When Summer Ends (52 page)

I spent a lot of time on it; I wanted it to be perfect so
she would have no reason to doubt that I was doing a great job. I washed and
waxed it until I could see my reflection perfectly. I vacuumed everything,
shampooed the seats, emptied the ashtray of the candy wrappers. It seemed that
‘Little Miss rabbit food for lunch’ had a weakness for chocolate.

When I was finally done cleaning the car to within an inch
of its life, I pulled the pièce de résistance out of my pocket and laughed my
ass off. I grabbed the duct tape I’d brought with me and broke off a couple of
strips of it, and then proceeded to tape the large piece of raw steak to the
underside of her dashboard. It would take a while to rot, but she would have no
idea it was there, and would drive around for ages wondering what the putrid
smell was. This was another one of Sam’s genius creations.

And with that, payback three is completed!

I didn’t mess with the horses. Sam wanted me to let them out
so she’d have to catch them, but I didn’t want to do that in case they got hurt
or anything. I absolutely loved horses, so surprisingly I enjoyed the time I
spent with them. I took my mucking out punishment like a man and just got on
with it, dry heaving every couple of scoops. It took a lot longer than I
thought it would, but this was the only time I was doing it so I made sure to
do it properly so the horses would be comfortable.

When I was done with that and had scrubbed my hands for a
solid five minutes, she finally dismissed me. She handed me her English,
History and Biology assignments that were to be done by Monday morning,
instructing on nothing below a B again.
B my butt, she is getting a
detention for all three of these if Will has anything to do with it!
He had
made me promise that he could help me with her work if she gave it to me. I had
a feeling he was going to insist on a few additions that weren’t on the
syllabus.

I called him on the way home and arranged for him to come
and get me in an hour so I would have time for a shower. I felt disgusting
after all that cleaning. When I was clean and smelling like my old self again I
headed downstairs to spend a few minutes with my parents before Will showed up.

“Are you sure I look all right?” I asked for the hundredth
time. We’d just pulled up at the restaurant, and I could barely even stand
because my knees felt like they were shaking with nerves.

Will smiled and shook his head, obviously amused by my
antics. I’d been asking him the same thing for the last hour, but he never
seemed to get annoyed with me for it. Instead of mocking me for it, or telling
me to shut up, he’d calmly smiled and told me that I looked beautiful, perfect,
incredible, amazing, or some other superlative he could think of.

He took my hand now, pushing my carefully curled hair over
my shoulder, his fingers brushing against the skin there making me break out in
goosebumps. “I’m going to have the most beautiful girl in the whole
restaurant,” he cooed, kissing me softly.

I smiled. “Well do you think you could drop me home before
you get your freak on with her, you were my ride after all,” I joked, trying to
calm my nerves by straightening my black dress again.

He laughed and snaked his arm around my waist. “If you feel
uncomfortable at any point and want to leave then we should have a kind of code
word or something so that we can escape,” he suggested, looking thoughtful.

“Like, hedgehog or tadpole?” I offered, laughing at how
silly he was being.

“Tadpole, like it, we’ll go with that,” he agreed, obviously
thinking I was serious. I laughed harder as he led us towards the door of the
restaurant. My smile faded as I saw them all standing in the bar section,
obviously waiting for us seeing as they were all together.

“Oh crud,” I mumbled under my breath.

“Relax, Cutie, you’ll be great, and they’ll love you as much
as I do by the end of the night. Hell, my mom already loves you.” He gave me a
little squeeze as we closed the distance to his family. I plastered on a smile
and hoped that it covered the nervous face I was bound to be pulling
unconsciously.

As soon as we got to the group Sam stepped forward and
slapped Will around the back of the head, frowning at him. “How many times do I
have you to tell you to keep your hands off of my girlfriend!” he scolded.

I looked at Sam and burst out laughing. Will, on the other
hand, didn’t laugh. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to enjoy the night at all.
He looked like he wanted to seriously maim his brother; clearly he still hadn’t
forgotten the condom joke from yesterday.

