Poison Ink Read Free Page B

spent as much time listening as he did talking, and it didn’t seem to bother him that his friends were having chicken fights in the water and playing Frisbee on the shore, enjoying themselves without him. Adam was content to just sit there with her.
    Sammi didn’t answer him at first. She played “Blackbird,” by the Beatles, and sang softly to the tune. Halfway through, she glanced at him. He hadn’t pushed the question, hadn’t asked again, but he also didn’t seem to be embarrassed that she had not replied yet. No awkwardness hung between them.
    “Not gonna happen tonight,” she said. She caught a glimpse of his disappointment, then forged ahead. “I’m sweaty and grimy. And my mother would be pissed—or at least hurt—if I blew her off to hang out with you. Tomorrow she’s taking me school shopping. Mother-daughter bonding stuff.”
    Adam held up a hand. “Okay. I get it.”
    She flipped her hair out of her face. “I’m rambling. I do that sometimes. Not often. Consider it a compliment. Point is, I’d love to hang out with you sometime. Just not this weekend.”
    Her cell phone was clipped to the pocket of her shorts. She took it off and tossed it to him. “Give me your number. I’ll text you.”
    Adam caught the phone and then looked at her, tilting his head like some kind of bird. “Will you?”
    “I just said I would.”
    That smile returned to his face and he nodded. “I hope you do.”
    He’d finished entering his phone number into her cell and handed it back to her. A couple of guys called to him, and when he turned, one of them whipped the Frisbee his way. Adam snatched it out of the air, then turned to glance at her.
    “I should get back. See you soon?”
    Sammi’s fingers danced along the neck of her guitar, and she began to strum, idly running through the chords of a song of her own that she’d been toying with for a while.
    “Definitely,” she said.
    Adam gave her one last look and then ran off. Sammi watched him play Frisbee with his friends for a while, playing without singing, without really focusing. A breeze rustled the leaves behind her, and then a strange feeling came over her, that instinctive certainty that someone was watching her. She glanced around and discovered that it was her mother. Mom had set her book aside and sat drinking a bottle of spring water she’d fetched from their cooler, watching Sammi.
    Her mother smiled, arching an eyebrow that indicated both curiosity about the boy Sammi’d been talking to and a kind of silent approval. Mother and daughter shared a grin.
    Sammi’s cell phone rang. For half a second, she wondered if Adam had pulled her number when he looked at the phone, if he might be calling her already, just to be charming. But as she looked up, she could see him up to his waist in the lake, whipping the Frisbee to one of the girls they had come with.
    The cell’s screen showed Deveaux, S. as the caller.
    “T.Q.,” Sammi said as she answered. “What’s up? Everything all right?”
    “Yeah. All good. Well, today, anyway. But it’s supposed to be a crappy day tomorrow, and it’s going to pour tomorrow night and all day Monday. Looks like we’re coming home early. I’m willing to bet Caryn and Letty do, too. So I was thinking tomorrow night we should have a sleepover. You guys can all crash at my house.”
    Sammi laughed. “Pajama party?”
    “I don’t think we’ll be doing each other’s nails, but yeah. We definitely should. Nothing like staying up all night gossiping to make sure we look our best on the first day of school.”
    “We can sleep on Monday,” Sammi said. “It sounds perfect. I just saw you guys last night, but I miss you already. What about Katsuko, though? What’s the weather supposed to be down at the Cape? I mean, her father’s probably too stubborn to come home even if it’s a monsoon.”
    T.Q. laughed. “Actually, I think they were supposed to come home tomorrow anyway. It was just for one night. I’ll