Lover (Conrad Fisher)

4

As I'm sitting in my room reading my favorite book, Where the Crawdads Sing, I hear a knock on my door. I turn to see my brother walk in the room, wearing just bathing suit bottoms and a towel around his neck.

"You comin'?" He says.

"Yeah let me put on a suit real quick." I answer.

We walk arm in arm, giggling about something Carson had said as we approach Susannah's house. We knock on the door and it swings open revealing a beautiful brunette girl. I look over to my brother to see him standing there with his mouth hung open.

"Um hi?" She says with a confused look on her face.

I wait a second to see if Carson will speak, but his trance on the girl isn't broken.

"Hi. We're Hailey and Carson. We're staying next door this summer with our Uncle Bobby." I answer.

"Oh! Susannah mentioned that you guys were coming over. I'm Belly. Come on in." She says stepping to the side to make room for us.

"Thank you," I say. I look over to my brother to see he hasn't moved an inch, or taken the awestruck look off of his face.

I slightly elbow him in the stomach and he finally realizes what Belly had said.

"Y-yes, t-thank you," My brother responds, stumbling all over his words. I let out a small snort as Belly's cheeks turn red.

We walk into the house and it's just as beautiful on the inside as it was on the outside.

"So I'm not sure where Susannah is, but I'll introduce you to everyone else."

We follow Belly into the most beautiful kitchen I've ever seen. It's huge with an island right in the middle of it, where two boys are sitting. I can instantly tell that the boy on the right is Belly's brother from the jet black hair he has and almost the same face. But, the boy sitting next to him must be one of Susannah's boys. He's more muscular than the other boy, and has blonde curly hair. He's cute, like a puppy cute.

 "Hailey, Carson, this is my brother Steven, and Susannah's son Jeremiah." Belly says as she points to the boys individually.

"Hi." I simply say. But of course, my brother is not that simple.

"Yo, dude you are ripped. What do you lift?" Carson says while moving around the counter to sit next to Jeremiah. The boys start up their own conversation about working out. I turn to face Belly who's smiling at everyone getting along.

"So Belly, how old are you?" I ask, trying to start up a conversation of our own.

"I'm fifteen, but I'll be sixteen very soon." She replies.

"Oh! Happy early birthday!"

"Thank you," She lets out with a small giggle. "I'm about to go for a swim. You wanna join me? I have a swimsuit you could borrow."

"I came prepared," I say with a smirk.

I follow Belly through the house, to the living room where her mom is sitting. Her mom slowly looks up from her phone, smiling when she sees me.

"Night swim girls?" She asks

"Yup night swim," Belly says, trying to walk past her mother but abruptly stops when Laurel asks, "Hey, how many followers is a lot of followers on instagram?"

"Is it someone who's verified or not verified?" Belly asks.

"What's verified?" Her mother asks.

We both turn to look at each other and let out a laugh walking over to her mom to see who she's stalking on instagram. Belly leans over and takes her mom's phone.