Free Summer Love by Jill Santopolo Page A

malfunction, that’s all. You can go back to sleep if you want.”
    She stretches, and you can already see a tan line forming at the edge of her bikini bottoms. Tasha sees it, too.
    â€œWould you mind reapplying me?” she asks, holding out a bottle of sunscreen.
    â€œNot at all,” you say.
    Tasha squirts some sunscreen in your hand and some in her own. She starts on the front of her body, and you move to her back. “What SPF is this?” you ask her.
    â€œThirty,” she replies. “I always start with thirty at the beginning of the summer and then work down to fifteen once I have a base tan.”
    You wonder if that’s a real thing: a base tan.
    As you rub the lotion under her bikini strap, she keeps talking. “You know, I read an article that said that all the higher SPFs—the ones like fifty and eighty and whatever—it’s just marketing. They don’t work any better than thirty.”
    â€œIs that true?” you ask her. You’re a bit incredulous. How would the companies be allowed to say that the sun protection factor was higher if it’s really just a lie?
    Tasha shrugs. “That’s what the article said. I didn’t fact-check it or anything. Want me to do you?”
    You nod, and Tasha reapplies sunscreen to your back while you do your front. The fastest way to ruin a beach vacation is to get sunburned the first afternoon you’re there. You know this from experience.
    When you’re done with the sunscreen, Tashapicks up a copy of
Entertainment Weekly
you’ve brought out. You grab a copy of
People
.
    â€œOkay,” Tasha says. “Here’s the game: whichever one of us finds the least flattering picture of a celebrity in our magazine wins. Go!”
    That seems sort of mean. “How about most flattering,” you say.
    Tasha rolls her eyes at you. “You’re really nice, you know that?” she asks.
    Sometimes you are, but not always. You don’t say that, though. What you say is, “I just wanted two chances to win.”
    â€œFine,” Tasha says. “Most flattering and least flattering. And winner decides where we eat tonight.”
    â€œDeal,” you say, opening your magazine.
    But before you can get too far in, you hear the gate to the street open. You turn around, and two muscular guys without shirts walk into the backyard.
    â€œUm,” you whisper, “Tasha? Who are they? Did you order them for my birthday?”
    She looks up from her magazine, and her face lights up. “Luke! Scott! Hey!” she says. Then whispers to you, “They’re the pool guys. Brothers. Their dad owns the pool-cleaning company. We’ve used their family’s company for years.”
    â€œHey, Tasha!” one of the brothers says as he puts down the pool-cleaning equipment. “Our dad said you guys wouldn’t be here until next week.”
    â€œThat’s when my parents are coming, and when I’m coming officially,” she tells him. “I’m here unofficially with my cousin. It was just her sixteenth birthday.”
    â€œHi, there, Tasha’s cousin,” the first brother says, walking toward you. “And happy birthday. I’m Scott.”
    You shake his hand. “Hi, and thanks,” you say.
    â€œAnd I’m Luke.” The second brother walks over to the rest of you. “I turned sixteen a few months back, so I guess we’re in the same grade. You thinking about college yet?”
    You groan. “I should be,” you say, pulling a towel over your head.
    Luke laughs and sits down on the edge of your chaise lounge. “Tell me about it. Scott’s heading off to UMass in the fall, and now my parents are all on my case.”
    â€œI want her to come to school with me,” Tasha tells the brothers. “It would be so much fun!”
    â€œMaybe,” you tell Tasha. “I haven’t ruled it out.”
    â€œBut you