Summer After Summer. Ann DeFee

Jazzy!”

      “Oh, God, it’s Petey, the band geek. Whatever you do, don’t you dare call him over here.” Mary Alice slid down in her seat.

      Petey had a massive crush on Mary Alice. Unfortunately, she thought the poor guy was a dork.

      I wasn’t very good at obeying commands so I ignored her. “Hey, Petey, how’s it hangin’?”

      True, Petey Renfro was a band geek, but he was also my good friend. I was the drum major and he played a tuba that was almost as big as he was. People said we looked like Mutt and Jeff. So what? He made me laugh, and best of all he was my sidekick on band trips.

      He scurried over to the car and vaulted into the backseat. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Mary Alice had slipped farther down in the front.

      “My cousin’s coming to town tomorrow and I’m having a pool party. Please say you’ll come. We’re doing it out on our patio and the Pink Pig’s gonna cater,” he cajoled.

      Petey’s mom was the party diva of Meadow Lake, so without a doubt the get-together would be a blast.

      “You guys are invited, too,” he casually told my friends. His cavalier attitude toward Mary Alice didn’t fool me for a minute. Petey was counting on me to drag her along. Unreciprocated love flat-out sucked, and I considered myself an expert on the subject.

      We had to lie through our teeth to get rid of Petey when Billy Tom finally cruised by to pick us up. Although B.T. drove one of the funkiest cars in town and it was awfully hard to miss, we didn’t have much choice. He was probably the only person we could coerce into assisting us with our little adventure, and we were smart enough to know we had to have a sober driver.

      So we ditched Bunny’s car at the back of the parking lot and piled into B.T.’s junk-mobile. Our blackmail material on him was really juicy. That boy wasn’t about to squeal, not if he knew what was good for him.

      Considering it was Friday night, privacy at the drive-in was at a premium. Although the parking lot was a sea of cars, I’m sure there weren’t more than ten people actually watching the movie.

      Wonder what everyone else was doing?

      The minute Billy Tom pulled the Plymouth into a spot on the back row he started complaining. What the hell was he doing? His old man was gonna kill him. Jazzy’s dad would throttle him. God, he’d be dead before he even got to graduate.

      “Good Lord, Billy Tom. You’re more nervous than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Chill out,” I ordered. Whining was one of my pet peeves—especially when the whiner was a six-foot-two-inch wide receiver on the football team.

      “If my folks find out about this, my ass will be grass and my old man’ll be a power mower,” he moaned. “I don’t know why I let you talk me into something this stupid.”

      How about because we could manipulate him? “Don’t worry, no one’s gonna find out, so shut up and hand over the beer,” I ordered. For some reason I was feeling brave. In unison we each took a can and popped the top.

      Misty was the first to take a sip. She spit it out almost before it hit her mouth. “This stuff tastes like cat piss!”

      It took a lot to rile up Billy Tom, but her comment did the trick. “You guys didn’t give me enough money to get the good stuff. And they’re hot ’cause I don’t have a cooler! You’re damn lucky you have me to drive you around,” he mumbled.

      “Don’t worry about it, we’ll drink them anyway.” Mary Alice used her most soothing voice. That’s what I loved about her; she was always a peacemaker.

      And drink them we did. By the time I was halfway through the first can, the taste started to be tolerable. The second one was pretty good and after I finished the third, I was the brewski queen of south Texas. Oops! On the fourth, my nose went numb.

      “I can’t feel my nose.” I was trying to act serious, but a bout of giggles ruined the effect. Fortunately, we were all happy drunks. Everything was hysterically funny. Then we began to sing. Bunny and Misty were cheerleaders, so they led us in multiple renditions of the school fight song. They even knew the third and fourth verses.

      We were making so much noise they could’ve heard us in the next county. So much for discretion. That’s when the dog doo hit the fan. I knew we were in a pile of trouble when Charlie Morrison jerked open the car door.

      “What’s going on?” He didn’t shout and somehow that made his question more ominous.

      “Angelique!” That was Bunny’s real name, but Charlie was the only one who could get away with calling her that. “Get out of the car. What do you think you’re doing?”

      Although Bunny hadn’t had as much to drink as I had, she didn’t appear to be in any condition to tell anyone anything. So I did what any good friend would do. I elegantly removed myself from the front seat—okay, I did a face plant, but I recovered nicely—and went toe to toe with Charlie.

      “We’re just having a few drinks.” I might’ve been able to pull it off if I hadn’t ended the sentence with a hiccup.

      Charlie raced fast boats and competed in water ski-jumping contests. He was tall, tan, blond and lanky. Plus, he had the most gorgeous green eyes I’d ever seen. Everyone agreed that when he grew into his body he’d be heart-stopping, drool-inducing, movie-star handsome. I already thought he was. And did I mention I was head over heels in love with him?

      “Jazzy, I’m disappointed in you. I figured you had better sense than to get involved in this kind of shenanigan.”

      Uh-oh, usually he called me Sunshine. And when had he perfected that school-principal glare? Enough was enough. He wasn’t my daddy, and he sure wasn’t my boyfriend—damn it!

      “I thought you were seventeen, not thirty-seven,” I retorted. “Where do you get off telling us what to do?” I was getting louder with every word, and by the time I finished my rant we’d acquired a substantial audience.

      “Get back in the car.” He gently pushed me toward the open door. “B.T., you haven’t been drinking, have you?”

      “Nope.”

      “Why don’t you give me your keys? Colton will take you home.”

      Colton had joined the crowd and was standing around gawking. Who could blame him? We were creating quite a spectacle. Billy Tom evacuated that car like his pants were on fire, throwing Charlie his keys on the way out.

      “I’m going to drive these nitwits home,” Charlie said.

      “Nitwits, I’ll give you nitwits.” I was itching for a fight.

      But instead of taking me on, he laughed. “Get back in the car, Sunshine. You’re going home.”

      Did I mention that unreciprocated love sucks?

      It took me all of three minutes to get over being mad, and then we continued our group giggle all the way to the river. There’s probably nothing worse than being stuck in a car with a bunch of tipsy teenage girls, but Charlie soldiered on.

      “Oh, my God! I’m gonna pee my pants,” Misty exclaimed. She was laughing so hard that tears were pouring down her face. Her comment wasn’t terribly funny, but at the time I thought it was hysterical.

      As we drew near my house, Charlie cut the lights and the engine. He didn’t want my daddy to catch us. He’d always had the tendency to be the knight on the white horse, the protector of the young, the weak, the stupid.

      We rolled through the gates and stopped under a low-hanging bougainvillea. Fortunately, we were spending the night in the guesthouse so there was at least a fifty-fifty chance we wouldn’t wake up my parents.

      “I think I’m gonna be sick.” Misty put her hand over her mouth and lunged for the door.

      We all leaned out to watch Misty retch. The