Summer Love

My wavy red hair blew around my face as I walked across the street to Brian’s house for his birthday party. I brushed my straightened bangs out of my eye and rang the doorbell. A few seconds later, an older gentleman who looked just like Brian opened up the door with a big smile on his face.

“Hello Mr. Haner,” I smiled.

“Oh please, call me Brian. Mr. Haner makes me feel so old,” he chuckled.

“Oh, sorry,”

“It’s quite alright, are you here for my son’s party?”

“Yes,”

“Well come on in,” he opened the door wider for me and I stepped inside. “Everyone else is outside in the backyard by the pool,”

“Okay,”

I walked through the very clean house and stepped out onto the small patio where everyone else was. The boys were horsing around in the pool while the girls sat on the sidelines soaking up the sun in the lounging chairs. Raychel spotted me and shouted my name, catching everyone’s attention.

“J.D!” Brian yelled and hopped out the pool.

I caught Matt’s gaze for a brief second and I looked away quickly as Brian rushed towards me. He went to give me a hug, but I held my arms out to stop him from doing so.

“Don’t hug me you’re going to get me wet,”

“That’s Matt’s job,” he winked and I glared at him. “I’m just kidding,” he chuckled.

“You better be, or else I’ll take back your present,”

“No, please don’t,” he begged.

“Okay, just this once,” I chuckled. “Happy birthday, Brian,”

“Thanks, J.D,”

He jumped back in the pool and I waved to the guys, except Matt, as I walked over to the girls. I gave each of them a hug and sat on the end of Sarah’s lounging chair.

“Hey, don’t you look pretty,” Lynn smiled.

“Thanks, it took me nearly an hour to get this eye shadow to cooperate,” I chuckled.

“But it looks sexy though,”

“Thanks,”

“So, I see you and Matt still aren’t talking,” Nayja said.

“Nope,” I simply said.

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t talk to him,” Angelica piped up.

“How come I have to make the first move? He’s the one who stormed out of the diner like a PMSing teenager,”

“You guys would make such a cute couple,” Sarah nudged me with her foot.

I shrugged and got up to get something to drink from the cooler by the backdoor. Raychel shouted at me to get her a soda and I waved her off. I grabbed two soda cans out the cooler and when I stood up and turned around I ran into a hard, wet chest.

“Sorry,” I apologize and looked up into those familiar hazel orbs I’ve missed for the past three weeks.

“It’s okay. You look nice by the way,” Matt said.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“Can we talk?”

“Oh now you want to talk to me?” I asked and left without waiting for an answer.

I threw myself down on Sarah’s chair again and gave Raychel her drink.

“I see your little meeting with Matt didn’t go too well,” Nayja broke the silence.

I made a ‘hmph’ sound and gulped down half of my soda. I slowly started to relax as the warm breeze blew, music flowed through the air, and the smell of grilled hamburgers and hotdogs drifted up my nose. The girls and I made small talk as the boys continued to mess around in the pool. Occasionally one of them would get out of the pool and come over to their significant other then go back in the water. Matt was smart enough to know that I didn’t want to talk to him and he stayed in the pool the whole time.

My eyes were shut and I was swinging my foot to the beat of the music when I heard the girls gasp. I opened my eyes and saw all of them looking in the same direction. I followed their gaze and saw two identical girls standing by the backdoor, one with brown hair and the other with bright blond hair. I recognized the blond haired girl and wondered why she was hair.

“I can’t, fucking, believe him!” Angelica exclaimed and clenched her hands into fists.

“Who are they?” I asked the other girls.

“That’s Valerie and Michelle DiBennidetto, Matt and Brian’s ex-girlfriends,” Lynn sneered.

I gasped too and looked at the girls who were standing less than 30 feet away from me. “Which one is Matt’s ex?” I gulped.

“The blond one, Valerie,” Sarah said.

“And the other slut is Michelle, Brian’s ex,” Angelica said through gritted teeth. “Brian broke up with her almost two years ago when he caught her giving a football player a blowjob in her room,”

“Yeah, Matt caught Val doing the same thing, except she was doing more than sucking,” Nayja explained.

