I've Got Summer

T W E N T Y - F O U R

S U M M E R

"You're saying the date was amazing, but you didn't invite him up to the house? Or suggest you could go back to his place?" Leon's disappointment was so clear, even through the tiny screen on my phone, that I looked away. "Summer, you're a big girl with a big, hot man practically crawling for you."

"And?" I tried to make it sound like I didn't agree with him. I did regret it—a tiny, tiny bit—that I just walked up the stairs and left Chris last night. Another part of me was thrilled I didn't go further, just in case that was all he was after, like so many other city boys. Even if I was ninety-nine percent sure he wasn't like any of those.

Leon sighed and let his frustration grow through his brown eyes. His hair was disheveled from a long, stressful day at work, and I heard him have an argument with August through the walls earlier, so I decided to call and distract him with details from my date.

"Honestly," he said, his voice a little more chipper, "I wish I had your self control. My first date with August was all kinds of nasty, and to be honest, I thought he was one of those men wanting a gay adventure before finding a lovely wife—"

"I don't want to hear about that," I tried to cut in, but Leon just kept going.

"He would find the perfect woman, get a big house and picket fences, and some kids and a minivan, but—" he sighed dreamily, "—he called me a week later and asked if I was doing something that night."

"And then you told him how you hadn't stopped thinking about his big, blue eyes and his crooked smile," I finished for him, knowing the story by heart.

Just as I fell back against the comforter on my bed, he sighed again and nodded. I grinned towards my screen, happy that I'd made him think of happier things than whatever discussion they'd had before.

"I still think it's weird that you didn't do anything but make out with him." Leon scrunched his nose towards me as he took a sip of some cold brew from whatever fancy place he went to for lunch. He said, "That man probably went home with blue balls because of you."

"I think he likes blue," I commented innocently.

"He likes you," Leon replied pointedly. "Blue just happens to follow you around everywhere."

A smile spread out on my lips, because I knew Chris must've liked me—or at least some part of me. His long look when I walked back upstairs after our date was so full of promises that I barely dared to look back.

I cleared my throat to stop myself from thinking about his dark eyes, or his husky voice after we kissed. "I'm really looking forward to helping him at the house," I told Leon, trying to change the subject.

"Of course you are." He laughed, and then he sang, "Bow chicka wow wow."

"Shut up," I muttered, even though he could clearly see my flushed cheeks and my big smile. It wasn't much of a subject change after all.. "I'll tell August I'm talking to you."

"Oh, wow, how the turntables..." He clicked his tongue and held his pointer finger up at me. "You're a bitch when I tease you, threatening me like that."

"But you love him so much!"

"Not today, miss," he said sternly, "today he's a bitch too." He then took another sip of his coffee and looked at me with a stare so menacing I had trouble believing it came from the same guy who just encouraged me to be intimate with a man. "August doesn't want to see your incredible mother this summer, and I'm angry at him for even thinking about not going. That's that."

"You know he loves mom—"

"Yes, he loves her, but he thinks she's batshit crazy!" Leon groaned exasperatedly, and I felt a little happy the conversation had moved on from Chris and I, even if Leon didn't smile and laugh like normal. The two of them were always on either side of the scale when it came to our mother; August loved her, but in small pieces, while Leon and her got along like peas in a pot. "She's eccentric," he added.