Page 12 of No First Kisses

“You’re late,” my mother says as a way of greeting me. “You’re not going to skip out on our trip again, are you?” I hear the worry in her voice and cringe at the fact that I put her through it… again.

“Nah, Ma.” I smile through the churning in my stomach. “I’m on my way now. It’s barely past four in the morning. We’ve got plenty of time to head out before the sun comes up.”

She sniffs, and I hear shuffling in the background.

“I’m surprised you’re even up,” I tell her honestly. “I thought for sure I’d get to the campsite and you’d be asleep in the front seat of the SUV while Dad and Bax got the tents and everything set up.”

“Shut your mouth, Logan Caleb Pierce.” Mom breaks out the big guns. “Baxter and your father loaded everything up last night, and my coffee is piping hot in my Yeti cup. We’re ready to head out. Just waiting on you to get on the road.” She pauses. “And you better hurry your ass up, boy, or I’m gonna sic your father on you.”

I laugh, unable to help myself at the tone my mom uses. “I’m just leaving work now. I’ll meet you on the road and we can caravan up there.”

“Great, I’ll see you then.”

When she hangs up in my ear, I shake my head and glance back to where Poppy’s car had been parked, but she is already gone.

Just my luck.

When I pull out onto the road heading out of Birch Harbor, I’m not surprised in the least to see my dad’s massive black Suburban waiting on the side of the road. With a wave, I pass by just as he turns back onto the road.

All I can do is laugh to myself and think about every single mistake I’ve made in my life over the past decade while I make the hour-long drive to the opposite side of Bangor.

My dad slams his door as I’m rolling into the same parking spot I’ve used since I got my license and my parents made me drive myself to our yearly camping retreat.

“Remind me again why we come out here to camp when there are like four campgrounds between Bangor and Birch Harbor?” He tries to keep his voice down as he runs a hand through his now-gray beard, but the tension I see in Mom’s face as she stares at us gives him away.

“Because, Lucas,” Mom snaps irately while carrying one of the sleeping bags. “We’ve done it for thirty-five years, when we were newlyweds and went with our best friends, long before we had the hellions to raise, and we’ll keep doing it until the day I can’t camp anymore.” Once she drops the bright-purple material into their tent, she turns and puts a hand on her hip, staring until her husband moves. “Because you love me and you’ll do whatever I want you to.”

He pulls her into a hug and kisses the top of her forehead. “Chill out, Maria. I wouldn’t give up our yearly weekend for anything.” Dad looks over at me for support, but he isn’t finding it with me.

“Hey, Bax,” I call out, causing my youngest brother to stop unfolding the tent he just laid out. “Are the kids still saying chill out?”

“No.” Bax shakes his head with a smile, causing the same light-brown hair that we all have to shift on his head. “We definitely aren’t saying that. Which you would know if you weren’t a dinosaur who probably needs hearing aids.” Then he runs a hand through the overgrown mop I heard my mother threaten to shave in his sleep.

At thirty-two, I happen to be the oldest of the Pierce children. Regan, the oldest girl, is the closest sister in age to me at thirty. Charlotte would have turned twenty-nine this year, but she is forever stuck at sixteen because of one night gone wrong. Then comes Emily and Finn, fraternal twins who just had their twenty-fifth birthday. But Baxter? He is the baby of the family and hasn’t even turned twenty yet. The only one of our siblings not in attendance is Regan, who works as an arms instructor for the State of Maine. Because of that, she has an even harder time taking time off than Finn, and he is still active duty with the Marine Corps.

“Suck a dick, Bax. I’m not a dinosaur. But I will take advantage of your youth to set up my tent while you’re at it if you don’t shut your mouth.”

Bax just flips me off and goes back to work setting up his tent, and I’m left laughing when one of the poles snaps up and hits him in the face.

“You kinda are a dinosaur,” Emily announces as she marches through the clearing from where her tent is already set up. “Finn and I were just trying to figure out if we needed to buy you dentures for Christmas this year.”

Finn is right behind her, laughing his ass off.

“I’m gonna murder them all,” I mutter while rubbing my eyes. “I don’t even know why I have to be here.”

“Because I have to be here,” Dad whispers from my side. “If I’m stuck here, then so are you. But the good news is, I brought an entire cooler full of beer.”

“Best news I heard all day, Pops.”

“And we don’t have to share with the babies of the family if we don’t want to.” Dad walks away, laughing to himself as he goes.

When Bax has his tent almost put together, I grab mine out of the back of my truck and put it together in less than two minutes, much to my siblings’ despair.

“What the shit, Logan?” Emily pokes the side of my tent like it’s a science experiment that she’s trying to figure out how to reverse engineer. “Where’d you get this beast? I’ve never seen one go up like that.”

“Amazon.” I snicker. “Best purchase all year.”

Staring at the four-person tent that went up quicker than anything I’ve ever seen or experienced before, I know it was worth the one-click purchase. Especially when all of my siblings and both my parents are staring at it with envy.

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