None of the Regular Rules by Erin Downing

“Mind if I come in? The mosquitoes are eating me alive out here.” He slipped his shoes off and plopped his body onto the floor of the tent, then zipped it up behind himself. “You’re having a slumber party, Sophie, and you didn’t invite me?” He stretched his legs out in front of his body and got comfortable. I was both surprised by and impressed at his ability to make himself comfortable in this situation. It was just like the day he’d surprised me beside the pumpkin patch—and then invited himself to join me on the beach. Then the way he’d drifted in and out of groups on the beach at his party.
    But I didn’t like that he kept sneaking up on me. And I felt an obligation to set some ground rules, now that he’d broken the neighborly seal and kept popping over the invisible fence between our yards. “How long have you been lurking out there, Johnny?” I demanded. “Don’t you think it’s a little creepy to sit outside someone’s tent?”
    “I wasn’t lurking,” he said, lifting his eyebrows. Ella still had the flashlight fixed on his face, and I realized he wasn’t wearing his hat. His hair was all shaggy and messed up, and I kind of wished I could touch it. Strictly to see if he used product to get the casual surfer look that I wished I could achieve with my hair, of course. Not because I wanted to touch Johnny Rush’s hair. Definitely not. “I came over to see what was up with the tent.”
    “We’re camping,” Grace said.
    “I see that,” Johnny said, grinning at her. “I also heard you talking about pizza.”
    “You were lurking!” I cried. “And listening. That is so wrong.”
    “Oh, come on,” Johnny said. His voice was low and rough, as though he’d just woken up and hadn’t talked to anyone else yet. It was incredibly sexy and teasing, too. “You were practically screaming in here. I can get you pizza, you know. If you’re interested…”
    “You’d buy us pizza?” Ella asked suspiciously. “Why would you do that?”
    “I did not say I’d buy you a pizza,” Johnny teased. “I said I can get you pizza. But we’d need a car. Sophie, you have a car, don’t you?”
    “I do—”
    “Well, then. Let’s go get some pizza.” Johnny laughed and began to unzip the tent again.
    I wasn’t going anywhere. “We don’t have any money,” I said, once again jumping straight to the logical problems in a plan. I wanted to suck the words back in, just go with the flow, but I’d already said it.
    Johnny stepped out of the tent. “We don’t need money. We’ll have to work for it, but it will be worth it, I swear.”
    I wanted to ask more questions, to press him on how we were going to get free pizza, but then I thought about how I’d just been complaining about never doing anything without thinking it through and finding every possible obstacle first.
    “Okay,” I said with a smile. “I just have to run inside and grab my keys.”
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER TEN
     
     
    “You know Peter Martinson, right?” Johnny asked after we’d all piled in the car a few minutes later. I’d quickly gone to the bathroom and changed into a pair of jeans and a soft sweater while I was inside. I didn’t change because of Johnny, I told myself. Rather, I slipped on something that would be much more comfortable than my Disney sleep T-shirt and flannel pants. It also made me look seventeen instead of six. That was a plus.
    “Yeah,” I said, glancing at him beside me. Ella and Grace had hopped into the backseat together, leaving the front seat free for Johnny. I didn’t know if Ella had coordinated the seating arrangements, or if it just worked out that way. But I was grateful to whatever fates had intervened. I could smell him next to me, and I liked that I could look at him out of my peripheral vision without making a big deal about it. “He lives on my old block.”
    “Oh, right,” Johnny said, chuckling. “The tale of the borrowed Barbie dolls.”
    “He doesn’t