Southbound Surrender Read Online Free PDF Page B

fence again, and my Yamaha is parked on the sidewalk just like yesterday. My palms are sweaty in adolescent foolishness, and I panic for a moment that Piper’s setting me up. She called me out yesterday, and she’s doing it again. Except this time, her dad calls the Appleton Police Department, and they’ve got a swarm of police cars down the street. I can see it now, the trail of cars with their red and blue flashing lights waiting to arrest me. Piper would smile that sweet smile of torture before flipping me off. It would be flawless, just like her.
    I look down at my phone. 12:01. A bead of sweat runs down the side of my face when I decide that I should have listened to my Luella Intuition. I never should have come here. The sky is smeared a dark grey, ready to crack open any moment. Another sign. I shouldn’t let a girl play me like this. I take one last look through the hole and then push myself off the fence toward my bike. That’s when I hear the low whistle that splits my heart open.
    “Cash Rowland,” she calls from the other side of the fence. “I see your yellow laces.”
    My heart is officially decimated. This girl has wrecked me, and we’ve barely spoken.
    She’s just a girl.
    But she’s not any girl, she’s the girl .
    I curse my inner demons, wipe my hands on my shorts, and press my eye against the hole. Another bikini. This one’s a lighter pink verging on Vivid Tangerine and covers about the same amount of skin as the bikini from yesterday. Trust me, I remember.
    And yes, I still know my colors from my crayon box. That’s another thing you should know about me. I remember the strangest details. So, now you know three things about me: one, I’m honest; two, I’m a details guy; and three, I’m in love with a girl I just met despite knowing that she’s going to break my heart.
    I smell her coming closer. It’s a mix of peaches and something else I can’t put my finger on. She stops about five feet from the fence, puts her hands on her hips, and says, “I’m glad you came.”
    “Thanks for the invite.”
    “So, what’s your story?” she asks as she leans closer to the fence to see me better, but my eye is smashed up against the opening.
    “What do you want to know?” I ask.
    “Stand back a second,” she says, “I want to see what it’s like looking through the hole.”
    I step back five feet, nervous as hell, thinking she’s forgotten what I looked like from last night. I envision her yelling for her dad again so she can watch me scramble to get on the bike and hightail it out of the side of town where I don’t belong.
    But all she does is let out another low whistle that makes me shove my hands in my pockets. A drop of rain splashes on my forehead, and I wonder why Piper’s wearing a swimsuit in the first place, not that I mind. Sure, it’s hot, but it’s definitely going to downpour any second.
    “What’s your SAT score?” she asks.
    “2280.”
    “GPA?”
    “3.9.”
    “Colleges applied to?”
    “None.”
    She pauses. It doesn’t make sense to anyone, and I’m definitely thinking I’ve got this whole college thing all wrong. I decide to start my applications tonight.
    “Religion?”
    “Catholic, I guess.”
    “I guess?”
    “Well…”
    “By choice?” Her voice quirks as she stares at me with her unblinking emerald eye. It’s like the Eye of Providence on the dollar bill. You know, the one in the pyramid. Being on the other side of the fence as 'the watched' is unnerving, and I’m suddenly aware of how idiotic I was yesterday to show up by the fence and watch a girl I’ve never met. It’s miracle that I’m standing here now.
    “Because my mother was and because I go to a Catholic school.”
    “You said ‘was.’”
    “My mom’s dead.”
    “So is mine.”
    A flash streaks through the sky and a rumble rolls for several seconds. A second raindrop lands on my arm.
    “2400. 2.0. Harvard, Yale, Princeton. Atheist by choice.”
    “Impressively