Page 54 of One Happy Summer

I cover my face with my hand. “Of course I have,” I say.

But to be honest, sometimes I still consider leaving the bathroom light on and cracking the door. Only because I want to be able to see the face of my assailant should I ever be in that situation.

“Oooh,” my mom says, dragging out the word, her head cocked to the side, her eyes looking mischievous. “And you used to sometimes play dolls with Scout when she was a toddler.”

“I wasn’t playing dolls,” I tell Presley. “I was sixteen, for crap’s sake.”

“But you used to pretend like they were talking to her and do all those little voices.”

“Should I leave?” I ask the table. “I’d like to leave, or for the two of you to leave.” I point to my mom and sister, who seem to enjoy this too much.

“That is the sweetest,” Presley says, her hands pressed to her chest.

“I’d say probably the most embarrassing Briggs story,” my mom keeps going, “was the time he sleepwalked to the neighbor’s house, went in through their back door and ended up on their couch. They were so confused in the morning, and so was Briggs. He thought he’d been kidnapped.”

“What? It was very jarring,” I say, trying to defend myself over the laughter.

“Poor Briggsy,” Presley says, reaching over and tapping my hand with hers. I’d hold it there if my family wasn’t watching. I miss being able to do that, just hold her hand.

“But you haven’t heard the best part,” Scout says.

“Hey,” I say to Scout. “You weren’t even alive when this happened.”

My mom shakes her head. “No, I was pregnant with Scout, actually. But the best part is that Briggs was in his tighty-whities.”

Presley snorts out a laugh.

“So, imagine our neighbors—the Parkers, who still live next door—waking up to find a sleeping Briggs in his tighty-whities on their formal sitting-room couch.”

“Can we be done now?” I ask.

“No way, Briggs Wilbur Dalton,” Presley says.

My mom and sister both snicker at that.

“I wish I had named him that,” my mom says. “I do loveCharlotte’s Web.”

The subject changes from roasting me to favorite childhood books, thankfully, and after another round of drinks, my mom and Scout head home. I stay behind for a bit, chatting with Presley, purposefully sitting across the table from her and not next to her with my hand draped across the back of her seat and fingers playing with the ends of her hair like I’d rather be.

I sort of wish I’d never kissed her, only for the sheer fact that we could be sitting close together right now, holding hands, orback at my place snuggling on my couch. But now that we’ve crossed that line, we can’t go back.

I don’t regret it, though. It was everything I thought kissing Presley James would be. And I’d like to do it again. But it’s for the best we don’t. Even though I catch myself staring at her lips sometimes. Like . . . right now, for instance.

“What are you looking at?” Presley asks, a knowing grin on her face.

Well . . . crap.

“Nothing,” I tell her. “Nothing whatsoever.”

She leans back in her chair, the half-drunk piña colada on the table in front of her, the condensation on the glass beading and trickling down, leaving winding trails on the surface.

“I think we learned something today,” she says.

“And that is?”

“I’m terrible at volleyball.”

I chuckle and she smiles. “You’re not so bad.”

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