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

to be mean.
    Which made her wonder if maybe neither one of them was actually mad about the beach.
    “Wow,” commented Dean, raising himself up from George’s other side and looking from Beth to George and then back. It broke the spell, and Beth looked at Dean instead of George, feeling the heat of embarrassment on her cheeks. “Are you sure you’re broken up?” Dean added with a grin.
    “Yes,” Beth snapped, and felt herself blush a little bit when she realized George had said it at exactly the same time, with exactly the same inflection.
    We’re like Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum , she thought sourly. Even after all this time.
    “Why?” George asked his friend, scowling openly.
    “Because you sound like an old married couple,” Deansaid in disgust. “I’m going to go jump in the water. The possibility of being sucked out to sea by the undertow sounds way better than listening to the two of you. I feel like I’m hanging out with my parents.”
    “Great,” George said as Dean ran toward the water’s edge. “That’s just great.”
    Beth said nothing. Pointedly.
    “I don’t feel like an old married couple,” George continued, sounding aggrieved.
    Without even meaning to, Beth snickered.
    “I agree,” she said when he looked at her. “That definitely had a family feel to it, but more in a sibling sort of way.”
    “Terrific,” George said, sounding peeved. “My ex-girlfriend has become my irritating sister.”
    “You mean, my ex-boyfriend has become my annoying brother,” Beth retorted.
    They looked at each other, and while they weren’t smiling, Beth could tell they were both finding the situation funny.
    “Ew,” George said. “I’m going to swim, too.”
    “Whatever.” Beth pulled her Tess Gerritsen thriller out of her beach bag and cracked it open. “Try not to drown.”
    “I’ll do my best, thanks,” George replied, taking off his sunglasses. “And by the way, that sounded like my mother.”
    Beth watched him walk toward the water, his long, palebody and that lope of his she knew so well, and let out the laughter she’d been holding in.
    Being friends might be tricky sometimes. But family? That she knew how to deal with.
    This ex thing was going to be a snap.

8
    “I’m really sorry, Kels,” Bennett told her again. “I just can’t leave town this weekend. Carlos is having this big party at the gallery and he’s freaking out. I have to stay here and deal with him.”
    “It’s okay,” Kelsi said automatically, even though she felt like crying. She pressed the phone closer to her ear. “I just wish I’d known a few days ago. I wouldn’t have loaned my car to Jamie.”
    Kelsi had taken her cell phone back into the bedroom for this call, expecting Bennett to tell her he was on his way. Instead, he’d announced that once again, he wouldn’t be able to come up to Pebble Beach. Kelsi would have happily driven down to see him, but Jamie had left a few hours earlierin Kelsi’s car to visit some friends down in Boston, and she wasn’t coming back until Sunday.
    So that meant another long week ahead without the boy she wanted to kiss nonstop.
    “Don’t be mad,” Bennett said into the phone. Kelsi could hear the concern in his voice, and she told herself to get it together.
    “I’m not mad,” she told him. “Just disappointed.”
    That was a good word for it, Kelsi thought after they’d said good-bye and hung up. But the truth was, it felt much worse than just disappointment. It felt like the air had gone out of the room.
    Why did she feel like this? It didn’t make any sense. Kelsi knew that things were great with Bennett. She knew he loved her. She knew that he was just busy, and trying to do a good job for Carlos.
    But why did her heart hurt?
    “What’s the matter?” Taryn asked, breezing into the room. She was undressing while moving—flinging her hoodie toward her pile of clothes and stripping her black bikini from her torso.
    “Bennett’s not coming up,”