Will turned and looked me right in the eye. “Tadpole?” he
asked, almost pleadingly.

I burst into a fit of giggles, probably making myself look
like a complete and utter moron in front of his family. This was not exactly
the impression I wanted to make on them. I was definitely acting like the
little school girl that I was. Will laughed too and pressed his forehead
against mine, his arm tightening on my waist.

I looked over to his parents, shooting them an apologetic
smile, but they were all grinning at us, Angela, his mom, was gazing at us like
we were the cutest thing ever. Will sighed and pulled away. “Guys, this is my
girlfriend, Chloe. Chloe, this is my crazy family. You know their names,
right?” he asked.

I nodded and smiled, holding out my hand politely. “Sure,
it’s nice to see you all again.”

Angela made a little ‘Aww’ noise as she shook my hand,
grinning at me happily. “I’m so happy you could come, Chloe. We’ve been
badgering Will to bring you over to the house, but he’s insistent in keeping
you all to himself,” she said, shooting him a fake glare.

Will laughed. “I don’t like to share,” he joked, brushing
his hand down my back.

I shook hands with the rest of the family, making polite
conversation with them for a few minutes until we were called through for our
table. As we were walking to our table, Sam grabbed my hand and pulled me
closer to him, leaning in to whisper in my ear.

“How did the things we discussed turn out today?” he asked,
obviously wanting to know about Erika but was trying to ask subtly because of
his family.

I grinned. “It was just as we planned,” I told him, nodding
happily. He held out a fist to me, obviously wanting to do one of those cheesy
fist knocks that he does with his brother. I just looked down at it and raised
one eyebrow. “Grow up, Sam. You Morris boys are so immature,” I stated, shaking
my head in mock disapproval.

He grinned and grabbed my hand, balling it into a fist and bumping
it against his. “You love it,” he teased, winking at me. “By the way, did she
have a diary?” He looked at me with an extremely hopeful expression on his face.

“No, Sam-bo. I looked, but she doesn’t have one,” I
confirmed, watching how he frowned. He really was a little weird to get so
excited about a girls diary. “Why so interested anyway?”

He smiled longingly. “If I can finally understand the inner
workings of a female brain then there will be no girl in the world that will be
able to resist me,” he stated, running a hand through his hair, trying to look
serious but there was a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

I burst out laughing. We got to our table then and Will
pulled my chair out for me, like the incredible boyfriend that he is. “Maybe
I’ll let you read my diary,” I joked to Sam. I didn’t have a diary, but I could
make up some trash and let him read it as a joke.

He scrunched up his face and shook his head fiercely. “You
think I want to read details about you and my brother getting your freak on?
Man, I can’t even think about you two getting naked and having se-” he started,
but he was cut off by Angela.

“Sam Morris! That’s enough,” she scolded, looking at him
shocked.

I clicked my tongue at him and shook my head theatrically.
“Listen to your mother, Sam-bo, you’re being rude,” I chimed in, smirking at
him.

He shot me a wink and grabbed his menu, looking at it with
mock interest. I looked back to Will. He smiled and inched his face closer to
mine, kissing me softly, holding his hand on the back of my head so I couldn’t
pull away. I blushed thinking about his parents seeing this, but it felt nice
to be out in front of people as a couple. To have him acknowledge me in front
of his family like this made me feel extremely special.

Sam cleared his throat. “You know, I’d pay to watch this if
you weren’t my brother, Will,” he stated, making everyone laugh and causing me to
blush harder.

Will pulled back slightly, leaving his hand on the back of
my head as he stared into my eyes, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“I love bringing you out and showing you off,” he whispered.

I heard Angela make the little ‘Aww’ again, but I ignored it
this time and just focused on Will and how he made me feel like I was the only
girl in this restaurant. “Right back at ya, Mr Morris,” I teased.

He smiled and kissed the tip of my nose before pulling back
and letting go of me. “So, what’s everyone having?” he asked loudly, changing
the subject as he scanned his menu.

