Page 19 of The Summer List

“Sorry,” Shal says. “It’s just those cats really are terrifying when you’re not expecting to see them.”

I look over my shoulder and see Bijoux and Aurora Rose trotting into the entryway to greet our guests, their skin looking particularly wrinkly in the afternoon sun streaming through the windows.

The light also brings out the thin film of grease that has started to collect on the bottoms of their bellies, which means I’m due to give them their first bath without Sandy’s help. Considering the fact that we had to put on protective gloves that went all the way up to our armpits just to get them in the water without our skin being shredded, I’m not exactly looking forward to it.

The cats seem blissfully unaware of the less than warm reaction from my friends and pad straight over to them, twining around their legs to demand body heat in exchange for snuggles. It only takes a couple seconds before both Priya and Shal have set their bags down to hunch over and give them scratches.

Once you get over the whole shapeless folds of flesh thing, they’re actually very sweet cats.

“So what exactly is this crazy news we need to hear?” Priya asks while she strokes her thumb over the top of Bijoux’s head.

“Yeah, Priya said your texts sounded like there was some kind of national emergency,” Shal adds.

I wouldn’t call it national, but the fact that there’s an extremely attractive girl in this house who I almost clobbered to death with a table lamp last night and who may or may not hate me after I broke some unspoken code about not telling her dad she’s here definitely feels like an emergency.

I still can’t think about what an idiot I was last night without my stomach tying itself in knots, and I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to do now. This is not a social interaction I have ever handled before.

I don’t know if this is a social interaction anyone has ever handled before, but maybe together, the three of us can decide if I should follow through with my urge to flee the house and never face the beautiful yet terrifying Andrea King again.

“Yeah, about that. Um, I don’t really know where to start.”

Shal straightens up and reaches for her bags again. “Sounds like I should get this ice cream in the freezer before we begin this conversation.”

“Ice cream?”

For the first time since they walked in, I realize just how much stuff they have: two grocery bags each, all of them filled to the brim.

“What’s with all the food?” I ask.

“For the munchies, duh,” Shal answers before stepping past me to head for the kitchen.

I give Priya a look to ask if she’s as confused as me, but she responds with a pointed tilt of her head.

“You know, for the…weed,” she says, dropping her voice on the last word like the police might have wired the whole house to pick up on any admissions of illegal teen mischief.

I start whispering too.

“Ohhhh, right.”

We’re getting high today—or at least, that’s the plan. Some guy who was a year ahead of us in high school is supposed to meet us outside a dispensary in a couple hours. Shal went out on a couple dates with him before he graduated, and I’m pretty sure she’s dangling the possibility of another one over his head as motivation for being our weed supplier.

I guess she could also pull a two birds one stone if she really does go out with him some more and knocks the ‘summer fling’ item off the bucket list.

Priya and I haven’t even taken a full step into the kitchen before Shal lets out a gasp. Her grocery bags land with a thunk on the tiled floor, and she sprints straight over to the sliding doors that open onto the deck.

“Naomi,” she says in a breathless voice, her nose literally pressed to the glass, “there is a girl out there.”

My face heats up. My tongue already feels thick in my mouth, like Andrea is standing right in front of me instead of lying in a pool chair halfway across the yard.

She’s been out there for almost two hours, headphones in her ears and huge sunglasses shading her eyes while she lounges in a striped black and pink bikini—a very tiny striped black and pink bikini that literally made me tuck and roll away from my bedroom window after I realized how long I’d been staring when I first noticed she was out by the pool.

“Don’t let her see you,” I hiss. “Come on. Let’s go to the living room before she notices us.”

Shal doesn’t listen. If anything, she presses the tip of her nose even harder against the door. Her breath has started to fog up the glass.

“Oh my god, Naomi, did you hook up with that girl?” she demands.

Priya lets out a choked squeaking sound. Her eyes are wide, her mouth hanging open.

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