Girls in Love
Authors: Hailey Abbott
A SUMMER GIRLS NOVEL
New York Toronto London Auckland
Sydney Mexico City New Delhi Hong Kong
For Jon, with love
“Get your flip-flops off my pillow,” Jessica yelped, giving her cousin Greer a playful shove. This sent a small avalanche of beauty products, the spoils of Greer’s habitual pre-vacation Sephora trip, onto the bamboo floor of their bedroom.
Greer, who was from New York City and thus way too cool to be pushed around, shot Jessica a warning glance, but there was humor in her wide hazel eyes.
“These are not flip-flops,” she corrected. “These are metallic thong sandals with hand-turned cork soles.” She grinned. “By Dolce & Gabbana. Dolce & Gabbana probably hasn’t made it to Ithaca, so I understand your mistake.”
Jessica started to stick her tongue out at Greer but
decided against it. She was a year younger than Greer, but that didn’t mean she had to act like it.
The three cousins—Jessica Tuttle, Greer Hallsey, and Lara Pressman—had only just arrived in the picturesque town of Pebble Beach, Maine, but they’d already laid claim to the biggest bedroom in the nicest of the three beach houses that the extended Tuttle family was renting. (“Because,” Greer had reasoned sweetly, “if the three of us have to share a room, we’re going to need
some
space.” And Jessica’s mom, Clare Tuttle, who liked to think she was in charge of the sprawling Tuttle family’s sleeping arrangements, had, of course, agreed. No one could say no to Greer when she turned on what Jessica called her “Magical Charm Ray.”)
Lara reached over the side of the bed and picked up one of the lipsticks that had rolled away during the commotion. “Mauve Minx?” she said doubtfully. “Who names these things anyway?”
Greer snatched it away playfully. “Mauve Minx sounds better than your Wet n Wild number 527,” she countered.
Lara blinked her lovely blue eyes innocently. “Who, me? I stopped wearing that in sixth grade.”
Jessica giggled, because she knew that wasn’t true. Lara had plenty of fancy makeup, thanks to Greer’s shopping tips, but she still had a soft spot for that drugstore pink. Plus
it was only $1.99, and Lara was saving up to fix the Beetle convertible she’d bought last summer, which looked amazing but seemed to break down about once a month. Not to mention there were all those plane tickets Lara had bought to visit Jessica—and, more important, Jessica’s older brother Drew—in Ithaca.
Jessica lay back against the soft bolster pillow and grinned. She was so glad to be back in Maine with her cousins; she’d been waiting for June all year, it seemed. Lara had flown in to Pebble Beach from Chicago, and Greer and her mother had made the trip from New York City in Greer’s new convertible Lexus.
“Did I mention that my mother sang along to the radio the whole way here?” Greer sighed. She picked up a stray blush and dabbed a little on her cheeks. “Do you know what it’s like to hear her try to channel Taylor Swift? It’s, like, cruel and unusual punishment.”
“At least you didn’t have to fly coach from Chicago next to a guy with terrible B.O. and a deep desire to become your new best friend,” Lara pointed out.
The two cousins proceeded to argue—good-naturedly of course—about whose trip to Pebble Beach was worse, and Jessica let her mind wander.
Though last year had had its share of misunderstandings and confusions—which was a nice way of saying
“plenty of drama”—she knew that this year was going to be better. Maybe even the best summer yet. A lot of that had to do with Greer and Lara, but still more had to do with Connor Selden, the cute, sweet guy she’d fallen for last summer.
“What are you smiling about?” Lara asked, grabbing Jessica’s toe and shaking it. “You need a pedi, by the way.”
Jessica blushed. “I was thinking about Connor,” she admitted.
“Connor!” Greer exclaimed, sounding uncharacteristically gushy. She’d always preferred him to his older brother, Liam, whom Jessica had liked first. “How is he? You guys are still together, huh? By the way, Lara’s right about the pedi. I vote for a nice seashell pink.”
Jessica nodded, ignoring the comments about her chipping toenail polish. “He came and visited once, and we talked almost every day. We even wrote letters!”
