Swing and a Mishap (Summersweet Island 2)

Emily just throws her head back and laughs. And laughs, and laughs, and laughs, my mom joining in with her until I finally slam my hand down on the table and they zip their lips.

“Shut the hell up and just tell me what to do.”

“That’s my girl,” Mom says with an encouraging smile, patting me on the back. “You go get yourself the D.”

“Jesus, Mom,” I complain while Emily tells me what to do.

“Listen, kid. You two have had no problem talking and spilling your guts about your gross feelings and shit once everything was out in the open. It’s time for you to do the same thing with sex. You need to tell him what you want and show him you are much more than just someone’s mom. That you are a sexy piece of ass who deserves a good dicking for the first time in her life.”

Mom nods at what Emily’s saying, and my palms start to sweat, glad that my mom took my phone from me and is still holding it; otherwise, I’d probably drop it. She’s absolutely right, even though it makes me nervous as hell, and now I’m pissed again. I’ve waited my whole life for this, and Shepherd is continuing to make me wait. The nerve of him!

“How long is he gonna be busy with his parents?” Emily asks, and I look at the time in the upper corner of my phone screen.

“He said he’d call me as soon as he left their house and got to his boat. He hasn’t called yet, so it will be another forty minutes or so after he does.”

“I love how causally you throw out his boat, like it’s a canoe instead of a million-dollar sport yacht power boat with two cabins below deck.” Emily laughs, making me roll my eyes at her. “Change of plans. You’re going to text him right now and tell him there’s an emergency at the Dip and Twist.”

“What? Why? I don’t want to lie and scare him,” I tell her.

“No, no, this is good,” my mom nods in agreement. “Not a scary lie, just something small that will make him come running. Like, you dropped a three-gallon drum of ice cream on your foot and you think it’s broken.”

“Oooh yes!” Emily cheers. “And you really don’t want to bother him, but no one else is answering their phones, blah, blah, be your sweet, usual self who doesn’t want to put anyone out, and then bam! You’re getting fucked into next week.”

I just shake my head at her.

“I don’t understand how me lying to him and then him racing here and finding out it’s a lie is going to make him want to do anything of the sort.”

“Laura, move the phone around so I can see Wren’s back,” Emily orders.

My mom quickly does as she’s told, and Emily disappears from sight along with my mom’s arm. Before I can turn my head and ask my mom what the hell she’s doing, her hand holding the phone is already coming around from behind me to hold it up in front of us, and I can see Emily’s smiling face again.

“Oh, this is gonna be a piece of cake,” Emily muses. “A very hot and dirty piece of cake.”

“Still not following,” I remind her, raising my hand and waving it in the air.

“Wren, you’re wearing his last name on your back. Big and bold, the word OLIVER is splashed across your shoulders,” she tells me as I look down at the fitted white T-shirt with the Hawks mascot on the front. “If you’re turned around when he walks in there, he’ll be a goner for sure. Probably won’t even be able to control himself. I’m getting hot just thinking about it.”

It’s the same shirt I was wearing the day I saw him again when he snuck up on me in the back of the Dip and Twist. Thinking back to that moment, I push aside all the hurt and anger from that day and just focus on my memory of what Shepherd looked like when I turned around and saw him standing there in front of me. He was panting, his hands were clenched into fists, there was a muscle ticking in his jaw, and I guess I just thought he was annoyed when I called him human garbage. But now that I really concentrate on that memory, replay it in my head slower, his features and his entire demeanor actually softened once he was no longer looking at my back, and he laughed when I called him human garbage. He only looked like that as soon as I first turned around.

And he looked like that the night I came to his cottage, when he flung the door open and saw it was me standing there on his porch instead of his mom.