Endless Summer: The Boys Next Door; Endless Summer by Jennifer Echols

looking for them (which I was). I almost pointed them out to Tammy, then decided against it. I didn’t want to sound like a fifth grader: Wow, kissing!
    “You really do look cute,” Tammy said, “other than the—you know. Why the makeover?”
    I took a deep breath and readied myself for my next step into girldom: spilling a giggly secret. When we’d gotten far enough away from Adam and Rachel that they couldn’t hear me, I said, “I have a crush on somebody. I’m trying to get him to notice me.”
    “Sean Vader?”
    I stopped short in my garage, and Tammy ran full force into me. I shoved her and shrieked, “Why would you think that?”
    “Gee, I don’t know,” she yelled back. “Maybe because you have told me this over and over!” I blinked. “I have?”
    “Maybe not in so many words.”
    Oh no! “So, I’ve been really obvious at school?” I tried to keep most of the horror from my voice.
    “Isn’t everyone?” She flipped her hair back over her shoulder with a tennis ace flick of the wrist that I would try later to reproduce (and fail). “Girls fall all over themselves when Sean comes around. He’s hot, and soooooo sweet.”
    “He sounds like fondue.” Mmmmm, fondue. I opened the door and led the way into my house.
    I didn’t think we were being quiet, particularly. High heels may have looked dainty, but they didn’t sound that way on a tile floor. Maybe it was just that my dad was so absorbed in the convo on his cell phone. For whatever reason, when we emerged from the kitchen into the den, he started, and he stuffed the phone down by his side in the cushions. I was sorry I’d startled him, but it really was comical to see this big blond manly man jump three feet off the sofa when he saw two teenage girls. I mean, it would have been funny if it weren’t so sad.
    Dad was a ferocious lawyer in court. Out of court, he was one of those Big Man on Campus types who shook hands with everybody from the mayor to the alleged ax murderer. A lot like Sean, actually. There were only two things Dad was afraid of. First, he wigged out when anything in the house was misplaced. I won’t even go into all the arguments we’d had about my room being a mess. They’d ended when I told him it was my room, and if he didn’t stop bugging me about it, I would put kitchen utensils in the wrong drawers, maybe even hide some (cue horror movie music). No spoons for you! Second, he was easily startled, and very pissed off afterward. “Damn it, Lori!” he hollered.
    “It’s great to see you too, loving father. Lo, I have brought my friend Tammy to witness our domestic bliss. She’s on the tennis team with me.” Actually, I was on the tennis team with her.
    “Hello, Tammy. It’s nice to meet you,” Dad said without getting up or shaking her hand or anything else he would normally do. While the two of them recited a few more snippets of polite nonsense, I watched my dad. From the angle of his body, I could tell he was protecting that cell phone behind the cushions.
    I nodded toward the hiding place. “Hot date?”
    I was totally kidding. I didn’t expect him to say, “When?”
    So I said, “Ever.” And then realized I’d brought up a subject that I didn’t want to bring up, especially not while I was busy being self-absorbed. I clapped my hands.
    “Okay, then! Tammy and I are going upstairs very loudly, and after a few minutes we will come back down, ringing a cowbell. Please continue with your top secret phone convo.”
    I turned and headed for the stairs. Tammy followed me. I thought Dad might order me back, send Tammy out, and give me one of those lectures about my attitude (who, me?). But obviously he was chatting with Pamela Anderson and couldn’t wait for me to leave the room. Behind us, I heard him say, “I’m so sorry. I’m still here. Lori came in. Oh, yeah? I’d like to see you try.”
    “He seems jumpy,” Tammy whispered on the stairs.
    “Always,” I said.
    “Do you have a lot of