Read Online Unfriended by Katie Finn - Free Book Online

intertwined and swinging back and forth between us.
    Maybe it was incredibly rude to Dave, since we hadn’t even made it to his party yet, but I was already hoping that Nate and I might be able to leave a little early—especially since my father had left me a message that there was a crisis at the paper and he was needed late at the office. I was thrilled about this (well, not aboutthe crisis, whatever it was, but that I might be able to get some uninterrupted Nate time).
    We walked around to the back of the house, where an expanse of grass overlooked the water of Long Island Sound, bordered by a low rock wall. We rounded a curve and there was the pool—large, with a diving board and an extra-deep deep end. And sitting on lounge chairs that lined the edges, or swimming in the pool itself, were my friends.
    Ginger Davis, the theater department’s costume guru, was floating on a raft in the middle of the pool. She was leaning over the edge of it to talk to Jimmy and Liz, who were squeezed together onto a float that was clearly only meant for one.
    Schuyler was sitting on the diving board, her mile-long legs hanging over the edge and her feet brushing the surface of the water. She was wearing a bikini—maybe because it was now night, and the chances of getting burned were significantly reduced. She was talking to Lisa and Tricia, who were standing by the side of the pool.
    It appeared that once tanning hours were over, Lisa could go back to dressing for fashion, as she was wearing the most Parisian-looking bathing suit I’d ever seen, a vintage-looking strapless black one-piece paired with high black espadrilles.
    Tricia was wearing a retro-looking sundress, and leaning over to better hear what Schuyler was saying. I just hoped that she wouldn’t get too close to the edge. Last summer, Dave had shown absolutely no impulse control when it came to pushing people into thepool, whether or not they were fully clothed.
    But luckily, Dave was busy steering a motorized toy car around the patio, causing Lisa to frown at it whenever it passed her. While Dave worked the remote, he was talking to Mark Rothmann, who was wearing a plaid bathing suit and had a pair of goggles perched on top of his head. Mark caught my eye and smiled at me, so he clearly had forgiven me for not visiting him more frequently at the Second Concession Stand.
    Glen Turtell was sitting on one of the pool’s lounge chairs, fully dressed, talking to Brian McMahon, both of them watching the progress of the car as it careened around the patio. I was glad to see Brian, since it meant that his incarceration must have been lifted, and he was now allowed out of the house again.
    Brian was always throwing legendary parties when his father was out of town, but was incredibly bad at covering his tracks, and so was always getting grounded. Proving that some people just don’t learn, he had celebrated the end of his last grounding by throwing a blowout “ungrounded” party. He was grounded again, of course, and the length was extended to “indefinite” when his father had seen his grades. Brian had been my lab partner in Marine Biology, which turned out to be a very bad pairing, as we’d spent most of the semester talking, and very little time dissecting starfish. I had realized my grade was in jeopardy after the prom, and had buckled down with an intense cramming schedule. I had received a good enough grade on the final that I passed the class with a B–. Brian, however, had not beenso lucky, and was now taking summer classes to make up for his F.
    Ruth and her boyfriend, Andy, were sitting on the edge of the pool near the deep end, feet splashing in the water, holding hands. Ruth caught my eye and waved, and I smiled and lifted the hand that wasn’t holding Nate’s to wave back to her.
    “I’m going to say hi to Ruth,” I said to Nate, who was looking in Dave’s direction.
    “And I think I’m going to make the acquaintance of some pizza,” Nate said,