Beach Blondes: June Dreams, July's Promise, August Magic (Summer) by Katherine Applegate Page A

National Enquirer and sell the story: ‘My Hot Affair with Boy Billionaire’?”
    Summer recoiled. “Why would you think that ?”
    “It happens,” Adam said. “Just like it happens that some guys, whether or not they happen to come from a wealthy family, try to see how many girls they can pick up.”
    “Oh. I guess you’re right. I guess that is true, isn’t it?”
    “I’ll tell you the absolute truth, cross my heart and hope to die. I saw you sitting there, looking lost on that Jet Ski, and I instantly thought ‘What an idiot. How could she manage to get stuck out here like this?’”
    “That’s very flattering.”
    “Then I jumped in to help you—admittedly I was happy to have an excuse to put my arms around you, since we’re being honest here—and…” He made a wry face. “And something just happened. It felt like something I wanted to do again. And when you talked, it was this voice that I wanted to hear again. And when you spit seawater out of your mouth, it was a mouth I wanted to kiss. And then I did kiss you, and wanted to kiss you again. Like I do now.”
    Summer swallowed once. Twice. “We’d better not,” she said. “It’s all kind of…tropical.”
    “Tropical?”
    “I mean, we haven’t even had a date or anything.”
    Adam slapped his forehead. “I knew I’d forgotten something! Would you go out with me? Tomorrow? No, wait, day after tomorrow.” He took Summer’s hands in his. “Would you go out with me?”
    “Yes,” Summer said, sounding weirdly stiff. “That would be excellent.”

    It was about one in the morning when Marquez finally tired out. Half the people at the party had already left, and Marquez found Summer asleep, leaning back against a tree trunk with an empty Mountain Dew in her hand, her now dry but still misshapen dress laid over her like a blanket.
    For a moment Marquez considered playing some prank on the gently snoring girl, but she was too weary to think of anything and besides, Summer wasn’t a person you could be mean to.
    She knelt and shook Summer’s arm.
    “What?”
    “Time to wake up. We should get going. This guy I know with a truck said he’d give us a lift.”
    “What?” Summer repeated. She was looking around with that confused where-am-I look.
    Marquez took her hand and pulled her to her feet. They headed for the driveway, where a battered red pickup truck was idling. In the cab beside the driver were two other guys Marquez knew from school.
    “You’re going to make us ride in the back?” Marquez asked. “What gentlemen.”
    “James here is probably going to hurl,” the driver pointed out. “You’ll be safer in the back.”
    “Don’t say ‘hurl,’” a voice groaned.
    She and Summer climbed over the tailgate, and Marquez pounded twice on the roof of the truck, signaling the driver that he could go.
    They took off down the winding, wooded path through the Merrick estate.
    “I didn’t say good night to Adam,” Summer said.
    “Too late now,” Marquez said. “Besides, I think he disappeared around midnight with a bunch of guys who said they were going to drive to some club down in Key West.”
    “Oh.”
    Marquez rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to hang around with Adam Merrick, you have to deal with the fact that he and his buds move kind of fast.”
    “Oh,” Summer said again, nodding vaguely.
    “So, you going to see him again?”
    “I don’t know. I think so. I hope so. He said he’d like to take me out on a real date. You know, dinner and all that. Day after tomorrow.”
    “You don’t sound totally psyched.”
    “I’m just tired,” Summer said. “And it seems unreal, you know? This whole place. All of a sudden I meet a bunch of new people and go to a big party at a senator’s house and kiss this guy I barely even met.”
    “Uh-huh. So, it was good, right?”
    Summer giggled unexpectedly. “The first one was too quick, and I didn’t even know what was happening. Later we had a longer one. That was