41
" Her dad brought his hands together and popped a knuckle.
“Trevor,” Frances said soothingly, rubbing her hand on his back. But she was looking hard at me over her glasses, telling me upstanding citizens did not act this way.
When we were kids, that look from Frances could make Lori and her brother behave, and sometimes even my brothers, but I never seemed to get the message.
“I saw you coming out of the woods,” Lori’s dad shouted at me. “Together!”
“We weren’t rolling in the leaves or anything. Look, no evidence.” I put my other hand on Lori’s other shoulder and turned her around backward, hoping against hope
she didn’t have scratches from the tree on her bare back, or bark on her butt.
“Get your hands off my daughter. "
― Jennifer Echols , Endless Summer (The Boys Next Door, #1-2)
45
" The instant I saw Lori’s dad and Frances across the hot asphalt road, I spun around, hoping Lori was still hidden by the trees.
She stood right behind me, in full view. And if my expression matched hers, we couldn’t have looked more guilty.
I turned back around. Her dad’s face was even worse. Glaring at me, he worked his jaw like he was going to say something, but he wanted to make sure he’d thought of
the worst possible insult first. He turned redder and seemed to swell, like all his holes were plugged up and the pressure had nowhere to escape.
He opened his mouth.
“It was my fault,” I said quickly.
“I know!” he roared.
At the same time, Lori stepped in front of me and muttered, “Wrong thing to say, Adam.”
“Right.” I put my hand on Lori’s shoulder and pushed her an arm’s length away so it wouldn’t look like I was hiding behind her. “It’s nobody’s fault, because we didn’t
do anything wrong. "
― Jennifer Echols , Endless Summer (The Boys Next Door, #1-2)
46
" Adam found a break through the thicket and up the hill. He turned
around and extended his hand to help me up.
I froze, staring at him in the thick heat, leaves tickling my legs. Boys did not help girls. Not in my experience, anyway. When I was one of the boys, they tromped ahead
of me and never once looked back to see if I was still there, much less in need of assistance. Boys had helped me only recently, when they wanted something.
No, this walk through the woods would not be innocent.
Taking his hand, I said, “Fank woo.”
“Hm,” he laughed with his mouth closed. "
― Jennifer Echols , Endless Summer (The Boys Next Door, #1-2)
50
" Sean started the engine and putted through the marina waters, and Adam had the nerve to plop onto the seat across the aisle from me. Sean reached the edge of the idle zone and cranked the boat into top speed. Adam called to me so softly I could barely catch his words over the motor, “Close your legs.”
“What for? I waxed!” I looked down to make sure. This was okay now, because Sean was facing the other way and couldn’t hear me in the din. Indeed, I was clean. I spread my legs even wider, put my arms on the back of the seat, and generally took up as much room as possible, like a boy. I glanced back over at Adam. “Does it make you uncomfortable for me to sit this way?”
He watched me warily. “Yes.”
“May I suggest that this is your problem and not mine?”
He licked his lips and bent toward me. “If it keeps Sean from asking you out, it’s going to be your problem, and you’re going to make it my problem.”
“Speaking of which,” I said, crossing my legs like a girl. “Thanks for staying out of my way. How the hell am I supposed to get Sean to ask me out when he’s all pissy?”
“You wanted me to lose to him at team calisthenics? That was too sweet to miss.”
“You didn’t have to win by quite so much, Adam. You knew I needed him in a good mood. You didn’t have to rub it in.”
Adam grinned. “And you wanted me to stop growing?”
“Do not make a joke about your size. If you can’t think of anything to talk about except your large size, please say nothing at all. "
― Jennifer Echols , Endless Summer (The Boys Next Door, #1-2)
52
" My intention all along had been to get my wakeboarding legs back this first day. Maybe I'd do tricks when we went out the next day. I didn't want to get too cocky and bust ass in front of Sean. But as I got more comfortable and forgot to care, I tried a few standbys-a front flip, a scarecrow. There was no busting of ass. So I tried a backroll. And landed it solidly.
