last summer

five

Thank you Laurs for helping me with this chapter. You're the best!!

NICCOLO

"I'm only seventeen, I don't know anything but I know I miss you"
- betty by Taylor Swift

I felt little hands wrap around my neck from the back and for a second I had the instinct to slap them off but in my ear I hear my little brothers voice saying "Who's your hairy girlfriend?"

I was up for real then and I see the little miniature version of Sonny running up from the distance and he jumps on Brock's back, knocking him down in the sand and then Will's following behind them, standing with his arms crossed.

I looked down at the dog and put my hand on her head. "They got you babysitting, Will?"

William nodded his head slow and he rolls his eyes and then laughs and smiles and I'm not surprised one bit.

"Yeah," he said, "since Stassie was gone, I got promoted."

"She's back?"

"Her boyfriends cool." my little brother chirped in and Will pretended to slap him across the face, just barely touching him.

Why the fuck was cool everyone's go to word now?

"She calls him Joshua." Rhett groaned and fell back in the sand and Will reached down to pick them both up, one under each arm.

I said "That's his name isn't it?"

and Will hauled them with him down the beach and Shepherd and I followed behind them.

"It's the way she says it, Nico"

"How does she say it?"

Rhett cuts his eyes and he shakes his head before he suddenly gives in and he makes his voice as high as it goes and he swoons as he says it. "Oh Joshua."

"Well, Joshua looks like a frat member." Will said and I laughed and both his little sidekicks looked back at me.

"I'll have to see this guy for myself."

Will looked back at me and in a calm tone he says "Not as fratty as you though." and he winks and I'm smiling.

Trust me, I did see Joshua and he looked exactly like I thought. He had a backwards hat and a thin black tanktop and his skin was tan and he grabbed my hand to shake it and I felt like he was trying to prove something just by the way he stared at me.

"Josh." he says, "you must be Niccolo." and your girlfriend must be talking about me.

"Yeah," is all I had said and I let his hand go and I put mine on top of Rhett's blonde one and surprisingly enough he let me.

The rest of the afternoon was weird and fast. Josh kept trying to take Stassie away from the group. They went to go
play put-put and then somewhere else shopping after, I'm sure, and I had to stay back and hangout with Avery and Stephanie all by myself for about an hour because the others went to work and it was miserable.

I went down to the beach to hangout with some other local guys and the girls came with me and it was alright but the guys there seemed more like Joshua's crowd.