Page 23 of Summer Official

“These are really good. You’re really good.” Her knee nudges mine as she says it. I don’t think she did it on purpose, but it’s almost like the moment she kissed my cheek—the skin of her bare knee burning a hole through my black Dickies, warming my whole leg. My throat goes dry, and my face is just getting hotter.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I feel like I have good people skills and I’m good at sports, except for when I trip over my own feet and break my arm and face.”

“I’ve seen you play sports. You’re good. And there’s nothing wrong with your face.”

“Thanks, but I still wish I had this kind of talent. For the ‘draw your mom a picture’ square, I’m gonna have to use some crayons. And my left hand.”

“I’ll draw something simple for you and you can use your crayons to color it in,” I say.

Saylor laughs. “Thanks. Okay. There’s one big thing we need to do. We need to come up with your new username. You can go two ways with this.”

“Mm-hmm?”

“You can use your name. Clean, very professional.”

I shake my head. “Too personal.” Saylor smiles again, nipping the side of her lip.

“You don’t have to put your full name on your profile. A lot of tattoo artists don’t. I was thinking you could do a play on your name. I was thinking of puns and stuff. And then I thought I could look up all the songs with the wordheavenin them. There’s a ton, so I narrowed it down to songs that haveheavenin the title.”

“You did?”

“There’s one eighties song my dad loves—”

“ ‘Hands to Heaven’?” she guesses.

“That’s the one.”

“Okay. So, I was thinking Hand It 2 Heaven, but with the two i’s like Beyoncé spells it. There’s already like ten people with usernames that are variations of the song title, but no one has taken that yet.”

I think for a second trying to visualize this fresh new profile. “I like it.”

“I think you should use one of your sad-clownself-portraits as your profile picture.” She laughs. “I’m sorry, those are so funny. It’s like you captured the goth vibe you are clearly hiding behind.”

I glare at her, and she does this thing that kind of melts my brain. She scrunches her nose up at me and leans back just a little. She’s teasing me on purpose again, my heart truly can’t take it. I am not cut out for her platonic flirting.

“I’m glad you like them. Jake’s mom was worried she was gonna have to call a therapist for me.”

“No, I love them,” Saylor says. Just as her stomach lets out the loudest grumble.

“Dang! You hungry?” I snort.

“Yeah, I could eat.”

“Come on. I’ll make us something and then we can actually think about the bingo for a second.”

“Good call. Watch us spend the whole summer together and don’t finish a square.” She laughs.

I grab my tablet and lead the way downstairs thinking that that might not be so bad. As long as we’re together. I really need help.

14

Heaven

I put the dogs in their crates and then start digging through the fridge while Saylor makes herself comfortable at the island.

“Is your fridge color coded?” she asks.