Cool for the Summer by Dahlia Adler (the read aloud family .txt) 📕

with my dad moving to New York and dropping me to only Christmases and summers.”

The shop is empty except for us, and the older woman behind the counter is sitting with her feet up and a small TV turned on to soap operas, so I imagine she won’t mind if we make ourselves comfortable. I drop onto the floor across from Jasmine and take the wig from her hands before she can twist off all the artificial hair with her anxious fingers.

“I am,” I say, and I mean it. “My mom has had to be double the parent, but she’s amazing, and I couldn’t ask for better. Is that why you never talk about home and your school friends? I’d never even heard of Laila before today.”

She shrugs and slides down the wall onto the linoleum. “I guess. It just feels like two different worlds—there and here. It’s like it isn’t even part of the same life.”

For a second, my mind flashes to when we were feeling each other up under the watchful eyes of Constance Wu and Gemma Chan, and I know exactly what she means.

“What are Laila and your other friends doing this summer? I’m surprised you don’t have any other school friends here.”

“Asheville’s pretty kick-ass during the summer, so most people stay home and go hiking and to festivals and whatever. Laila and our friend Kendall work at a day camp together. I get to come back at the end of every summer and listen to two months of private jokes before everything gets back to normal.”

I pull off my blond curls and toss the wig to her. “You can’t win, huh?”

She spins the wig on her finger and exhales into a self-deprecating laugh. “God, I sound like such a brat. Boo-fucking-hoo that I spend the summers in a gorgeous, expensive beach house with a pool and hot tub.”

“You get to boo-fucking-hoo that you’re lonely, Jas,” I say softly, because I realize that’s exactly what she is. Her friends at home feel conditional, her friends here feel like surface-level entertainment, she isn’t with the parent she knows wants to spend time with her, and she is with the one she feels doesn’t give a shit.

She is lonely and hurting and has been for a long time.

A tear forms in one of her eyes and is wiped away so quickly I almost think I’ve imagined it. “Hashtag onlychildproblems. And hey,” she says, tossing the wig back, “I’m not lonely this summer, right?”

I smile. “Sure as hell not.”

“So, are you doing it?” She nods toward the hair. “It looked damn good.”

Jasmine thinking it looks damn good shouldn’t have any effect on me, but the heat crawling up my skin would suggest it does. Still, I force myself to shake it and think about what I want.

And I thought it looked pretty damn good too.

I never do this. I’m the opposite of lonely; pretty much every decision in my life involves a consultation with my mom, or Shannon, or both. This would be me, and only me, making a choice, alongside someone who isn’t gonna be there on the first day of school when people see it for the first time.

Me.

“Yeah,” I say, getting to my feet and holding out a hand to Jasmine. “I’m doing it.”

She takes my hand and grins as I pull her up. “Good. Because I already made the appointment, and it’s in fifteen minutes.”

“Jasmine!”

“It takes time to get an opening there!” she says, holding up her hands in the universal gesture of innocence. “I wasn’t gonna make you go if you didn’t want to.”

“Hmph.” I turn back to the mirror and put the wig on one last time, just to make sure.

I look really freaking good.

“Fine,” I say, taking it off and putting it back on the mannequin while Jasmine puts back the wigs she’d been sporting. “Let’s go change my life or whatever.”

Chapter Fourteen

NOW

It takes forever to get through the swarm of congratulatory partiers once we arrive at Ferris’s. Everyone wants a piece of Chase—a picture, an autograph, a hug, a kiss on the cheek.… I can’t imagine what else they’d be looking for if he were single, but he made very clear at the game that he isn’t, and I walk through the crowd feeling like I’m wearing a full-body halo.

“Sorry it’s such a circus,” he murmurs to me when yet another guy comes over and claps a meaty hand on his shoulder. It seems like every athlete at Stratford has come out for this, whether they’re into football or not. News travels fast. I had to set my phone to Do Not Disturb because it was lighting up with notifications from every single social media app. People aren’t just cheering on the team’s win or Chase’s record; they’re sharing videos of him asking me to the dance, of me responding, of their heart-eye emojis and dreams of finding a guy like that.

It’s not like I’m unused to getting some attention, but this is seriously next-level. Even Shannon’s completely out-of-control sweet sixteen didn’t storm social media like this, and she had performers from Cirque du Soleil.

I can’t see Shannon, but I can hear her across the room, laughing and flirting and, from the sound of it, getting deep into Ferris’s extensive liquor stash. I wonder if she’s with Gia and Tommy, or with Lucas, or with someone else entirely. I’m just glad she’s here. It means she’s not sulking over not being the star of the night, like she did last year when Tommy’s promposal to Gia way overshadowed hers, or when dating-my-lab-partner-Jamie Taylor dyed their hair to match the nonbinary flag the same day Shannon got her first lowlights.

“Well, if it isn’t the king and queen of the evening!” Linus Doyle swoops forward with an exaggerated bow, Hunter Ferris himself at his heels.

“We have reservedeth a room for the royal couple,” Ferris says in a regal voice, “but do not breaketh any shit, for it is my parents’ room. Eth.”

“Dude, why