Laguna Cove Read Online Free PDF Page B

was having none of it. “I can’t. I need to stop by the office,” she said.
    “What for? It’s the first day! What meeting could you possibly have already lined up?” Jade stared at her friend, eyes narrowed, arms folded across her chest. She knew Ellie was lying.
    “I need to drop off some papers. But I’ll see you at break, okay?”
    “Fine. Your loss,” Jade said, watching Ellie head toward the office on some sad, made-up mission. Anything to avoid Chris , she thought, knowing that she was the only one who knew the truth about Ellie and Chris. Heck, she probably knew it even better than Ellie did, since Ellie was a master at self-deception.
    Jade, Ellie, Lola, and Chris went way back. Jade was the first to arrive in Laguna Cove and, as she liked to point out, was the only true native, having actually been born at home, under the watchful eyes of the midwife, her dad, her two older sisters Ruby and Sapphire, her worried and disapproving grandparents (who begged their daughter to come to her senses and go to a nice, sterile hospital with real doctors and nurses), and, of course, her mother.
    But it was because of those very same disapproving grandparents that Jade got to live there in the first place. Jade’s mother had come from a wealthy family who did not approve of Jade’s father. Their daughter was beautiful and smart and had numerous doctors and lawyers to choose from. So why would she marry an artist? What future was there in that?
    But marry they did, flying off to Hawaii the day after college graduation. And by the time they returned, her parents—resigned to the situation—had presented them with their summer home as a wedding gift. It was the least they could do to ensure their future grandkids would be raised properly, and not in some artists’ commune or small apartment in Costa Mesa, like they feared.
    And now, after several years of moderate success, the demand for her father’s paintings had slumped. And with her grandparents now deceased and their debts spiking as her mother’s trust fund quickly dwindled, the “ecologically correct” home remodeling that they’d been enduring for the past year was put on indefinite hold, making certain areas of the house resemble an abandoned construction site.
    But Jade wasn’t bothered. It was easy enough to step around the unfinished areas, and if they all had to share the same bathroom, well, so what? She knew her dad would succeed again, it was just a matter of time. Besides, she was used to living in chaos; since she had grown up with two older sisters and very social parents who believed in an open door policy, there were always all kinds of people drifting in and out of her life. You never knew who you’d find sleeping on the couch on a Sunday morning, and Jade always assumed that’s how she became so accepting. She had learned early on that if you just looked hard enough, you’d see that even the most annoying person had something good in them.
    By the time she was old enough to walk she was building sand castles on the beach with Ellie, and it was the two of them that had taught Lola how to dive under waves when she first moved to Laguna Cove from Mexico City when she was eight. By the time they were in fourth grade Chris was on the scene, and sharing after-school jaunts to the beach and a love of surfing, he easily became the fourth in their tight little group.
    In junior high they were able to maintain their easy, casual friendship, not caring if Chris saw them in their pajamas, or with their faces covered in zit cream. But by ninth grade things started to change. They were all still friends, but it was almost like Chris had shown up that first day of high school suddenly looking like someone who, they all agreed, was really quite gorgeous. They knew him too well to ever think of him like that , but just because they felt that way didn’t mean anyone else did, and before they knew it flocks of girls were trying to befriend them just to