Free The Boys of Summer by C.J. Duggan Page B

One look
at my lacklustre waitressing skills, and they would probably thank
their lucky stars I’d never agreed to work for them.
    “Well, look at you.”
    Ellie gave me a side-on look.
    “What?”
    “Checking out Toby Morrison’s workshop. It’s
Sunday, Tess, he’ll be long gone.”
    I should never have told her about liking
Toby. She was like a dog with a bone. Even more frightening was the
scheming matchmaking side to Ellie that I knew she’d lose control
of sooner or later. Probably sooner. Ugh, why had I told her?
    She frowned at me. “What’s stopping you? Tell
me one good reason why you won’t go there, Tess.”
    We crossed the main street, leaving Matthew
& Son behind.
    I half laughed at her. “One? Ha! I’ll give
you five!”
    “Go on, then!”
    I held up my thumb to begin the count.
    “One! Before two days ago, I am pretty sure
he didn’t even know that I existed.”
    Although he did know my last name.
    “Two! And this is a pretty big one: he’s
what? Twenty-two? And I’m seventeen. You do the maths.”
    Ellie shrugged. “Maths isn’t my strong
point.”
    It was five years too many.
    “Three! He is Toby Morrison . Popular,
gorgeous, charming … and I am TIC TAC TESS.”
    Ellie sighed. “You’re struggling.”
    “Four! He works, I’m still at school. I doubt
he would be interested in coming to Deb practice.”
    Ellie rolled her eyes stubbornly. “I must
say, I’m still unconvinced.”
    “And number five,” I breathed out. I had a
horrible suspicion. Although I hoped it might not have been true, I
seriously doubted it. “Number five,” I said again, “Toby has a
girlfriend.”
    And her name was Angela Vickers.
    You would have had to live on another planet
to not know Angela Vickers. 5’10”, blonde, hard to miss. She was
School Captain when I was in Year Ten, and, oh, how all the boys
mooned over her, with her perky blonde hair and perfect perky
breasts. None of which would have mattered, only that even the
likes of Toby Morrison was obviously not immune to her or her
assets. It bewildered me that Toby was like all the other
predictable males when he seemed so different from them. I had been
in love with Toby ever since the first time I saw him.
    At the end of Grade Six, all students from
Perry Primary were taken for a one-day orientation at Onslow High
School. We all gathered around like sheep staring in wonder at the
‘big league’ we were about to enter after our summer holidays. I
was drawn to the burst of laugher that had me turning to see a boy,
a boy with the most brilliant smile I had ever seen. I decided I
simply had to know his name, and then, like a gift, one of the boys
he was laughing with said it.
    Toby Morrison.
    I found out that his dad owned the mechanic
shop in town, so any chance I had, I would deliberately walk past
it hoping for just a glimpse or to cross paths with him. My heart
was all aflutter with the sight of him, and merely the thought of
him was what had me anxious to start high school, to the point I
started marking down the days on my calendar.
    Of course, I learned the hard way that he was
in Year Twelve and had graduated by the time I started high school.
So that was that. My crush on Toby faded away and life went on,
even if I did always think of that smile every time I walked past
his dad’s shop.
    For the next few years, I saw him only every
now and then at the Sunday markets or more fleetingly down lakeside
with his mates. It was by pure chance one time, when I was
fourteen, that I walked past Matthew & Son and saw him out the
front in grease-stained overalls, talking to a customer about their
car. He looked older, his hair longer, hands covered in greasy
remnants of a hard day’s work.
    He was working for his dad! And I
nearly ran into a pole.
    My heart had pounded just as it had that
first time at orientation. My secret crush was just that, an utter
secret. I told no one; I didn’t even confide in Ellie or Adam.
Especially not Ellie. I was