At the mention of Matt’s name, I immediately looked over at him and saw him staring at Valerie with a small smile on his face. I felt a pain in my chest and looked over at Angelica to see how she was handling this. It looked like she was about to explode and go on a rampage right here in the backyard. Her mouth fell open, so did the other girl’s, and I turned back to see that Brian had Michelle in a tight hug with a smile on his face.

The boys came over to us with towels in their hands and sat next to their girlfriends. Max and Johnny plopped down next to me and dried themselves off.

“Who the fuck, invited them?” Jason asked from next to Sarah.

“I bet you it was my fucking stupid boyfriend,” Angelica snapped.

“I’ve heard stories of them, and I already don’t like them,” Max said while drying off his shaggy hair.

Everyone continued to sit and glare at the newcomers until we were called to eat. “Don’t worry guys, Max and I will get them for you,” I assured the group, mostly Angelica.

Brian held out a chair for Angelica but she walked past it and sat down next to me while Max sat on my left. Brian gave her a confused look and sat down across from her with Michelle at his side. Next to her was Valerie and Matt was glued to her side. The tension around the table was so thick that no one really said anything, other than ‘pass that over’.

“Oh, J.D, I forgot to introduce you to these two,” Brian piped up while I took a bite of my hotdog.

“What kind of name is J.D?” Michelle asked.

“I’m sorry, what’s your name?” I snapped.

She gave me a surprised look and Angelica squeezed my leg in appreciation. Brian cleared his throat and went on like nothing happened. “J.D, this is Michelle and that’s Valerie,” he pointed down the table where she was soaking up Matt’s attention. “Guys, I’d like you to meet J.D, she lives across the street,”

Valerie finally took the time to look over at me and she had a surprised look on her face. “Hey, it’s the chick from the music store,” she smiled.

“You two have met?” Matt asked.

“Not exactly, we just happened to be going for the same thing in the music store about a week and a half ago,”

“Yeah, I was tempted to put up a good fight for that thing,” I said and took a sip of my lemonade. Val’s smile faltered a bit and conversation died down again, until Michelle had to break the silence.

“So, where are you two from?” she asked.

“Colorado,” Max answered.

“Hey, I didn’t see you there,” she smiled.

“How could you not? I’m sitting right across from you,”

I nudged Max and he sent me a tiny smile which I returned. I felt Angelica start to shake her leg and I put my hand on top of hers to calm down.

“Everything will be fine,” I whispered in her ear.

“So, Max, I’d love to show you around town. Maybe we could make it a date,” Michelle tried flirting with him.

“Sorry, you’re too old for me,” Max brushed her off. I heard the guys’ chuckle and I snuck a glance at Matt, who was still talking to Valerie.

“Nonsense, you’re almost as tall as Jimmy, you can’t be that young,”

“What does height have to do with age? I’m only 15 and you’re just about 18, which can be considered rape if you take me out on a date,”

I tried stifling my laugh by drinking my juice, but I just ended up choking. Water leaked from my eyes as someone patted my back while I kept coughing.

“Are you okay?” Matt asked.

“Peachy,” I answered when I finally regained my breathing.

Michelle and Brian were whispering to each other and started laughing, a bit too close if you ask me. The sound of glass breaking caught everyone’s attention and we saw Angelica glaring at Michelle with a broken glass in her hand. Some pieces got stuck in her hand, which made some blood come out.

“Babe, are you okay?” Brian got up to help her but she stormed off without another word.

“What’s wrong with her?” Michelle asked.

“You are you-” Nayja started to say, but was cut off by Zack covering her mouth. He whispered something in her ear and she nodded.

“I’ll take her over to my house and clean her up,” I announced and walked inside. The girls followed me inside and we spotted Angelica in the kitchen with her bloody hand under the faucet.

“How could he do that to me? He knows I don’t like her,” she sighed.