Now I got cocky. I did a heelside backroll with a nosegrab. This meant that in the middle of the flip, I let go of the rope handle with one hand, reached down, and grabbed the front of the board. It served no purpose in the trick except to look impressive, like, This only appears to be a difficult trick. I have all the time in the world. I will grab the board. Yawn. And I landed it. This was getting too good to be true.
My brother swung the boat around just before we reached the graffiti-covered highway bridge that spanned the lake. Cameron had spray-painted his name and his girlfriend’s name on the bridge, alongside all the other couples’ names and over the faded ones. My genius brother had tried to paint his own name but ran out of room on that section of bridge.
McGULLICUDD
Y
Sean wisely never painted his girlfriends’ names. He would have had to change them too often. For my part, I was very thankful that when most of this spray-painting action was going on last summer, I was still too short to reach over from the pile and haul myself up on the main part of the bridge. I probably had the height and the upper body strength now, and I prayed none of the boys pointed this out. Then I’d have to spray-paint LORI LOVES SEAN on the bridge. And move to Canada. "
― Jennifer Echols , Endless Summer (The Boys Next Door, #1-2)
53
" I gestured upward, which told Adam to tell my brother to speed up. Adam knew what I planned to do and shook his head at me. What a pain, to stop the boat and argue with him about it. He didn’t consult anyone before he tried a trick and busted ass. If we stopped, Sean would insist my turn was over, and I’d be done for the day. I wasn’t done. So I nodded my head vigorously. Adam shook his finger at me, scolding. Then he turned around and spoke to my brother.
The drone pitched higher as the boat sped up. I relaxed, relaxed, relaxed and let the boat and the wave do the work for me. My muscles remembered what they’d tried to do last summer, and this time they were able to do it. I caught miles of air, a huge thrill, and one glance at the boat: four boys with their mouths open. Then I almost panicked as I lost my balance when my board hit its high point behind me. Almost- but I kept myself together. I rode gravity down the opposite wave.
Immediately I arced out and back to pick up speed, and did a 360 with a grab. Landed it. Then a 540. Landed it.
I thought I might be pushing my luck. I’d probably break my leg climbing back into the boat. "
― Jennifer Echols , Endless Summer (The Boys Next Door, #1-2)
54
" I wished Adam weren’t jumping in for his turn.
Because watching Adam wakeboard was not relaxing. He wasn’t careful when wakeboarding. Or in general. He was the opposite of careful. His life was one big episode of Jackass. He would do anything on a dare, so the older boys dared him a lot. My role in this game was to run and tell their mom. If I’d been able to run faster when we were kids, I might have saved Adam from a broken arm, several cracked ribs, and a couple of snake bites.
Knowing this, it might not make a lot of sense that Mr. Vader let us wakeboard for the marina. But we’d come to wakeboarding only gradually. When we first started out, it was more like, Look at the very young children on water skis! How adorable. One time the local newspaper ran a photo of me and Adam waterskiing double, each of us holding up an American flag. It’s okay for you to gag now. I can take it.
But Mr. Vader was no fool. He understood things changed. After the second time Adam broke his collarbone, Mr. Vader put us under strict orders not to get hurt, because it was bad for business. Customers might not be so eager to buy a wakeboard and all the equipment if they witnessed our watery death. To enforce this rule, the punishment for bleeding in the boat was that we had to clean the boat. Adam cleaned the boat a lot last summer. "
― Jennifer Echols , Endless Summer (The Boys Next Door, #1-2)
55
" Instead of driving straight to the wharf where we usually parked the boat, Adam slowed at the marina dock so the boys could mock Mr. Vader, who hadn’t moved from the position he’d been in when I splashed him, except he’d started on another beer. The boys told him he was all washed up and he should enter a wet T-shirt contest with that figure, and so forth. My brother called to Dad, “Nice save, Pops.”
