Foolish Summer | ✔

20 • W A V E R L Y • 🎄

I heard Bryce before I saw him. The house we were staying in for the summer was double the size of our actual house and my little brother was mesmerized by it. Dad was taken in by the house as well, nearly crashing into the back of Mom's car because he'd been too busy with his head out the window looking up at it.

My parents acted like a high school couple finally meeting up after weeks apart. There was far too much kissing and groping for their children to see.

"Let's go clean our eyes out with chlorinated water," I said to Bryce, ushering him into the house and leaving our parents to dry hump in the driveway.

"Hey, Bryce!" Naomi said as we cut through the kitchen to get to the pool, the only Bryce has talked about since arriving. "Taste this for me." She held out a spoon dripping with blue frosting.

He took a tentative lick of the spoon then his eyes popped open. "It tastes like chocolate!"

Naomi and I decided to go with a simple strawberry cake that year and decorate it with blue chocolate icing and tiny white chocolate hearts.

"How come I wasn't offered a taste?"

Theo's disembodied voice took me by surprise. After giving myself whiplash trying to find him, I realized his voice was coming from Naomi's phone that was on the island next to the mess of baking supplies.

"Well, if you'd get out of the pool," Naomi started, before she could even finish the sliding glass door that led to the backyard opened and Theo bound through leaving a trail of wet foot prints in his wake.

Theo had arrived about an hour ago and headed straight for the pool after wishing my mom a happy birthday. It was safe to say that he was obsessed with the water. His pruney fingers were proof of it.

He and Bryce did some weird handshake thing. Then Theo walked over to Naomi, mouth opened. She rolled her eyes but a smile spread across her face as she grabbed a different spoon, dipped it in the frosting then stuck it in his mouth.

Between them and my parents I was being rudely reminded of just how single I was.

Well, there was Stephen. We weren't official or anything, just... feeling each other out, I guessed. That reminded me that I hadn't replied back to his message after being interrupted by my dad and brother arriving.

While Naomi started pouring white chocolate into the heart molds and Bryce and Theo went out to the pool, I snuck up to my room and pulled up my messages on my phone.

We had been going back and forth about movies for a while. He wanted me to watch some movie called Sixteen Candles and I wanted to know if he knew of any movies made in the last decade.

It's a classic, was his last message to me.

Me:

So is Bridesmaids

If only your name was Stove

Stephen:

Stove?

Wth does that mean?

Me:

Have you not seen Bridesmaids?

Stephen:

Nope

Me:

We need to fix that

Stephen:

I do have the house to myself until monday 😉

Before I could shoot back a reply Naomi shouted my name from downstairs, along with the phrase "code red".