Lovestruck Summer Melissa Walker (top 100 books to read .TXT) 📖

told me about some country song about keying an ex-boyfriend’s car, and I admitted that coun- try songs can be pretty hard-core sometimes. “They were together for a long time,”says

199 Penny, defending Russ and Katie for the thou- sandth time as I get ready for Sebastian to pick me up. “Penny!”I shout. “I told you: I don’t care. Russ is an asshole and it’s not my concern who assholes date or what assholes do, even if the asshole lives next door.”“He’s your friend,”says Penny. “Whose friend?”I ask. “Your friend!”I point my mascara wand at her. I’ve done well over the past few days after I convinced Penny that we had to stop watching Sex and the City and we had to start listening to a little seventies punk. That helped. So did pull- ing all the magnetic ribbon out of Russ’s mix tape and then smashing the cassette shell. Incredibly satisfying. It’s only late at night, when I’m trying to fall asleep, that I see a sad montage in my head. As much as I try to block it out, I go back to our fi rst burger, the day buying the Festiva, the night the bats didn’t fl y, Russ’s hair in the sunset. But if I turn the Clash up loudly enough, I can drown out those images. Because now Katie’s back.

200 Chapter 17 I take a deep breath and focus on the fact that Sebastian is picking me up, and he is hot and nice and smart about music. I must have been temporarily insane to think Russ and I had a shot at being together this summer. The man wears a giant brass belt buckle! “Quinn,”whines Penny, making a pouty face. “I can’t go through the rest of the summer with you fi ghting with Russ. He’s one of my best friends. Even Chrissy is afraid to come over because she knows you’re mad.”“Well, has he made one freaking attempt to apologize to me for kissing me and then ditch- ing my ass on the front step?!”I shout, more loudly than I mean to. I throw the mascara I’m holding on the counter and bound down the stairs,

201 acknowledging internally that I might be more upset than I want to be about this. I slam the door and sit on the front stoop, not wanting to listen to my cousin anymore, but also knowing that it’s not her fault. I shouldn’t be taking this out on her. I’m staring at the shiny white Lexus and having another keying fantasy, when I hear the screen door to Russ and Chrissy’s condo creak open. I sigh and brace myself for an impish laugh or possibly the sight of Russ and Katie lip- locked in a mirror image of our kiss from Friday night. When I turn my head, though, I see Katie looking at me. Her eyes are red and puffy, and her face is streaked with tears. I can tell because her foundation has pale rivulets run- ning through it. I never really get people who wear foundation. She looks so sad, though, I almost feel sorry for her. Then she opens her mouth, and I think she might apologize or something. “Bitch,”she says, walking down the steps and huffi ly getting into her car. I retract that thought about feeling bad for

202 her, and I give her the fi nger as she drives away. I look back up at Russ’s door, wondering if he’s going to follow her, wondering what happened, what prompted the B-word. Vroom, vroom. Sebastian’s Vespa pulls up and he holds out a helmet for me. I walk down the steps to him and slip it over my impossible-to- mess-up hair, trying to wipe thoughts of Russ from my mind. Sebastian surprises me by driving down to Town Lake, near the Four Seasons where I sat with Russ just a couple of weeks ago. He parks the Vespa and opens up the seat where he has a small blanket folded up inside. “What’s this?”I ask. “You wanted to see the bats, right?”he asks. “Jade told me that you tried to go once but they didn’t fl y.”“Yeah,”I say, not wanting to think about being here with Russ . . . and now with Sebastian. “But aren’t we going to a show? I mean, we don’t want to miss what might be an incredible opening band that no one knows about yet and we need to get a spot up front

203 for Gloria Airlines and what if there’s a crowd already there and—”Sebastian stops my rambling with a well- timed kiss. “I thought you would want this,”he says when we break apart. “It’s my weak attempt at sunset romance.”“I appreciate it,”I say. “But I’d rather just go to the shows.”Sebastian shrugs and folds up the blanket, putting it back under the seat. “As you wish,”he says. And what I really wish is that I’d stop being so ridiculous and start appreciating the guy who’s right in front of me. The guy who’s trying to win me over and not pushing me aside. But for some reason, I can’t. Later that night, after Gloria Airlines and their opener, Crimson Sun, both perform dizzy- ingly great sets, Sebastian takes me back to the condo. I’m still humming the encore song, which was so full of emotion that, at the show, I leaned back on Sebastian and just swayed with him, like we’re really together. He gets off the Vespa and we walk to the front door holding hands. He tries to kiss me as I look for my keys, and though

204 I want to, I really want to, I just can’t do it here. But that doesn’t mean I can’t do it anywhere. “Let’s go inside,”I say, pulling the front of his T-shirt as we walk into the living room and fall onto the couch together. I laugh and he smoothes back my hair, kiss- ing my forehead and then moving to my cheeks and my