Fifteenth Summer - By Michelle Dalton Page 0,25

cinnamony and delicious, if I could just ignore the nubbly texture of the rice.

“Coconut jalapeño,” Abbie said, hanging her tongue out. “Spicy!”

“Cherry vanilla,” Hannah said. “Mmmm.”

“Ooh,” I said. “Let’s go halvesies.”

“Nope!” Hannah said. “Abbie said I could have the good one. Wingman’s honor.”

I grumbled as I nibbled at my pop, trying to avoid the bits of rice.

It was only when we turned off Main Street and Abbie and Hannah started debating outfits for the lantern party that my thoughts drifted back to Dog Ear. Suddenly I remembered something Josh had said.

“We could both read it.”

My eyes widened. I froze mid-lick.

He asked me to form an anti–book club with him, I realized. That’s definitely more meaningful than just saying, “You should come into Dog Ear sometime,” right?

I started to get a little short of breath. I trailed behind my sisters as I debated with myself.

Okay, hold on, I told myself. It’s not like he was asking me out on a date. He just wants to goof on a bad book. It’s not a big deal. Or is it?

“We could both read it and make fun of it.” That’s what he said. So where would this fun-making take place? Over coffee? On the beach? On a picnic blanket on the beach on which he has laid out a spread of all my favorite herb-free foods?

The itchy feeling of melted ice pop dripping down my arm pulled me out of my daydream, which had been veering into the truly ridiculous anyway. As I mopped the melted milk off my wrist, I shook my head.

He just means we could have a laugh the next time I wander into Dog Ear, I admonished myself. That’s all. I bet he won’t even bother to actually read it.

But that night in bed, as I flicked on my reading light and regarded the two books on my nightstand—Coconut Dreams and Sense and Sensibility—I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing the tropical romance.

As I read it, every florid paragraph seemed to have a footnote filled with the banter I could have with Josh.

And suddenly Coconut Dreams became a book that I really didn’t want to put down.

By the day of the lantern party, we’d been in Bluepointe for almost three weeks. We’d gotten used to having nothing to do—no jobs or sports practices to rush to, no exams to study for, no friends to meet up with. Everything had slowed down. And what little we had to accomplish could be stretched out for hours.

Which was why, after a morning at the beach and a protracted, piecemeal lunch on the screened porch, my sisters and I spent almost the entire afternoon getting ready for our evening.

This was not our usual thing. Abbie was strictly a wash-and-wear kind of girl, and Hannah could blow-dry her hair into a perfect, sleek ’do in about three minutes. My routine mostly involved working copious amounts of product into my hair to make it go corkscrewy instead of turning into a giant poof of frizz.

But this afternoon we were a veritable movie montage of primping, perfuming, and outfit sampling.

But that was the thing about having sisters. We fought and made fun of each other and stole each other’s clothes, but we also kept each other’s secrets. Abbie and I, for instance, never reminded Hannah about the time she threw up in the mall food court in front of about a hundred people. And whenever Abbie lost at a swim meet, Hannah and I knew that she wanted us to be near, but silent. So we’d sit with her on the couch, turn on a dumb reality show, and hand her a big bowl of Lay’s potato chips. By the time she made it to the bottom of the bowl, she was ready to talk about the meet, and we were there to listen.

So today, when all three of us turned into total girly-girls, which we definitely weren’t in our “real” lives, we knew that nobody outside that room would ever hear about it. We could be as ridiculously giggly as we wanted.

“I can’t decide!” Abbie groaned. She was looking at three outfits arranged on the big bed in Hannah’s room. “I can’t wear the dress, can I? That’s just trying too hard.”

“So you wear the white capris and the tank top,” I said. I was on the floor painting my toenails a buttery yellow color. “That’s more you anyway.”

“Yeah, but white means I have to be careful not to get dirty,” Abbie complained.

“What are you going