. How lame is it that I’m sixteen and still hoping my parents will magically get back together?”
“Sounds pretty normal to me.”
“Nothing about my life is normal.”
“It has to be so awkward to watch your mom plan a wedding.”
“No kidding. It’s like she can’t accept that she’s thirty-four and has a teenager. I mean, you should see her dress. It’s white and huge and there’s all this tulle. It’s not a dress for someone who wants her ex who knocked her up in high school to give her away.”
“Okay, that’s just weird.”
“Right? They think I’m weird for thinking it’s weird, but it totally is.”
“For sure weird. Isn’t your future step dad freaked out by it?”
Summer rolled her eyes. “I don’t think Pete is freaked out by anything. He’s one of those guys who is just so stupid, successful, and good looking that it never occurs to him to feel insecure.”
“Ugh. Those people drive me crazy.”
Armed with snacks, Summer led the way into the living room and settled into a corner of the couch with Abby nestled in beside her. The movie started with a horrible, fake hurricane of snakes flying across the screen.
“No way! This has Jett Ryan in it?” Summer said.
“I know! I love when former members of boy bands are reduced to acting in creature features.”
“Hey. What are you doing the rest of the weekend?” Summer twisted a little to watch her friend’s face. “My mom wants to do this spa thing and said I could bring a friend. If you’re into that kind of thing.”
“Um, hello? Girly pampering?” Abby threw her arms around Summer. “I am so in!”
Chapter 29
Mom pulled back onto Abby’s tree-line
d street Monday morning, and Summer stole yet another glance at her phone.
“Still nothing?” Abby asked, leaning across the middle seat.
“I know he’s mad, but it’s been a whole weekend.”
Abby drew her brows together. “This isn’t like him.”
“I know.” She lowered her phone as Mom pulled into the Harris’s driveway. With simple landscaping and a welcoming red door, their house looked less intimidating than when she’d left on Friday night.
“I’ll text you later,” Abby said. “We’ll fix this. Promise.”
Summer wrapped her in a hug. “Thanks so much for coming.”
Abby clutched her hands to her heart. “It was such a sacrifice. I mean, my pores have never been so tiny. And my hair? This kind of luscious shine is just torturous.”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously? You’re the best.” Abby hugged her again. “Thank you, Ms. Caldwell.”
“You’re welcome, Abby.”
“Text, ’k? I need to hear all about what the doctor says too.”
“Sure.” Summer smiled and climbed over the center console to sit in the front passenger seat beside her mom.
“I like her,” Mom said, backing onto the street.
“I told you I made friends,” she said, but she couldn’t keep up the scowl. The weekend of pampering had been far more palatable with Abby’s particular sense of irreverent humor and zest for life. “Good friends.”
“And you did.” Mom gave her a sideways glance. “You have friends, you’re passing all your classes, and you even have a nice boy in your life. You’re a new person.”
Summer shook her head, gazing at the trees flashing past her window. “I still don’t want to be a new person.”
Mom reached over and squeezed her hand. “I don’t want you to be a new person either. I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel that way.”
“I don’t know.” She sighed and turned toward Mom, resting against the car door. “I want to be a better me. Is that possible?”
Again, Mom glanced at her. “Do you think I’m a different person than I was in NorCal?”
“Of course.” Summer paused. “Or not. I don’t know. You look different. You act different.”
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