Summer After High School

Chapter 8- I Really Really Like You

Recap: Sophie and Michael almost kissed but were interrupted by Brendan. Michael's been keeping in touch with some random girl from mcdonald's. Oh, and Paige is sick. They're almost to Miami!

Listen to the song on the side ;)

Chapter 8- I Really Really Like You

We were officially lost. And it so wasn’t my fault.

If anyone’s, it was Lissa’s, because she was supposed to be navigating, but instead she’d been reading the wrong highway and now we were hundreds of miles from where we were supposed to be.

“I said to take exit 45A, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So? That’s what it said on the map!”

“Lissa! That’s the wrong exit.”

“Oh.”

So instead of going from Tallahassee directly to Miami, we’d ended up in Tampa. Paige was still sick, and I’d forgotten to set my phone alarm, so we’d woken up after one o’clock. Though we’d each took turns driving for an hour, we were bored. After all, we’d already driven from Redding to Tampa. That was almost forty-five hours of driving. We’d seen everything by now, and I could barely imagine the return trip back.

It was near six now, and we were all hungry for dinner. Tampa to Miami would be another four hours trapped in the RV, and we were too tired to budge.

“Can we please go somewhere to eat?” asked Paige. She sounded like she had a stuffy nose.

“Yeah, yeah,” Michael was on his phone. “I’ll look up a place.”

“There’s a McDonald’s over there,” Brendan pointed out helpfully.

“Not again,” Lissa and I said in unison. We’d eaten McDonald’s every night, not to mention for breakfast on the first day. To say we were tired of it was an understatement.

I leaned over Michael’s shoulder to see the restaurants. “Anything Mexican? I’d kill for Chipotle.”

He flinched away, but I still saw what he’d really been looking at- texts from Hayley. “Um, I think there’s one a few blocks from here.”

I narrowed my eyes. Okay, so he was going to play it that way. Well, I wasn’t one for beating around the bush, though I didn’t want to make a scene. I made a mental note to ask him about it later.

“Great!” I clapped my hands together. A growl from my stomach followed, resulting in laughter from Lissa.

She held up her phone, displaying a coupon. “I’m getting Starbucks after.”

“Me too?” Brendan looked comical as he pleaded with her to let him use her coupon.

She rolled her eyes, though of course she wouldn’t say no. “Fine, whatever.”

I smirked into the rearview mirror. Sure, whatever. Lissa ignored me. Ten minutes later we were at a shopping mall that not only had a Chipotle, but a Starbucks too.

“Heaven on earth,” I heard Lissa say as she began speed walking towards the air conditioned restaurant. I couldn’t help but agree.  It felt like icy bliss on my sticky, burning skin. Her hair blew into my face as we entered, that’s how high the A/C was in there.

I felt someone brush my shoulder and my skin tingled. “Are you just gonna keep standing in the doorway or what?” Michael asked, his blue eyes calling me to move forward.