Read Online Last Summer by Hailey Abbott - Free Book Online Page A

felt ridiculously easy to be around him. Without consciously meaning to, she felt as if they’d rewound somehow. As if they were good friends again, before all that romantic stuff had come between them and ruined everything.
    They wandered out into the parking lot, where the afternoon was lengthening into shadows.
    “That was fun,” George said. His dark eyes met hers, and he smiled. “You’re still fun.”
    “You, too,” Beth said.
    By prior arrangement, they’d met at the mini golf course, so there was a small moment of awkwardness as they said good-bye, but then they each headed their separate ways. George took off in his car, and Beth headed through the woods on foot.
    Beth stretched her legs as she walked, breathing in thepiney scent of the path in front of her and feeling light, happy. She zipped up her hoodie against the coolness of the shaded woods, shoved her hands into her jean pockets, and smiled to herself.
    Her cousins had all counseled her against hanging out with George. They’d warned her that it was a big fantasy to think they could be friends again when they’d once been so much more. Beth had worried they were right, but she’d gone to mini golf, anyway, because she’d wanted to test out their theories for herself. She’d expected it to be a little bit upsetting, and maybe tense, too.
    But it had been really good, Beth thought. Who said you couldn’t hang out with your first love?
    What did her cousins know?
    Apparently, more than she did, Beth thought a few days later as she arranged her towel in the sand. Because she’d forgotten that first loves tended to be annoying. Supremely annoying.
    Or, anyway, the George variety did.
    Had he always been so demanding and weird about where he wanted to sit on the beach? Beth racked her brain, and couldn’t come up with a single instance during which he’d ever cared in the slightest.
    Which made his theatrics on the beach today all the more irritating.
    Possibly he’d done it to impress his friend Dean, whom he’d brought with him today, although Beth couldn’t imagine why Dean would find childish tantrums impressive in the least. She threw a dirty look at George.
    “Stop giving me that look,” George ordered from his sprawled position on the towel next to Beth’s, with his huge sunglasses wrapped around the entire upper half of his narrow face.
    “You can’t see where I’m looking,” Beth told him, and snorted. He looked ridiculous and, as far as she could tell, he probably couldn’t see at all.
    “I can feel it,” George retorted. “Like a laser beam to the brain, in fact.”
    “I just want to make sure you’re okay with this spot,” Beth shot back. “Are we close enough to the water? Far enough from the trees? Near enough to the lifeguard stand? Far enough from all possible beach irritants, like horseflies and ten-year-old girls?”
    “Because you love to sit next to screaming ten-year-old girls yourself?” George argued. “I guess I forgot.”
    “You’re a beach snob,” Beth pronounced, almost as if it made her sad. “Have you looked around? Every inch of this beach is gorgeous. You might try appreciating it, instead of freaking out and making us move seventy-five times.”
    “We moved exactly one time,” George protested.
    “Oh, right, my mistake.” Beth looked at him over thetop of her own sunglasses. “The forty minutes we trudged up and down the beach, practically from Portland to Bar Harbor and back again, must have shorted out my brain.”
    “It would have taken a lot less time if you’d helped ,” George shot back at her. “But no, you thought it would be better to stomp along behind, making snide remarks.”
    “It’s not a snide remark if it’s true ,” Beth pointed out. “You were being ridiculous.” She paused and cocked her head to one side. “See? Still not snide!”
    George’s jaw tightened and Beth felt a sudden surge of anger herself. She wanted to fight with him, she realized. She wanted