Jessica remembered Connor’s visit to Ithaca—it had been so wonderful, but he’d had to leave much too soon! She had kept all of Connor’s notes, though, and sometimes when she missed him she’d take them out and read them all in order. Her favorites were the ones where he talked about watching the sun set over the ocean, and how he always imagined he was watching it with her and holding her in his arms. It was so romantic, she almost couldn’t believe her luck.
Lara raised her eyebrows. “Letters? You mean, not e-mail, but with real pen and paper? It must be true love.”
Jessica blushed at this last word.
“Or maybe they don’t have e-mail in Ithaca, either,” Greer said drily. She seemed to think that New York was the only real city there was, and that everything else was some sort of backward village where people lived in grass huts and let their sheep graze in the public square.
“Very funny,” Jessica said. “We’re not a total cow town, you know. We do have Cornell, remember?”
Greer grinned slyly. “How could I forget? Cornell—and Cornell
guys.
I really ought to visit you more often.”
Lara waved her hands over her head. “Hey, ladies, focus! We’re talking about Connor and how much Jessica looooooves him.”
Greer laughed, but Jessica bit her lip, suddenly serious. Was it love? She wasn’t sure what love felt like. Was love butterflies in your stomach? Was it feeling giddy just at the mention of a person’s name? According to Britney Spears, love was “a state of grace, transcending time and space”—but Britney’s music gave Jessica the dry heaves.
All she knew was that she felt incredibly close to Connor, especially after he visited. Over the time they’d been apart, she’d realized that she wanted to get even closer.
“I just—” She paused. “Um…”
“Spit it out, Jess,” Greer commanded, pointing a
sharp-looking pencil at her. “This Bobbi Brown eyeliner can be used as a very effective weapon.”
“Well,” Jessica almost whispered, “you know how we only got together sort of at the end of the summer last year?” Her cousins nodded encouragingly. It had taken until August for Jessica to realize that Connor liked her, and that she liked him back. “Well, it meant that there hasn’t been a lot of time for…” Jessica paused again. “A lot of time for…”
Lara frowned and pursed her little bow-shaped lips. “For
hanky-panky
?” she asked in her best schoolteacher voice. “Because you know what we say about
hanky-panky.
”
Jessica raised her eyebrows in confusion. “What?”
“The more the better!” Greer and Lara shrieked simultaneously.
Jessica was sure her cheeks were burning red. She wouldn’t need blush for days at this rate. “You guys,” she cried, “seriously!”
Her cousins immediately stopped cackling and looked at her, and Jessica was struck again at how gorgeous they both were: glamorous Greer with her statuesque figure and movie-star looks, and black-haired Lara with her pixie-ish beauty. She always felt like a tomboy next to them, even though they told her all the time that she was beautiful, too.
“Sort of like Heidi Klum,” Greer always said, “if she were American instead of German.”
Jessica hesitated, but she wanted them to know how she felt. “I mean, Connor and I have gotten really close in the past year. And now that we can finally be together, I want us to be even closer. Like, physically.”
Greer looked up from the magazine she’d opened and stared at her. “Go on.”
Jessica wanted to bury her face in her pillow but she made herself say it. “I want us to…I want him to be my first.”
Lara’s jaw dropped and she looked as if she might collapse onto the bamboo rug in shock.
Jessica felt her heart beating faster as she recalled the conversations she and Connor had had over the year. “We’ve—Connor and I have been talking about it. I don’t even know whose idea it was first, but…we’re both totally ready.”
Greer smirked. “So little Jessi is growing up!”
Jessica shoved Greer again, this time with one athletic, very unpedicured foot. “Jessi
ca
. Or Jess, if you really can’t be bothered to say all three syllables.”
Lara struggled to look less surprised. “That’s a big deal, Jess,” she said. “Wow! I guess this summer is going to be different than last summer!” She walked over to one of the
sleek, white laminate dressers and dumped in an armful of vintage scarves she’d taken out of her suitcase.
Jessica giggled as she flopped back down on Greer’s big bed, gazing at the classic movie posters that Lara had brought all the way from Chicago and tacked to the room’s clean, white walls. (“Bare is boring,” Lara had said, pinning a
Roman Holiday
poster near the door. “Depends on what kind of bare you’re talking about,” Greer had countered, with a sly smile on her face.)