“Hey.” Dad tipped his beer to us. “You’ve got to be fast with Lori around.”
“I have to say, young lady,” grumbled Mr. Vader. “I was very impressed with all your shenanigans. Right up to the point I got doused. I want you to plan to close the Crappie Festival show until further notice.”
Which meant, Until you screw up. That was okay. He’d told me I was better than the boys at something for once in my life! I turned to Sean and beamed so big that my cheeks hurt.
Sean squinted into the sun, wearing that strange, fixed smile. Even my brother and Cameron gave each other puzzled looks rather than congratulating me again. Only Adam met my eyes. He shook his head at me.
Oh, crap. Crappy. Holy Crappie Festival! I had upset the natural order. After Adam had already upset the natural order in team calisthenics. I should have thought all of this through better.
Sean began, “But I didn’t even get a chance to-“
“I saw what happened,” Mr. Vader told him. “You had your chance. The Big Kahuna has spoken. "
― Jennifer Echols , Endless Summer (The Boys Next Door, #1-2)
57
" Hey, Buddy,” he said to me. I got a close-up view of his strange, light blue eyes and golden skin as he threw his arms around me and kept walking right over me. I had to throw my arms around him, too, to keep from thudding flat on my back on the dock.
“Oh, pardon me!” he said, pulling me out from under him and setting me on my feet again. “I didn’t even see you there.”
“That’s quite all right,” I managed in the same fake-formal tone. His warm hands still held my waist. This was the first time a boy had ever touched my bare tummy. My happy skin sent shocked messages to my brain that went something like, He’s touching me! Are you getting this? He’s touching me! Eeeeeeee! My brain got it, all right, and put the rest of my body on high alert. My heart thumped painfully, just like in my dream.
But as I looked into his eyes, I saw he was already gone, glancing up the stairs to the marina. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’d been flirting with me. I knew better. He treated all girls this way.
He slid out of my grasp. He may have had to shake one hand violently to extricate it from my friendly vise-like grip. “See you later, Junior,” he threw over his shoulder at me as he climbed the steps to the marina. "
― Jennifer Echols , Endless Summer (The Boys Next Door, #1-2)
58
" Suddenly I realized I was standing on the hot wood of the dock, still touching elbows with Adam, staring at the skull-and-crossbones pendant. And when I looked up into his light blue eyes, I saw that he was staring at my neck. No. Down lower.
“What’cha staring at?” I asked.
He cleared his throat. “Tank top or what?” This was his seal of approval, as in, Last day of school or what? or, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders or what? Hooray! He wasn’t Sean, but he was built of the same material. This was a good sign.
I pumped him for more info, to make sure. “What about my tank top?”
“You’re wearing it.” He looked out across the lake, showing me his profile. His cheek had turned bright red under his tan. I had embarrassed the wrong boy. Damn, it was back to the football T-shirt for me.
No it wasn’t, either. I couldn’t abandon my plan. I had a fish to catch.
“Look,” I told Adam, as if he hadn’t already looked. “Sean’s leaving at the end of the summer. Yeah, yeah, he’ll be back next summer, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to compete once he’s had a taste of college life and sorority girls. It’s now or never, and desperate times call for desperate tank tops.”
Adam opened his mouth to say something. I shut him up by raising my hand. Imitating his deep boy-voice, I said, “I don’t know why you want to hook up with that jerk.” We’d had this conversation whenever we saw each other lately. I said in my normal voice, “I just do, okay? Let me do it, and don’t get in my way. Stay out of my net, little dolphin.” I bumped his hip with my hip. Or tried to, but he was a lot taller than me. I actually hit somewhere around his mid-thigh.
He folded his arms, stared me down, and pressed his lips together. He tried to look grim. I could tell he was struggling not to laugh. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why not?”
“Dolphins don’t live in the lake,” he said matter-of-factly, as if this were the real reason. The real reason was that the man-child within him did not want to be called “little” anything. Boys were like that.
