I sighed and glanced at the novel in my lap. All it meant to me was that I had to babysit to earn every paltry dollar of my spending money. That and the fact that my mom is super-practical with money, which is very romantic to an accountant. Dad always says that’s why they’re still married. My mom is the only one who doesn’t roll her eyes at every joke. And because he works from home, doing other people’s taxes, he’s around a lot to subject us to all his one-liners. If you were a boy, my dad chimed from the front seat, where he had the car on cruise control at exactly sixty-five miles per hour, 'we were going to name you Horatio. James? It was definitely John or James or . . . Then she frowned and clicked one of her short, unpainted fingernails against her front teeth. John, Abbie answered, nodding firmly as she stared out the car window. Hannah always liked to have all her facts straight. I snorted while Hannah said, Well, did you ever talk to him? Was he interested? What was his name? That was my guy’s name, remember? We saw him at the beach at least four times, and the last two, he definitely noticed me. She propped her feet on the hump in the middle of the backseat, even though that was clearly my personal space.

They chatted over my head as if I was no more than an armrest between them.Īctually, it’s a stretch to say they were talking about love. When you’re stuck in the backseat of your parents’ car-on hour twenty-five of the drive from Los Angeles to Bluepointe, Michigan-the last thing you’re thinking about is love.īut somehow that’s what my two sisters were discussing.

Fifteenth Summer by Michelle Dalton