Picture Perfect Read Free Page B

mini-marshmallows. I couldfeel myself blush as I attempted to pull them out. Fortunately, I have thickish hair—but unfortunately, it’s black, so every speck of marshmallow showed. This wasn’t exactly how I’d wanted my reunion with Spencer to go.
    “It’s the Mello Jell-O,” Heather explained to him.
    Spencer rubbed his forehead. “The what?”
    “My mom’s famous mold dessert thingy.”
    “Your mom serves mold?”
    “No, stupid, it’s a mold, as in a shape. And it has fruit and marshmallows in it—”
    “Oh, yeah. Now I remember. Well, I guess everyone has to be famous for some thing.”
    Heather shoved him. “Are you dissing my mom?”
    “No, just gelatin. So what happened? Did you dive into the bowl?” Spencer asked me.
    No, I was eating it when you showed up, and I guess I got a little flustered, and my spoon ended up in my hair . “Ha-ha,” I said in a deadpan tone. “It’s a styling product, okay?”
    “Well…style away,” Spencer said, surveying the deck.
    “Same old obnoxious Spencer,” Heather muttered under her breath as Spencer left us to get a burger.
    It was true that he treated us like we were little kids, even though he was only a year older than us. He usually made a big effort to remind us that he was older. Heather, Adam, and I were just so immature. We were like infants , compared to him.
    The three of us sat down to finish eating dinner, and Spencer joined us. As soon as Heather tossed her paper plate into the trash can, she stood up, looked at the three of us, and said, “What are you guys waiting for? Come on, let’s get out of here, go out somewhere fun.”
    “Go out? But I just got here,” Spencer protested. “I don’t even know what room I’m in, or where my stuff should go.”
    “We’ll figure it out when we get back. You can unpack later. You’ve got two weeks to unpack.” Heather pulled Spencer to his feet and guided him toward the deck steps.
    “Technically, no, because I’ll have to unpack in order to change my clothes, liketomorrow,” Spencer said. “Anyway, where are we going and what’s the rush?”
    “I don’t know. We’ll find a place,” said Heather confidently, looping her arm through his.
    I interrupted the parents for a second to tell them that the four of us were going for a walk. They barely paused talking long enough to hear what I had to say. Dad mumbled, “That’s great, honey,” then went back to some story about sophomore year and a football game they lost by one point.
    Just before I went to join Spencer, Heather, and Adam, I stopped and took a picture of the three of them as they pushed and shoved each other on the stairs. A lot of things had changed since we first became friends when we were little, but some things hadn’t changed at all.
    I was starting down the stairs when a Frisbee came sailing over the fence and nearly knocked me in the head. I reached up instinctively to shield my face and the Frisbee hit my hands and fell to the deck.
    “Little help?” a guy’s voice called over from next door.
    “Oh. H-hi,” I stammered as he got closer. I wasn’t sure, but it looked like the same guy who’d said hi to me earlier in the car—the one with the short, platinum-blond hair.
    “Did I see you earlier? You took my picture,” he said. “Old car, screechy brakes—that was you, right?”
    Thanks, Dad, I thought, for making such a great impression. I nodded, feeling flustered.
    “You find everything okay?” he asked “Y’all looked a little lost.”
    Y’all . Was that cute or what? “We were. My dad nearly caused a wreck when he stopped and turned. I think I’ve got whiplash.” Of course, maybe that was from looking out the back window at you . “But. Anyway.” I laughed. “We made it.”
    “Cool. Well, ask us if you need to know where to go for stuff. We’ve already been here a week so we know our way around.”
    “Great. That’d be, uh, really, uh, helpful,” I told him. Especially if you decided to