Summer at Willow Lake Read Free

said.
    “A third nipple. That’s total BS. Nobody has that.”
    “Huh. Bebe Blackmun once told the whole group that her brother has three.”
    “Did you see it?” he challenged.
    “Like I would even want to.” She shuddered. “Ew.”
    “It’s bullshit.”
    She sniffed, determined to appear unimpressed by his swearing. “I bet you have an extra one.” She didn’t know why she said it. She knew the chances of him having three nipples were zip.
    “Yeah, right,” he said, stopping on the trail and turning. In one graceful motion, he peeled off his T-shirt right there in the woods, in front of her face, so fast she didn’t have time to react.
    “You want to count ’em?” he demanded.
    Her face lit with a blush and she marched past him, staring straight ahead. Idiot, she thought. I am such an idiot. What was I thinking?
    “Maybe you have three nipples,” he said with mocking laughter in his voice. “Maybe I should count yours.”
    “You’re crazy.” She kept marching.
    “You’re the one who brought it up.”
    “I was just trying to make conversation because you’re totally, one hundred percent b ooo ring.”
    “Uh-huh,” he said. “That’s me. B ooo ring.” He sashayed around her, mimicking her walk. He hadn’t put his shirt back on but had tucked it in the back waistband of his cargo shorts. With the First-Blood headband and the shirt hanging down like the back half of a loincloth, he looked like a savage. Very Lord of the Flies.
    He was a total show-off. He—
    She stumbled over a tree root, and had to grab for a nearby branch to steady herself. He turned, and she could have sworn she’d seen his arm flash out to keep her from falling, but he quickly resumed walking without touching her. She stared at him, not to be rude or nosy but this time out of concern.
    “What’s that on your back?” she asked bluntly.
    “What?” Mr. Lord of the Flies scowled unpleasantly at her.
    “At first I thought you forgot to bathe, but I think you have a really huge bruise.” She pointed to the back of his rib cage.
    He stopped and twisted around, his face almost comically contorted. “I don’t have any stinking bruise. Man, you’re kind of creepy. Extra nipples and now phantom bruises.”
    “I’m looking right at it.” In spite of her annoyance at him, she felt a small twinge of compassion. The bruise was healing. She could tell by the way the color bloomed in the middle and faded at the edges. But it must’ve really hurt when it happened.
    His eyes narrowed and his face turned hard, and for a second, he looked menacing. “It’s nothing,” he stated. “I fell off my bike. Big deal.” He whipped around and kept going, hurrying so that Lolly had to rush to keep up.
    “Look, I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
    “I’m not mad at you,” he barked at her, and walked even faster.
    That was quick, she thought. Her first enemy of the summer. There were sure to be many more to follow. She had a knack for bringing out dislike in people.
    Even though Connor said he wasn’t mad at her, he was mad about something. There was fury in his taut muscles, his sharp movements. Big deal, so he hurt himself riding a bike. Usually when you fell off a bike, though, the casualties were elbows and knees, maybe the head. Not the back, unless you went tumbling down a hill and slammed into something really hard. Unless you were lying about what really happened.
    She was both intrigued by and disappointed in this boy. Disappointed because she desperately wanted to dislike him and not have to think about him again, all summer long. And intrigued because he was more interesting than he had a right to be. He was kind of edgy, too, with that too-long hair, low-slung pants, high-tops repaired with duct tape. And there was something in his eyes besides the usual stupid boy stuff. Those same ice-cube eyes that had read David Copperfield had probably seen things a girl like Lolly couldn’t even imagine.
    They hiked around a