Page 7 of The Summer Plans

Me: How could you forget that?!?

Lucy: It doesn’t seem logical for you to forget something like that.

Raven: I’m sorry. I’m on a deadline at work, and things have been piling up.

Lucy: Maybe you could make the best of it?

Raven: You’ll be fine. The house has plenty of space.

Me: He brought his daughter and she wants her own bedroom. And all my kids already claimed theirs.

Bella: Are you saying what I think you’re saying?

Lucy: What are you talking about?

Me: Why are there no couches in this place? There are chairs and a few love seats, but no freaking couches.

Lucy: WAIT!

Raven: What are you two yapping about?

Bella: So there’s only one bed, huh?

Lucy: Please tell me he has a bad back and has to sleep in a bed with you.

Bella: Are you sharing the one bed with the hot firefighter?

Lucy: I love where there’s only one bed!

Raven: ???

Bella: It’s a trope in romance. The two main characters are forced to share a bed. And they say they’ll be adults about it, but they always end up fucking.

Raven: Gross. Do not fuck my idiot brother.

Bella: But it would be so romantic. They were each other’s first kiss.

Me: How many times do I have to tell you; this is real life. This isn’t a romance.

I’m the dreamer of our group. The romantic. The one that loves love and cheers everyone on. The eternal optimist. But lately, it feels like a lie. I fell in love with RJ Roth in grade school, and no one has lived up to him since.

My friends don’t know how deep my feelings for him run. And only Raven knows how close we used to be. The three of us were inseparable back in the day. He’s how I met Raven. RJ and I were in the same class since there’s just the one school in Chestnut Mountain, and we hit it off. When he introduced me to his sister, I knew we’d be friends for life. She was calm and cool, while I was a free-spirited mess of emotions. Our dynamic shouldn’t have worked, but it did. And RJ would often be the middle ground, balancing both of us out. We hung out all the time. We had inside jokes. We had sleepovers. Well, Raven and I did, and RJ would tag along until it was time for us to go to bed.

And then puberty hit, and RJ started looking more like a man and less like a squeaky little kid. He ran track and slimmed down, growing into his lanky body. Suddenly this kid who’d been my best friend since grade school was consuming my thoughts. I must’ve talked about him constantly, and I could tell Raven was getting annoyed with me. So when we went to a party, she dared us to kiss. Raven later said she was hoping it would help me get over my crush, but it had the opposite effect, despite the fact that our braces caused us to get stuck together during that disastrous first kiss.

A couple weeks after the party, RJ started hanging out with Jessica, and the two of them became inseparable. He stopped hanging out with us, and our trio turned into a dynamic duo. RJ and Jessica dated the rest of high school and eventually moved away, got married, and had a kid. And I moved on. I met Todd, and we got married. We struggled to start a family and decided to adopt, only conceiving our miracle baby Lucas after adopting the twins. But it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. When things were bad in my life, my mind would wander, filled with thoughts of RJ and the could-have-beens. I don’t think I ever truly got over RJ.

I love my kids, and I love my life. But I never stopped picturing RJ being a part of it. It was hard not bringing him up around Raven. When I found out that he’d moved back to Chestnut Mountain a year ago and that he was single, I couldn’t stop pestering Raven with questions. And I know it bothered her. But I never could work up the courage to actually talk to him.

However, this isn’t how I pictured our reunion. And I’m not sure why he’s so annoyed. But I do know I cannot be his friend. Not when it’s been so long, and not when all I want to do is kiss his stupidly handsome face.

CHAPTER 3

RJ

Summer Sampson is the only woman I’ve ever truly loved. And I stole her sunshine. It wasn’t intentional, and fuck if I don’t regret it every day of my life.

I’m going to kill my sister. Or kiss her. I haven’t decided. It’ll depend on how this week goes.