Read Online A Summer Remade by Nicole Deese - Free Book Online Page B

limited time.
    Clever.
    I take a pic of the float and send it to Sydney. I laugh at her immediate reply.
    Sydney: A time machine?
    Me: Surprisingly close.
    Sydney: I miss you. I’m in Crazy Town. What are you up to?
    I hesitate, fingers hovering over the text keys.
    Me: I’m just hanging out. Wanna talk tonight?
    Sydney: I wish. I have a stupid rehearsal thingy until late tonight. But I can text you under the table?
    Me: Haha. Good thing Mrs. Smith won’t be there to confiscate your phone.
    Sydney: True story.
    I slip my phone in my back pocket and wonder if planning a text chat with Sydney qualifies as another adult-sized leap forward. Although not quite as personal or informative as a phone call would be, texting with Syd will allow me a bit more freedom to be selective. Share the good stuff that’s happened so far this summer.
    My gaze drifts to Drew out in the field. I bite my bottom lip. Because even from a distance, I can sense the delight on his face.
    Phone call over, he cups his hands over his mouth and yells, “You ready to go have some fun, Joss Sanders?”
    I mimic his hand megaphone. “What kind of fun, Drew Culver?”
    Before I can reply, Drew’s running full speed ahead.
    Together, we race to his car.
    *
    A few yards out from my driveway, I see her. The “glamour shot” lady, Dotty Harrison, the face on my cabin’s real estate sign.
    “Slow down, Drew.” I tap his arm with far too much vigor. “Actually, just pull over. Pull over !”
    Drew gives me a side-long glance, but he pulls his small navy Honda off to the right. And, as luck would have it, his car sits perfectly situated behind a row of wild blackberry bushes.
    Good news: I can still see Dotty. And that’s really all that matters in this scenario, anyway.
    Drew exhales loudly, a sigh that’s both bewildered and bemused. I poke my head out the window to glimpse a better view of the woman staking a sign in my lawn. One without my most recent of vandalisms.
    This is sign number three. She’s catching on.
    But between float building and spending every possible minute with Drew, I’ve managed to avoid this coral-lipstick-wearing woman. I mean, really. When has coral ever been a natural lip color?
    “Mind telling me what we’re hiding from?”
    “ Shhhh .” I wave Drew off, and he catches my wrist to pull me back into the car.
    “You know, I’ve grown accustomed to some of your weirdness. But this? This stretches a little past weird, Joss.”
    I roll my eyes, lower my voice. “It’s the listing agent. She’s at my cabin.”
    Drew is unimpressed with this information. Or maybe with me. I’m not actually sure. “So…your parents are selling the cabin, and you thought your little Sharpie artwork could interfere with a sale?”
    “No.” Only a crazy person would think that. “I just don’t trust her is all.”
    “Because?”
    I don’t have time to engage him in a round of Twenty Questions. I pop my head back out the window and gasp when I see Dotty knocking on my front door.
    But then I gasp again as Drew fists the hem of my shirt, starts up the engine, and whips out onto the main road.
    “Drew!” My squeal is lost to the wind, half my body still hanging out the car.
    “Get inside. Or you’ll be plucking out blackberry thorns for weeks.”
    I don’t have time to reply because in less than five seconds we’re in my driveway, and Dotty Harrison is walking toward us.
    “I hate you,” I mutter under my breath.
    “No, you don’t.”
    Okay, fine, he’s right. But I really want to hate him.
    Drew comes around to my side of the car and opens my door.
    “Hello? Hi there, are you Joslyn Sanders?” The plump woman in the paisley sundress asks. She extends her hand as I step out of the car.
    “Hi, yes. I’m Joss.”
    Dotty smiles like she’s just found a multi-million dollar asset instead of a soul-searching twenty-one year old. “Well, great! Your mother said I’d find you here, but every time I stop by, you seem to be