Sunkissed by Kasie West (popular e readers .txt) 📕

ALSO BY KASIE WEST

The Distance Between Us

Pivot Point

Split Second

On the Fence

The Fill-In Boyfriend

P.S. I Like You

By Your Side

Love, Life, and the List

Lucky in Love

Listen to Your Heart

Fame, Fate, and the First Kiss

Maybe This Time

Moment of Truth

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2021 by Kasie West

Cover art copyright © 2021 by Ana Hard

Cover lettering copyright © 2021 by Jill De Haan

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

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Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: West, Kasie, author.

Title: Sunkissed / Kasie West.

Description: First edition. | New York : Delacorte Press, [2021] | Audience: Ages 12 and up. | Summary: Betrayed by her best friend and dragged off to a remote family camp, seventeen-year-old Avery’s dreams of a perfect summer seem over until a whirlwind romance leads to an unexpected journey of self-discovery.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020031481 (print) | LCCN 2020031482 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-593-17626-9 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-0-593-17627-6 (library binding) | ISBN 978-0-593-17628-3 (ebook)

Subjects: CYAC: Family life—Fiction. | Camps—Fiction. | Love—Fiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.W51837 Sun 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.W51837 (ebook) | DDC [Fic] —dc23

Ebook ISBN 9780593176283

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Contents

Cover

Also by Kasie West

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Acknowledgments

About the Author

To my big sister, Heather Garza. I’ve always looked up to you (even though you’re the shortest in the family). Love you!

I took a breath and closed my eyes, letting the sun-drenched glass warm me as I leaned my head against the car window. This was going to be a perfect summer. If I said it enough times, it would come true. After everything that had happened this week, I needed a good summer. The one before my senior year was mine to claim, Dad had said months ago. I was ready to claim it.

Up front, my parents had turned the radio to barely audible but I could just make out a Taylor Swift song. My AirPods had lost their charge ten minutes ago, rendering the remainder of my perfectly curated road trip playlist—Stuck in the Backseat with You—useless. As I felt myself drifting toward sleep, my sister’s voice rang out louder than necessary from beside me.

“Hey, viewers. Happy summer! We’re on hour four of our car ride and so ready to be done. Say hi to my older sister, Avery!”

Lauren had her elbows propped on the pillows between us and was holding up her phone, the camera facing me. Behind her phone, she gave a silent plea that said, Give me something, anything, aside from your normal boring face. Since boring was the face I was born with, I held up a peace sign, which apparently was good enough, because she flipped the recording back to her. “This year, the parents are taking us to the middle of the forest. Are you ready to join us?” She pointed the camera out the car window, the tall pine trees zooming by in a hazy blur.

The middle of the forest wasn’t exactly how I’d describe the four-star family camp we’d be spending the summer at, but exaggeration is the key to any good social media video. I shook my AirPod case as if that would make them charge faster. I needed some noise-canceling, head-clearing music.

“Did you girls pack your swimsuits?” Mom asked, even though there was nothing we could do about it now, four hours from home, if we hadn’t.

Lauren dropped her hand. “Mom, I was recording.”

“Oh, sorry,” Mom whispered.

“Well, I’m not anymore.”

“I hear there’s a huge Slip ’N Slide at this camp,” Dad said, as if this was the most exciting thing a seventeen- and a fifteen-year-old could hear. “Supersized for super kids.” He laughed at his own joke, and I couldn’t help but laugh too.

Lauren gave me the Really? look, then said, “There’s real water, too, though, right?”

“Real water?” Mom asked.

“A lake or something?”

“Yes, there’s a lake and a pool,” Dad responded as he took a curve too fast, pushing me against the door.

“I don’t know why we couldn’t just go to the camp we went to a couple years ago,” Lauren complained. “It was closer and the roads weren’t so windy.”

“Because this year is our epic adventure,” Dad said. “Next summer Avery will be so busy prepping for college she’ll boycott a family vacation.”

“So true,” I said, and smiled when my mom turned around to make sure she shouldn’t be offended. When she saw my face, she gave my leg a little slap.

Both my parents had summers off. Mom was a professor at UCLA and Dad taught sixth grade and coached middle-school basketball. So most summers for as long as I could remember, we went on an “adventure.” Sometimes it was a cabin on the lake or a KOA near the beach. And most of the time, it really was an adventure. Sometimes