Page 22 of Hot Summer Nights

I’ve never thought about that before.

“I suppose it could be fun,” I say as we join our friends by the front door.

“What could be fun?” Lyla asks as she and Hudson open the front doors of the restaurant.

“Painting cars.”

“Ohh, I’m in!” Lyla says and I laugh.

Lyla is up for pretty much anything. She said that she wants to try it all, and I love that she’s such a free spirit.

“For Gavin’s shop?” Sutton asks, and I nod.

“Yeah, you should do it. I think that you would be great at it,” Iris says with a smile.

“We’ll see,” I say, turning to grin at Gavin, but my eyes snag on the figures over his shoulder and my stomach and smile both drop.

“Mom?” I ask, not quite believing what I’m seeing.

“What?” Gavin asks, turning with a frown to see what I’m staring at.

“That’s my mom… and my dad and sister,” I finish as they all climb out of the old SUV that I remember all too well.

They look so much older, and I wonder how that happened. It’s only been a few days, but they seem to have aged years.

My mom is still pretty with her blonde hair and sharp blue eyes. She’s where Callie and I get most of our features from. Callie got our dad’s dark hair though, and her eyes are a darker shade of blue, like his. We both have her full mouth and small nose. I scrunch my own nose as they step out onto the sidewalk.

“Oh, really?” Gavin asks, his voice lethal, and I grab his arm before he can storm over there and tell them off.

Madelyn and Flynn move to stand next to Gavin, and everyone else lines up on my other side so that it’s very obviously us versus them.

“Uh, hi,” I say as they get closer to us.

“There you are,” my mom snaps and I wince, my fingers tightening around Gavin’s forearm.

That’s a tone that I’ve heard too much from her, and I know what it means.

She’s pissed.

“We’ve been calling and texting for weeks!” she snaps again, and I want to roll my eyes.

“I’ve only been gone for less than two weeks, so that’s weird,” I sass back.

That seems to take them all by surprise, and they freeze on the sidewalk.

I’ve never talked back to any of them. I know that it wouldn’t have done me much good. Besides, it was the three of them against me. I was never going to win. Better to just take it and then escape when I could.

“What did you say?” my dad asks, and I straighten my shoulders as I look at him.

“What do you want? Why are you here?” I ask him instead.

He glares at me. “We came to get you. You can’t just abandon your family. Not after all that we’ve done for you.”

“You haven’t done anything for me,” I say, letting go of Gavin’s arm and taking a small step forward.

“We raised you! We let you live with us after graduation!” he spits out, and I feel my fingernails bite into my palms as they tighten into fists.

“No, I moved back because you needed me to work to afford the mortgage!”

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