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

would you let us use your parents’ room?” Chase asks, and I like him even more for it.

Ferris shrugs. “They’re out of town for the week, and the maid’s coming tomorrow anyway,” he answers in his regular voice. “Just don’t be gross and don’t try on any of my dad’s cravats.”

“Why would—”

“I know, you wouldn’t think people would have to be told that,” Ferris says, cutting me off and glaring at Linus, “and yet.”

Chase twines his fingers in mine and gives my hand a little tug. “You wanna?”

I think back to watching him dominate the field, to the smiles and winks he threw my way, the proud thanks at the end. I think of all the times I’ve admired his body in uniform or at pool parties or just walking down the hall wearing jeans way too well. I think of how the last time I took off my clothes with someone, it was my last night in the Outer Banks, a single night that felt much too honest at the time yet has been anything but since the first day of school.

And I say, “Yeah, I wanna.”

Ferris wasn’t kidding when he said they saved us a room; there’s a sign with a crown bearing a number 14 on the door and a little bowl next to the bed with more condoms than anyone could possibly use over the length of a party. My stomach flips at the sight. I’ve done my share of fooling around, but none of it has actually necessitated one of those colorful little packets.

Not that I’m opposed, and especially not with Chase; he’s been the guy I’ve imagined my first time with for years. Though maybe not in some guy’s parents’ bed at a house party, before we’ve gone on a second real date.

Chase laughs when he sees them. “I see someone was a little optimistic.” He closes the door behind us and swoops down to drop a kiss on my cheek. “Don’t worry. I have zero expectation of using those tonight.”

“Good,” I say without thinking, and before I can wonder if that was a mistake, Chase lifts me in his arms and kisses me.

“I thought your muscles hurt,” I mumble against his lips.

“Oh, right,” he says, and he drops me on the bed with a wicked grin.

“Hey!” But there’s no time for my teasing protest because he’s crawling up the bed and taking my face in his hands—paint smears be damned—and we’re making out like everyone else in the house, in the world, has disappeared.

“I hope this paint comes off in the wash,” I murmur as Chase kisses my neck, my arms definitely staining the linen.

“I hope it doesn’t,” he says, pushing aside the shoulder of my shirt to kiss the skin it was hiding. “There should be evidence of Stratford’s newest record holder scoring yet again that same night.”

“That’s awful.”

“I’m just teasing.” His fingers creep up my shirt, grazing over my belly button ring, waiting to see if they’ll be stopped on their journey to my special occasion lace bra.

They won’t.

I can feel the exact moment he realizes it.

“Hi there,” I say, and he laughs into my neck.

I help him slip my shirt off and then there’s no more talking, no more teasing, no more laughing. The kissing is fast and furious, hands wandering, and his shirt joins mine, casually tossed on the floor. We’re skin-on-lace and skin-on-skin and it’s all good until we start hearing catcalls through the door.

“Get it, Harding!”

“Go, boy, go!”

Oh God. I want to die, but Chase wrenches his mouth away from mine long enough to yell, “Fuck off, losers,” before reclaiming it. There’s more laughing outside and a voice that is definitely Linus’s calls, “I hope you’re properly servicing our champion!” but it’s a little more distant than the voices had been before and there’s a clear shuffling on the stairs and the sound of someone else—Keith or Lucas, maybe—saying, “Move it, pervs.”

I slump against Chase. “Well, that’s kind of a mood killer.”

“Is it?” He kisses me, clearly not bothered in the slightest.

The truth is, I don’t know. I hate that they make me sound like a groupie, but isn’t that what I am? What I’ve always been? Didn’t I sit in the bleachers for years just watching, cheering, being a fangirl of this guy who barely said hi in the halls until this year?

Didn’t I have fantasies of “servicing the champion” late at night in my room, in the bathtub?

Isn’t every bit of this exactly what I wanted?

“Maybe not,” I say, hoping it sounds like a genuine concession. I don’t want it to be a mood killer. I want us to be on the same page. I want this to feel real. I spent so much time fantasizing and I get to make it come true if I want to.

It’s so much power.

I just wish it felt like power I still wanted.

In a flash, I think of Gia, how she makes her dreams happen—whatever they are. How she does the thing and hopes emotions will follow, and they usually do. I can do that. I can do the thing. I can do the thing and feel what I want to feel, what I’m probably just too self-conscious to feel.

“I don’t know if I’m properly ‘servicing the champion,’” I say, tapping his lower lip.

“Again, not something I was counting on happening tonight.”

“I know.” And I do. “But say I wanted to.”

His eyebrows rise a fraction. “Do you?”

I’ve always wanted to, I think, but it’s a weird answer and a weird non-answer all at the same time, so I kiss down his chest instead, figuring that’ll say everything I need.

His breath hitches as I get to the top of his jeans and slowly undo the button, and it’s quiet enough for me to hear that there’s still hollering coming in our direction, but it must be from downstairs. I wish we’d put on music or something, but it’d seemed so loud earlier that it wasn’t necessary.

Now all I