“Come on, I’ll take you to my house and clean you up,” I said and walked her outside to my house.

I unlocked the door and everyone followed me inside. They walked behind me up the stairs and I made Angelica sit on the toilet lid. She continued to vent as I picked the glass shards out her hand with a pair of tweezers. She momentarily stopped talking to hiss when I applied alcohol to her cut.

“J.D, how are you feeling with Matt hanging off of Valerie?” she softly asked me.

“It sucks, but we’re not dating so it’s not like I can do much,” I shrugged.

“Yes you can!” Lynn shrieked from the hallway. “That’s your man she’s trying to push up on!”

“He’s not my man,” I sighed and wrapped up Angelica’s hand.

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

“The girl’s are only getting satisfaction when they see that they’re getting to you,” Sarah pointed out.

“I just want to wipe the smiles off their faces,” Nayja huffed.

“Come on, let’s just go back over there and enjoy the rest of Brian’s birthday,” I suggested.

The girls and I walked back across the street where the guys were still sitting at the table. Brian shot up once he saw Angelica step onto the patio.

“Baby, are you okay? How’s your hand?”

“Oh, now you decide to pay attention to me?” she glared. “Fuck off, Brian,” she snapped and went over to the lounging chairs.

I patted Brian’s shoulder and went over to his pissed off girlfriend. Before I could walk any further, Max called me back with my phone in his hand.

“Lover boy’s calling you,” he announced and sent me a wink. I smiled since I knew he purposely did that to catch Matt’s attention. A look of hurt flashed across Matt’s face and I ignored it.

“Hey Taylor,” I smiled.

“Hey, sorry I haven’t called you in a while,”
“It’s okay, as long as you called,” I loudly stated and looked directly at Matt when I did it.

“Guess what?”

“What?”

“I’m flying out there at the end of the week to come visit you,”

“You serious?!” I shrieked.

“Like a heart attack,” he chuckled.

“What time are you coming in?”

“Noon,”

“Oh my god, I can’t wait to see you. There’s so much stuff here for you to do,”

“I expect you to show me around, especially the beach, I need a tan,”

“Alright, I promise,”

“Okay, see you this weekend,”

“Alright, bye,” I smiled and hung up the phone. I squealed and hugged Max around his torso, catching him by surprise.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Taylor’s coming to visit!”

“Who’s Taylor?” Raychel asked.

“J.D’s admirer,” Max teased and poked my side.

“Yeah, he’s the one who gave me this,” I showed them the charm bracelet on my wrist.

The girl’s ‘awed’ and I blushed. “Yeah, he said he was going to ask me out on my birthday next month when he gave me this, but I moved so that changed everything,”

“How cheesy,” Matt scoffed.

“As if you weren’t cheesy at the carnival,” I snapped.

“I wasn’t,” he tried defending himself.

“Yeah right, Mr. Ferris Wheel,” I put my hands on my hips.

His mouth fell open in disbelief at the fact that I revealed part of our date to everyone. He shut his mouth and crossed his arms.

“That was rude you know,” Michelle said from next to Val. “You shouldn’t have said anything about your date, you have a big mouth,” she said to me.

“Last time I heard you couldn’t keep your mouth shut either,” I shot back.

Zack started laughing loudly, but quickly shut up when Nayja hit him in the back of the head. I turned to Brian and sent him a sad smile.

“I’m sorry Brian I can’t stay here anymore and ruin your party,” I apologized.

“No, stay, I’ll tell them to go. I invited you here tonight,”

“No, that’s okay. I don’t feel wanted here and you have more important stuff to do,”

“Like what?”

“Like comfort, your sulking and injured girlfriend who hates you right now,” I pointed to
Angelica who was sitting by the pool with a beer in her hand.

I gave the guys and girls hugs and said my goodbyes, but not before pulling Zack off to the side. “Tell Matt later on that I’m sorry our friendship is ruined,” I whispered.

“No problem sweetheart,”

“Thanks,” I said and walked back across the street to my house.