Sam elbowed me in the side gently. “Foxy and I are sharing
the spaghetti so we can to the Lady and the Tramp thing,” he stated.

I laughed and shook my head as Will sighed and shot him a
dark look. This was going to be a fun night. It looked like Sam was intent on
annoying Will as much as possible.

As it turns out I was right, the night was incredibly fun.
Will’s family seemed to welcome me with open arms. His parents were great, just
like when I’d met them at Kaitlin’s wedding. I was worried that they wouldn’t
like me because of my age and the whole their son could be sent to jail at any
time thing, but they didn’t once mention me being underage or his student. Talk
was mostly what I liked to do, what were my family like, and general getting to
know you stuff.

His mom seemed to just love the fact that Will was happy.
She was incredibly cute. Her husband, William, was just like his boys, funny,
witty and flirted with his wife endlessly. Apparently this was their
twenty-eighth wedding anniversary, but yet they still looked at each other with
that loved up look in their eye. Each time he would wrap his arm around her, or
they would share a little smile or a laugh, I looked at Will and couldn’t help
but wonder if he would still look at me like that if we managed to make it that
long.

Kaitlin, Will’s sister, was adorable too. She was just like
Angela, kind, sweet and very, very talkative. Her husband, Andrew, was the
strong, silent type, but when he did add into the conversation he was
incredibly witty. They balanced each other out perfectly; she liked to talk a
lot, and he just seemed content to listen to whatever she had to say. They were
obviously still in the ‘honeymoon’ stage of their relationship because he
couldn’t seem to keep his hands off of her - much to Sam and Will’s obvious
disgust and remarks about them getting a room.

All in all, I loved it, and I loved them already too. I
really shouldn’t have expected his family to be any less than what they were.
With two incredible sons like Will and Sam, they were all bound to be great
people. In a way, meeting them made me feel a little bad though. I longed to do
this with Will and my family. I would love to take him home with me and have
him shake my dad’s hand and get his approval. I adored my dad, and his approval
of the love of my life would mean a lot to me. There was just six more months
and then I’d be able to do that. I couldn’t wait until I could show him off
proudly, just like he was doing with me right now.

As soon as we’d exchanged goodbye hugs with everyone, and
promised to go round to his parents’ house next Sunday for a family dinner, we
finally left for his apartment. I couldn’t wait to just have his arms around
me; it felt like it had been so long.

“So, how did I do?” I asked, wincing nervously, waiting for
his reaction.

He smiled and took my hand as he drove, pulling my hand into
his lap, our fingers interlaced. “You did great, Cutie. They loved you,” he assured
me.

I bit my lip and sank lower in the seat, unable to keep the
satisfied smile off of my face. “I can’t believe they just wouldn’t care about
everything like that. How can they approve of me, knowing that I’m seventeen
and your student?” I asked, shaking my head in awe of them.

He smiled and shrugged. “They just want me happy, and you,”
he brought my hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it softly, “you make
me very happy.”

I sighed contentedly and closed my eyes. “You make me very
happy too,” I confirmed, grinning like an idiot.

When we got to his apartment he looked a little tense. I had
a feeling he was worried that me staying over was pushing the boundaries a
little. I squeezed his waist reassuringly and pressed my side against his tighter.
He smiled down at me and pressed his lips to mine as he slipped his key in the
lock, he pulled back and put his forehead to mine. “I love you,” he whispered,
rubbing his nose against mine in a little Eskimo kiss.

“I love you too,” I responded immediately. He grinned and
pulled back, taking my hand and tugging me into his apartment, shutting the
door behind us. I watched as he locked the door, locking me into the apartment
for a change. I loved the sound of the click. That sound signalled that I was here
to stay for the night, the sound made my breath catch in my throat, and my
knees to tremble a little with excitement.

“Want something to drink? We could put on a movie, it’s only
half past ten,” he suggested, looking at his watch.

I shook my head and stepped closer to him, slipping my arms
around his neck. “I just want to go to bed with you.”

“Just to cuddle though, right?” he checked, bending to look
into my eyes.