I shrugged. “Fine, little brim. Little bass.”
He walked toward the stairs.
“Little striper.”
He turned. “What if Sean actually asked you out?”
I didn’t want to be teased about this. It could happen! “You act like it’s the most remote poss-“
“He has to ride around with the sunroof open just so he can fit his big head in the truck. Where would you sit?”
“In his lap?”
A look of disgust flashed across Adam’s face before he jogged up the stairs, his weight making the weathered planks creaked with every step. "
― Jennifer Echols , Endless Summer (The Boys Next Door, #1-2)
59
" I didn’t think we were being quiet, particularly. High heels may have looked dainty, but they didn’t sound that way on a tile floor. Maybe it was just that my dad was so absorbed in the convo on his cell phone. For whatever reason, when we emerged from the kitchen into the den, he started, and he stuffed the phone down by his side in the cushions. I was sorry I’d startled him, but it really was comical to see this big blond manly man jump three feet off the sofa when he saw two teenage girls. I mean, it would have been funny if it weren’t so sad.
Dad was a ferocious lawyer in court. Out of court, he was one of those Big Man on Campus types who shook hands with everybody from the mayor to the alleged ax murderer. A lot like Sean, actually. There were only two things Dad was afraid of. First, he wigged out when anything in the house was misplaced. I won’t even go into all the arguments we’d had about my room being a mess. They’d ended when I told him it was my room, and if he didn’t stop bugging me about it, I would put kitchen utensils in the wrong drawers, maybe even hide some (cue horror movie music). No spoons for you! Second, he was easily startled, and very pissed off afterward. “Damn it, Lori!” he hollered.
“It’s great to see you too, loving father. Lo, I have brought my friend Tammy to witness out domestic bliss. She’s on the tennis team with me.” Actually, I was on the tennis team with her.
“Hello, Tammy. It’s nice to meet you,” Dad said without getting up or shaking her hand or anything else he would normally do. While the two of them recited a few more snippets of polite nonsense, I watched my dad. From the angle of his body, I could tell he was protecting that cell phone behind the cushions.
I nodded toward the hiding place. “Hot date?”
I was totally kidding. I didn’t expect him to say, “When?”
So I said, “Ever.” And then I realized I’d brought up a subject that I didn’t want to bring up, especially not while I was busy being self-absorbed. I clapped my hands. “Okay, then! Tammy and I are going upstairs very loudly, and after a few minutes we will come back down, ringing a cowbell. Please continue with your top secret phone convo.”
I turned and headed for the stairs. Tammy followed me. I thought Dad might order me back, send Tammy out, and give me one of those lectures about my attitude (who, me?). But obviously he was chatting with Pamela Anderson and couldn’t wait for me to leave the room. Behind us, I heard him say, “I’m so sorry. I’m still here. Lori came in. Oh, yeah? I’d like to see you try.”
“He seems jumpy,” Tammy whispered on the stairs.
“Always,” I said.
“Do you have a lot of explosions around your house?”
I glanced at my watch. “Not this early. "
― Jennifer Echols , Endless Summer (The Boys Next Door, #1-2)
60
" I knew from experience that before you went swimming off a dock for the first time each summer, you needed to check the sides and the ladder carefully for bryozoan, colonies of slimy green critters that grew on hard surfaces underwater (think coral, but gelatinous-shudder). They wouldn’t hurt you, they were part of a healthy freshwater ecosystem, their presence meant the water was pristine and unpolluted, blah blah blah-but none of this was any consolation if you accidentally touched them. Poking around with a water ski and finding nothing, I spent the rest of the afternoon watching for Sean from the water.
And getting out occasionally when he sped by in the boat, in order to woo him like Halle Berry coming out of the ocean in a James Bond movie (which I had seen with the boys about a hundred times. Bikini scene, seven hundred times). Only I seemed to have misplaced my dagger. "
― Jennifer Echols , Endless Summer (The Boys Next Door, #1-2)
