Page 72 of Problematic Summer Romance

“I didn’t know you were that horny for your best friend’s shoulders, Eli.”

“I was quoting you. Directly. I assumed you’d forgotten about him—you haven’t narrated to me all the filthy things you’d want to do to him in explicit detail…in a while, now.”

“Should I resume?”

“God, no.”

I snicker. “I heard him and Tamryn talk on the phone just now. It sounded tense.”

“Yeah.” He sighs. “It’s been bad. His siblings aren’t happy about how the splitting of the estate shook out. They’re asking for a part of the business that was Tamryn’s brainchild. Threatening to sue Hark, too, who’s not even in the will, with some bullshit excuse. A mess.”

“Jesus.” I tip back my head. The light filters through the leaves, dapples all over Tiny’s face. “There should be laws about that.”

“About what?”

“Dragging your siblings to court. If you’ve ever shared a rubber ducky during bath time, or fought about who gets the top bunk, you don’t get a judge to solve your problems. Either you tickle-fight it out, or you just let your anger simmer as you plot revenge.”

He laughs. “I seriously doubt that the Little Lords Harkleroys ever shared a wing of their ancestral mansion, let alone a bath.They’re assholes, Maya. I’ll be the first to admit that Hark is fucked up in his own tragic way, but he’s by far the most normal. He walked out of a toxic family, instead of passing time snorting coke with Daddy’s money…Fuck,” Eli says, covering his eyes with his hand.

“What?”

“I just had a lucid dream of standing trial against you.”

I laugh. “I’d be at my most competitive.”

“Oh, yeah. I’d settle the shit out of it. I’d tell the jury I walked into your knife and repeatedly stabbed myself.”

“I’m really glad that this is my reputation, because I’d stop at nothing to win. Remember the year you wouldn’t let me get an eyebrow piercing, so I toldthreeof the girls you brought home that you collected nail clippings?” I shake my head. “I was such a monster.”

“Remember how instead of trying to figure out why my bereaved thirteen-year-old sister was acting out, I would just scream and ground her?”

“Oh my god. That time you sent me to my room without dinner, so I started a hunger strike?”

“You didn’t eat fordays. I was fucking worried.”

“Oh, I ate. Jade brought me snacks every night. I was well fed.”

He pulls at my earlobe in retaliation. But then his eyes soften into something that Iknowwill soon become all syrupy and cheesy, so I stick out my tongue at him. “Don’t get mushy on me, Killgore.”

“I can’t believe they just handed you to me. License to fuck you up.”

“Seriously? I can’t believe they subjectedyouto the vigorous whirlpool of hormones that lurks within a teenage girl.”

“And yet, look at you.” He exhales a laugh. Briefly speechless. Amazed. “You’ve succeeded so extensively. You’re either going to work at Sanchez and revolutionize the semiconductor industry, or get a PhD and fucking redefine the field of astrophysics.”

I glance away. “It’s not—I’ve failed at plenty of things.”

“Like what?”

“Like…”I feel alone all the time, I don’t tell him.I’ve been trying to fall out of love with the eldest Harkleroy for years. And there’s worse, Eli. I have no fucking idea what I’m doing. I’m a hamster running on a wheel of doom.“The Sanchez thing. And the MIT offer…It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Maya, it is.” His fingers gently twist my head toward him. “You have accomplished a lot, and you did it on your own. I know it has nothing to do with me, but I’m going to get it etched on my tombstone. ‘Did not interfere too badly with the development of a great mind.’ Even Mom and Dad would be happy with me.”

I bite my lower lip. The inside of my cheek. “Do you think…”

“What?”

“That Mom and Dad would be here? At the wedding?”

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