Last Summer Read Free

out. Hindsight was definitely 20/20.
    For example, Kelsi couldn’t have known that instead of finding herself awash in homesickness and fear like many of her classmates at Smith, she would, by pure coincidence or the grace of the housing gods, find herself living with Taryn Gilmour.
    The thought of her irrepressible, pixie-like, irreverent best friend made Kelsi smile as she shifted into a more comfortable position against the soft cushions.
    Taryn and Kelsi had fallen into a friendship quickly, but unlike many other friendships they’d watched crash and burn throughout the year, they had only gotten tighter. So tight that Taryn had been thrilled when Kelsi started dating her brother, Bennett, who went to school at nearby Amherst College.
    Though not as thrilled as Kelsi had been, of course.
    Kelsi couldn’t have predicted that what had seemed like such a great relationship with hot, snarky Tim from Pebble Beach would turn out to be just a summer thing. Back in Maine, Tim had seemed to transcend his frat-boy roots. At school, though, it turned out that Tim really did enjoy all those keg stands and drunken toga parties. It wasn’t that he had turned into a different person, necessarily. It just seemedthat he and Kelsi had both emphasized other parts of their personalities when they’d met each other. Maybe Maine had brought out the best in them, Kelsi thought charitably. But dating while Kelsi was at Smith and Tim was at UMass had made their essential differences entirely too clear.
    Kelsi had broken up with Tim just before Thanksgiving, in the middle of midterms. When she’d returned to school, it seemed like Taryn was on a mission to help Kelsi discover what she’d been missing while she’d been occupied with Tim.
    “There’s a whole world of men out there,” she’d told Kelsi in her knowing drawl. “Not all of them think the pinnacle of life is a packed keg party with half-naked girls. Some of them like art. Books. Music, even.”
    Taryn felt that her artistic brother was the perfect person to usher Kelsi through this new, collegiate world of Men Who Liked Other Things. The three of them went to a Pedro the Lion show over at Amherst one weekend. Then the next weekend, they road-tripped around the area to check out local galleries for a paper that Bennett was writing in his art history class. One afternoon, just Kelsi and Bennett had driven into Boston to watch the entire Krzysztof Kiesowski’s Three Colors trilogy. As they headed back home, Kelsi’s head was filled with French cinema and Bennett’s delightful raspy voice, as they talked about films and ideas the whole way.
    It was probably right then that she’d fallen in love with him, with winter racing by outside the windows and all that warmth and sexy intellect inside the car.
    But it wasn’t until a few weeks later that things really happened between them. Kelsi had found out that the Smith Studio Art department was having a Make Your Own Art night. She’d invited both Taryn and Bennett, but only Bennett was free. They’d laughed and laughed as they’d collaborated on their first sculpture: a metal and wood rendition of Taryn—all edges and motion. Later, they’d walked across the Smith campus in the dark, crunching their way over the frozen ground with their breath coming out in puffs. Kelsi couldn’t remember what they’d talked about that night. She just remembered the big moon overhead, and how soft and perfect Bennett’s lips were when he finally leaned close and kissed her.
    Taryn had loved the fact they’d gotten together only slightly more than she’d loved the sculpture, which she’d placed in the center of Kelsi’s and her room for the remainder of the school year. The three of them were like their own little family unit these days.
    The best part was that Taryn had agreed to spend the summer in Pebble Beach with Kelsi and the assorted Tuttles. It would be like having another cousin to hang around in Maine with, and Kelsi