Maine Squeeze by Catherine Clark

nothing like Evan, how he worshiped me completely …?
    Suddenly the telephone rang, jarring me out of the fantasy that I was worshiped by—well, anybody. Who was calling so late at night? Maybe Haley’s mom, I thought. To tell her to go to bed or she’d be tired tomorrow.
    â€œIgnore it,” Ben whispered in my ear as the phone rang again.
    â€œDone,” I said, trying to lose myself in his kisses.
    The phone stopped ringing. Seconds later, there was a loud knock on the screen door. “Um, sorry,” Haley said. I pulled away from Ben and looked up to see Haley standing there holding the telephone out to me. “Coll? It’s your parents.”
    â€œWhat? My parents?” Somehow they knew that if they called right now, they’d ruin the one half hour I had to spend with Ben. It was amazing.
    â€œHello?” I said into the receiver.
    â€œColleen!” my father’s voice cried. “How are you?”
    â€œI’m fine—but are you? I mean, is there an emergency or something?” I asked.
    â€œGoodness, no.”
    â€œThen why are you calling now ? It’s like four in the morning there—isn’t it?”
    â€œIt costs less to call now,” my father said. “Plus, we have jet lag, and knew you’d just be getting home from work. How was it?”
    â€œFine, the same as always,” I said, my brain flashing back to the freezer moment, when I first saw Evan. In some ways, yes, work was the same as always, but in some ways it was completely different. I decided to spare my father that particular detail—and it wasn’t just that Ben was still sitting beside me. It was that my dad wouldn’t enjoy hearing about Evan any more than Ben would.
    â€œAnd how are all the girls? Did everyone arrive okay?” he asked.
    I got up off the swing and went into the house to grab a glass of water. “Yes. One thing, though—Erica is going to live at her grandparents’ house instead of here. So we have a free bedroom—yours, in case you decide to come home early.”
    Why did I say that? I missed them, but I didn’t want them to come home early.
    â€œOh, no chance of that. I mean, we aren’t planning to cut the trip short—but if there’s an emergency, or if you need us—”
    â€œNo, don’t worry, everything’s fine. It’s going to stay fine, too,” I told him.
    My mother got onto the phone next, and I talked to her for a couple of minutes. Before I hung up, I had to promise her that I’d stick to every single one of the posted rules and that everyone in the house would stick to them, too—and everyone on the island would, too. I’m actually not sure what I promised. I was really tired, and I wanted to get back to Ben, who was patiently waiting outside for me, even though it was getting chilly. “Yes, Mom. Love you, too. Good-bye!”
    She rattled off a few German phrases and then she was gone. Despite the fact they had kind of annoyed me, I was really glad they’d called. It was great to hear their voices. It was just … couldn’t I have heard their voices the next morning?
    â€œYour parents have incredibly bad timing,” Ben said when I rejoined him on the porch. I sat on the swing and cuddled up next to him. “Do you think they have a web cam set up or something? You know, ‘Let’s see what Colleen’s up to’?”
    â€œNo, you know what it is. My family, my entire extended gene pool, has really poor timing,” I said. I patted my mouth to cover a wide yawn. “You know that.”
    â€œAnd yet, I still hang out with you.” Ben lightly rubbed my shoulders. “Why do you think that is?”
    â€œI have no idea,” I said. “Maybe because you know you owe me.”
    Ben laughed. “I owe you?”
    â€œYes. You’d never have your summer job now if you’d puked on the ferry that first day of