Free Tall Cool One by Zoey Dean Page A

person.”
    “Yeah? Is Anna out of the picture?”
    “It’s all about Cammie now.”
    “Ah, Cammie,” Jeff repeated. “You mentioned her last week.”
    “I guess I did. The g-girl is . . .” He stammered, searching for the right father-friendly word.
    “A vixen?” his father suggested.
    Adam laughed. “Yeah. Times infinity. I mean, every guy at school dreams about her. And she’s into
me.
”
    Jeff took a long swallow of Gatorade. “You two sleeping together?”
    “Uh . . .” Adam could feel his face burn. They’d had the big safe-sex lecture before they’d moved from Michigan to Los Angeles. Jeff had talked about how things were different in California, how kids grew up faster, how Adam might well run into kids who had a lot more experience than he did. But in the past year and a half in Beverly Hills, his parents had never come right out and asked him if he was having sex.
    “Can we not have this conversation?”
    “No. It’s in my job description.” Jeff put his hand on Adam’s arm. “You’re using protection, aren’t you?”
    Adam edged away from his father. “Time out, this is excruciating. If Cammie and I are doing anything—and I’m not saying we are—then I would be smart enough to, you know, take care of things.”
    “Good to know.” His dad looked out into the darkness. “You know, I don’t think I ever told you this, but before your mother, I had this girlfriend back in Grand Rapids. Erika Ackermann. Man, I was crazy about that girl.”
    “We’re veering into major TMI,” Adam warned.
    “TMI?”
    “Too much information,” Adam explained.
    “Oh, it’s not what you’re thinking. We never had sex. Erika went away to Albion, and it was over. Anyway, there I was at orientation at Kalamazoo, and this girl from Wilton, Connecticut—I don’t even remember her name—decides that I’m
it.
”
    Adam was fascinated in spite of himself. “What happened?”
    “There’s this knock on my dorm room at three in the morning—my roommate hadn’t showed up yet—and there she was. You want to know what happened?”
    “Damned if I do and damned if I don’t,” Adam joked.
    “Nothing. I mean, I tried. But . . . zip. Same thing the next night. I thought there was something wrong with me.”
    Holy shit,
Adam thought. Like father, like son. Maybe it’s genetic. But obviously his dad got over it eventually.
    “Well, it’s not like there’s anything wrong with you, Dad,” Adam said rhetorically. As absurd as it was, he just wanted to double-check. “I mean, I’m here, and I look just like you.”
    “Exactly.” Jeff ruffled his son’s hair. “I think the problem was that my body was trying to tell me something. Like, ‘Whoa, there. Maybe this isn’t the right one to share this with.’ So if you’re having a problem with Cammie—”
    “I never said I had a problem,” Adam interjected.
    “I said
if
.”
    “Trust me, Dad. My mind and my body both want to share.”
    His father stood, took the ball from Adam, and bounced it once. “I don’t doubt it, son. But maybe it’s not your mind or your body you should be listening to. Maybe you should be listening to your heart.”
    Adam shook his head. “Too deep for me.”
    “That I highly doubt.” Jeff bounced the ball again. “You love this girl?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Well, when you have the answer to that, all else will follow.”

Turkey-Breast Sandwich
    A nna checked out her reflection in the mirror over her antique dresser. She’d chosen a simple cotton-and-silk Graham and Spencer pale blue skirt with a white Cynthia Rowley sleeveless blouse. She wore no makeup and tied her hair back in a ponytail. Then, deciding she didn’t look like a girl ready for torrid climes, she unbuttoned two of the blouse buttons, slicked on some Chanel lip gloss and mascara, sprayed herself with the Jo Malone perfume she loved, and took down her hair. Ah. That was more like it.
    Mexico. A place where a girl could safely be whoever she