Jessica put her hands behind her head and sighed. “I sure hope it’ll be different. I know that at least I won’t be following Liam Selden around, waiting for him to notice me.” She felt a tingle at the thought that she’d soon be spending all her time with Connor. “But what about you guys? What are you looking forward to? Maybe we should, like, write down our goals.” Her mom always said writing something down was the best way to make it happen, which was why she stuck Post-it notes all over their house that said things like “Lose five pounds” and “Encourage children to do dishes more often.”
Greer reached into her giant Chloe bag and pulled out a thick pad of paper and a glittery pink pen.
She could probably carry a whole typewriter in that bag
, Jessica thought. Though Greer was really more of an iPhone type.
“Excellent idea,” Greer said. She wrote Jessica’s name at the top of a piece of paper and underneath it scribbled,
Lose virginity.
“If my mom finds that, I will absolutely kill you,” Jessica hissed, resisting the urge to snatch the paper from Greer’s hands and burn it in one of the aromatherapy candles that dotted the room’s bamboo shelves.
Greer laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m
excellent
at hiding things.” She wrote her own name next, thought for a minute, and then wrote,
Fall for a trustworthy guy.
Jessica was startled. “What about Brady?” The son of the sailing club owner in Pebble Beach, Brady was handsome, sweet, and kind, and Greer had been head over heels for him last summer. Had he turned out to be a jerk somehow?
Greer brushed her silky brown hair away from her face and looked wistful. “He wasn’t quite as perfect as I thought.”
“Tell,” Lara insisted. “Do we need to go to the sailing club and beat him up?”
Greer smiled at Lara’s fiery look. “Fortunately not. He’s spending the year sailing around Europe and the Mediterranean, working on the ship of some French billionaire or something. He said he couldn’t pick a long-distance relationship over a chance to see the world. And you know
what? I wouldn’t, either.” She straightened her shoulders. “But still. I want to find someone who’ll stick around this time.”
Jessica thought this sounded reasonable, though it was still a little surprising coming from Greer, who had broken about as many hearts as the beach had grains of sand. Usually Greer was the love-’em-and-leave-’em-weeping-in-the-dirt type. But then again, Jessica had been a total jock last summer, and now she wore high heels and dresses sometimes, so it seemed that people were capable of change.
“And you, Lara?” Jessica said, watching Greer write Lara’s name on the paper, too.
Lara pursed her lips and looked thoughtful as she gazed up at the whirling ceiling fan. “I want to stop keeping secrets from people I love,” she said.
Jessica was about to ask Lara to clarify her goal, but there was a knock on the door. She looked up in surprise, and suddenly Connor was bursting into the room, narrowly missing the pile of Greer’s makeup that was still lying on the floor. He was already tanned from surfing, and his eyes were the color of the ocean on a stormy morning. Without even thinking, Jessica leapt off the bed and into his arms, and he picked her up and swung her around, planting a knee-weakening kiss on her lips. When he pulled away
and she caught her breath, she saw her cousins grinning at her.
“Puppy love,” Greer whispered, grinning, and this time Jessica
did
stick her tongue out at her.
Connor kept his arm tight around Jessica’s shoulder. “Hey, girls, welcome back to the greatest town in all of North America. I’m going to steal Jessica away for a little while. But I’ll see you tonight?”
Greer perked up. “At the bonfire?” There was always a bonfire to kick off the start of summer, complete with a keg, good music, and plenty of drool-worthy boys.
Connor shook his head. “No bonfire this year. It was getting old. All we did was sit around and watch a bunch of logs burn. Chace Warner’s parents are in France for the summer, so he’s having a party instead.”
“But we don’t know who that is,” Lara pointed out.
Connor laughed. “Doesn’t matter. There’s always room on the guest list for three beautiful summer girls.”
At that, the cousins grinned at one another.
Jessica glanced up at Connor, thrilled to be near him again after all those months apart. He looked taller, and he was definitely cuter. There was a bit of stubble on his cheek and she wanted to reach out and touch it with her fingertip. She didn’t care about a party; she just wanted to be with him.
“We’ll definitely come, then,” Greer said. “And we’ll raise a toast to our goals, girls, won’t we?” She tucked the paper with their hopes for the summer into her purse and patted it protectively.
Jessica giggled and boldly slid her hand into Connor’s back pocket, and she felt him kiss the top of her head. She was going to have a summer to remember. She was sure of it.
