A Summer to Remember - By Jessica Gunhammer Page 0,45

stairs of the apartment and through the small backyard. There wasn’t anything special about it. It had a chain-link fence and there weren’t any trees or bushes, just some small shrubs by the deck. We walked up the two steps on the deck and Adrian slid open the sliding glass door and gestured for me to go in before him. I walked into the dining room. The space was tight, so I took a few more steps in so Adrian could come in and close the door.

I glanced around the room. We were standing in a small dining area. To the right was the kitchen, which had the same wood floor as the one we were standing on, and in front of us was the living room. There was a staircase that led to the second floor.

“Mom! Dad! You guys ready?” Adrian yelled through the house.

“We’ll be down in a second!” a lady’s voice responded from upstairs.

“Let me show you around.” We walked around the downstairs of the house while we waited for his parents. The hallway was lined with all sorts of family pictures and it led to a bathroom and two bedrooms. He pointed out his brothers and sisters to me and with each photo he had a story to tell about when they were kids.

“We’re ready,” a lady’s voice said from behind us.

“Hey Mom, Dad, this is Ava.” I plastered on my best smile and I tried to hide the fact that I was extremely nervous. “This is my mom, Cheryl.” He gestured to the lady standing in front of me. I reached out and shook her hand. She was shorter than me with natural blonde shoulder-length hair and blue eyes. You’d never be able to tell she had five kids with her petite frame. She wore blue jeans and a nice purple top. “And this is my dad, Craig.”

“Nice to meet you guys.” Craig was tall and had dark tanned skin. You could tell he’d spent a lot of years working out in the sun. He had a thick gray mustache and matching gray hair that stuck out from under his baseball cap. He wore blue jeans and a nice green and black button down collared shirt.

“So you must be the owner of the mystery vehicle in the driveway,” Craig joked. I could feel my checks becoming warm.

“Yes, that would be me.”

“We’ve heard a lot about you.” Cheryl smiled at Adrian.

“Good things, I hope.” I looked at Adrian.

“Of course.” He smiled at me. “You guys ready to go?”

“Yep. I just have to grab my purse,” his mom answered.

It didn’t take long before we were at the restaurant. When we got inside, we sat at a tall table in the bar. I felt a little overdressed, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

“So your parents don’t mind that you two are living together?” Cheryl asked after the waitress took our orders and collected our menus.

“I thought they would, but when we told them, they were a lot more understanding than I thought they would be.” Adrian grabbed my hand and I smiled at him. Craig wasn’t paying much attention to our conversation. He was busy drinking his beer and watching the baseball game on the big screen behind us.

“Are you close with your family?” she asked.

“Yes.” I nodded and took a drink of my soda. “Very close, actually.”

“How do they feel about you moving to Florida?” I looked at Adrian, trying to figure out the best way to answer this question.

“Actually, she’s not going to Florida. She’s staying here since she’s already enrolled at Brant.” I was relieved Adrian answered for me.

“Really?” Cheryl sounded surprised.

“Just for the semester!” I blurted out. Adrian looked over at me with a confused look on his face. “I mean, I’m just enrolled at Brant for the semester, and we’ll see where things go from there.” I couldn’t believe I just said that out loud. I wasn’t really thinking of going to Florida, or I didn’t think I was. It crossed my mind, but I didn’t want to say anything or make any decisions until the semester was over.

“Good for you guys. Long distance relationships can be hard, but if you really want to, you’ll find a way to make it work.” The waitress brought our salads and sat them down in front of us.

The rest of dinner went pretty smoothly, and by the end of the night we were all cracking jokes and having a good time. On the