Page 13 of Anyone But Her

"Go get her," my dad says to me, sounding annoyed. Birdie drives him nuts but she's been around so long she's like another one of his kids. He treats her like a daughter.

"I'll be right back." I run down the grassy area in front of the cabins and find her interrogating some guy.

"Is this him?" I ask her.

"No!" She huffs. "This is Tate, or so he says. It's probably another made-up name!"

"Why is she yelling at me?" the guy asks, directing his question to me.

"She's had a rough day." I grab her arm and yank her away from him. "C'mon, let's go. Just forget about Fake Steve."

"And let him get away with lying to me?" She struggles to break free from my grasp but can't. I'm a lot stronger than her. She doesn't work out and I go to the gym every day.

"Forget him. He's not worth getting upset about." I keep hold of her arm and walk really fast so she doesn't get distracted by all the guys walking past us. "When we get home we'll go hang out at the pool. There are plenty of guys there."

"Guys I already know. We need to meet new people. Let's go to a club tonight."

"We're not old enough. We're not even close to being old enough."

"Then what am I going to do?"

"You're going to hang out with me, your best friend. We have the rest of our lives to go out with guys. This summer should be about us. It won't be long before we're both off at college and then we'll hardly see each other."

Her shoulders slump. "I guess you're right. Guys just piss me off. We should have a guy-free summer." She sighs. "But Fake Steve was really cute. You should've seen him. He had this—"

"Birdie." I stop and turn to her. "No more talking about Fake Steve. He's gone. History. Never to be spoken about again. It's a guy-free summer. Agreed?"

She bites her lip, then shakes her head.

"What's that mean? You're not with me on this?"

She looks back at some guys playing volleyball by the lake. "I can't go a whole summer without guys."

"Seriously, Birdie? You can't even go a few months?"

As I say it I notice a guy in a car passing behind her. He's in the passenger side with the window rolled down, his arm resting on it. He's really tan and his hair is dark brown and kind of messy, like it's been blown around by the wind. He's really cute. Hot-cute. More hot than cute.

I keep my eyes on him as the old man driving the car pulls into a parking spot.

"What are you looking at?" Birdie asks.

I blink away from the guy. "Nothing."

She glances behind her but the guy is now hidden by the car parked next to him.

"Something caught your attention," she says. "It's like you were in a trance or something. Did you even hear what I said?"

"Um, I don't think so. What did you say?"

"I was thinking about having Cal poison Fake Steve for me. But I guess that's kinda drastic."

"Yeah. A little." I laugh and start heading to the car. "Let's go."

As we're walking back I look for that guy but can't find him. He was really hot. Like really, really hot. If I went to camp with a guy like that I wouldn't learn much about golfing. I'd be too distracted.

I guess my dad is right. Co-ed camp is a bad idea. And a guy-free summer? Probably not going to happen.

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