Last Chance Summer - Shannon Klare

Prologue

March

“You’re coming, right? You have to come. Why am I even asking this question? You’re totally coming.”

“You know I can’t,” I said, repeating myself for the third time.

Ahead, taillights on a double-parked Prius flashed to life. Nikki slowed beside the driver’s side, her brown eyes assessing me behind oversized sunglasses.

“You could,” she said, ignoring me for the millionth time. “You’re just too scared.”

My hand wrapped around the blistering passenger-side handle, my feet unmoving. “My parents would have a full-on meltdown,” I said, opening the door. “I can’t. Final answer.”

I slid into the passenger seat, suffocated by thick Louisiana heat. The minute Nikki turned the key in the ignition, I reached for the temperature knob. The lowest setting blew hot through the vents, shifting colder as she reversed from the spot.

“Everyone will be there,” she said after a pause, joining a row of cars exiting the mall. “Don’t be the girl who doesn’t go.”

“I’m still grounded,” I said, scowling. “Today was an exception.”

She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, her face tilting my way. “Then sneak out.”

Not on my worst day was sneaking out an option. She would know that, had she paid attention the last three months.

I shook my head.

“Why are you trying to ruin my night?” she groaned.

“Why are you being such an inconsiderate friend?” I shifted toward her, the leather seat burning the back of my legs. “It’s easy for you to sit over there and judge me, but you’ve never experienced this level of grounding. Stop for point-five seconds and put yourself in my shoes.”

“I’m trying,” she said, turning onto a side road. “But I’m having major friendship withdrawals. Do you realize my only wing-woman is Brooke? She doesn’t even use makeup primer. Beauty sin numero uno.”

“She isn’t that bad.”

“She isn’t you,” Nikki said. She turned the air conditioner from low to mid-seventies, frowning, stewing quietly in the driver’s seat. “How much longer do you have, anyway? Is it until the end of the month, or end of the school year?”

“End of the month,” I said.

The two-story mall disappeared behind us, our all-day shopping trip my first nonschool outside interaction in weeks. Confined to the Reynolds’s fortress of solitude, my long-term house arrest left me clinging to legitimate social interaction like it was essential to survive. The sooner the grounding ended, the quicker I could go back to my normal life with a less-complainy version of Nikki.

“That will take forever,” she said after a minute. “I can’t suffer that long.”

“You aren’t the one suffering. I’m the one getting an endless string of texts from half the junior class. Everyone wants to know where I’m at and why I’m not coming. Like they don’t know,” I said.

“Then skip your all-night painting sesh and get back into the scene,” Nikki said. “You haven’t been around since Thanksgiving, Alex. I know you’re trying to follow the rules or whatever, but this grounding is going to ruin your rep.”

“Again, it isn’t my choice,” I said, grabbing a nude lip-gloss from my bag.

Nikki’s laser focus and unbending willpower may have gotten her what she wanted 90 percent of the time, but no one could match my stubbornness.

“It could be,” she said.

“But it’s not.”

Her lips spread into a thin line as her manicured nails reached for the radio. “Fine. Be a party pooper.”

“Fine. I will.”

I swiped the gloss across my lips and tossed it back into the bag, glancing at my phone as it lit up inside.

Mitch: Where are you?

“I can’t handle you too,” I groaned.

Mitch Watson could go to hell in a handbasket. The sooner, the better.

“Handle who?” Nikki said, swerving far enough to the left to earn a blast of a horn.

I nudged her, my eyes darting to the road. “Could you stay in your lane for literally five seconds?” I said.

“Metaphorically or literally?” she said, grinning. She motioned to the phone, shades of mischief crossing her freckled face. “Based on your attitude, it has to be Mitch. Is he still blowing up your phone?”

“Has been since yesterday,” I said. “You’d think he’d eventually get the point. As far as I’m concerned, he can go back to LSU and leave me alone.”

“That’s my girl!” Nikki said, nudging me from across the console. “Boy didn’t know what he had. You’re better off without him.”

“Truth,” I said, more to myself than Nikki. “Any boy who takes more than three months to realize he messed up doesn’t deserve me. It’s time to move on to someone better. Smarter.”

“Better-looking and preferably the captain of a