Over It (The Kiss Off #2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

asked, startled. "Yeah, of course, I know."
    "And girls..." She leaned down to the passenger window and rapped on the glass. Mads buzzed down her window and cool air wafted out into the humid, low hundred degree day. Whoa. Hamish’s air conditioning was bad ass. Maybe it wasn’t such a junker after all.
    "Madeline," Mom said, "Nicola."
    "Yes Mrs. Douglas?" they both responded, removing sunglasses and plastering solemn, polite expressions on their faces.
    "I know you're both single at the moment..."
    They both flicked carefully controlled, yet clearly mortified (it was all in the eyes) glances at me, then focused courteously on my mom again.
    I cringed. After Cam, Nikki had been with that Greek guy for a couple of weeks and then dropped him, and I'd heard about two other guys but they hadn't been anything serious. Not like Cam. Rumor was, they'd hooked up again at a party a week and a half ago, but Nikki hadn't told me about it, so I didn’t ask. I got the impression maybe it had been a one–off kind of thing. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. As for Mads and Dev... well. She was single today, anyway.
    None of this, however, I should have been sharing with my mother.
    "I know what some people get up to at these sorts of events-"
    "Mom, stop."
    "So I just want to give you one little piece of advice. Are you ready?”
    “Yes ma’am.”
    Mads and Nikki exchanged nervous glances. “Sure.”
    I said, “Please don’t.”
    Mom continued: “Loose and easy gets you sleazy."
    Whaaaaaat? I could not believe she just said that.
    Unfortunately, she had. Hamish snorted and sniggered, and Nikki and Mads couldn't have looked more uncomfortable, like they both wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Right now, they probably wouldn't have minded if it was the same hole, either. Just a hole, any hole, away from my mom would do. At least she didn't give them the WWJD advice as well. I had to wrap this up before she got there.
    I took my mother by the shoulders and backed her up a couple of feet away from the car. "Okay Mom, good advice," I said.
    She raised her hands in the air as if in surrender.
    "Okay? Remember that, girls. Loose and easy."
    "They got it," I said. I patted Poo on the head and opened the front passenger door.
    I paused, looking at the seat. “Dude.”
    The seat and foot room was covered in papers, empty beer cans, a deodorant bottle and… “This is disgusting. Do you live in here?” I said. “Is that a jockstrap? Since when did you play sport?”
    Hamish climbed into the driver’s seat, leaned over and shoved all the Lays packets, cans and store flyers off the seat and into the gutter. He tossed the deodorant and a water bottle onto the dash. Diverting his gaze, he stuffed the jockstrap into his pocket and said, “Just get in the car, Poppy.”
    The engine roared to life. A rust bucket like this wasn't supposed to sound like a wild beast. Seemed somewhere along the line, he’d given his baby some plastic surgery. He was a rev–head, now? I guess it shouldn’t have been too surprising he was into cars. He’d always been into all kinds of machines. But still. This transformation in him was blowing my mind. Maybe at college in his astrophysics course he’d actually done it. Communicated with aliens or something and they’d done some sort of body snatching on his ass.
    Hamish tapped his hands on the roof of the car and said to my mom with a smile, "Loose and easy. One can only hope."
    Mom's mouth dropped open.
    "Hamish-"
    "Bye Mom! I'll call you from the camp site!"
    With a toot of the horn, we propelled like a rocket down my quiet, suburban street.
    The four of us sat in stunned silence for a moment. Though stunned for four different reasons.
    Actually, Hamish wasn't stunned at all, it seemed. "Finally," he said.
    Even with a rocky beginning, a rush of excitement shot through my belly. It was really happening. We were on our way.
    I texted Ty to tell him so.
    "I can't believe she just said that to