“Want to swim? You can borrow one of my suits,” I asked changing the subject. One of the advantages of being almost the same size as my best friend was we could share most of ourclothing.
She agreed, and we spent the next hour or so swimming while not talking about The Band, or their contest to rename them, or Rainier. Avery was pretty good about keeping the talk of Carter to a minimum too, which wasawesome.
She did manage to finally catch me up with the details of her trip toMexico.
Avery had ended up taking her cousin Zoey. She didn’t live in River Valley but met her down there for the week. They’d had a great time, drank a bunch of frozen drinks on the beach, and worked on their tans. There were some hotties, but Avery only had eyes forCarter.Barf.
As she went on and on, I realized I wasn’t nearly as pissed as I’d been a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t thrilled to be spending my summer indoors at nerd-central, but I wasn’t going to die either. I’d been holding that trip against her and just had an epiphany that maybe thatwasn’tfair.
“Oh, Michelle,” she said when I didn’t immediately add anything of my own. “Please don’t be jealous. It was fun, and I couldn’t wait to tell you, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try againnextyear.”
“I’m okay, and you’re right. We can tryagain.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Don’t sound so shocked. I told you, Between The Pages hasn’t been that bad.” I regretted the words the second they left my mouth. Avery would interpret that to meanBetween The Pages isn’t so bad because I get to watch Rainier shelve booksallday.
Because that totally compared to a trip toMexico.
“Well, I should probably get going soon since you work tonight,” she said, completely ignoring the opportunity to rub it in my face. Why wasn’t she rubbing it inmyface?
“Hey, aren’t you going to make some comment about why I’menjoyingwork?”
“Should I?” she asked getting out of the pool and wrapping her body in atowel.
“No, I just thought you would jump alloverthat.”
“Looks like I didn’t need to.” She stopped and winked at me. “But, hey, you should consider trying to come up with a name. You’re so good at that kind of thing, and it’s only this week until the next teennight.”
My mind went through all the different rain jokes I’d googled before our latest shift together. Rainier hadn’t been amused, but now I wanted to think of the best pun or joke I could use so that I could stick it to him. I could just imagine the look on his face when I told him it was me that came up with the name of the band he’d be playing with allsummer.
“Anyway, Michelle, I’ll catch youlater,okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I answered wrapping up in my towel barely paying attention. I had one week to come up with the best possible name, and I wasn’t about to wasteanytime.
I went inside and got cleaned up. I took a shower, did my hair and sat down on my bed. My dad still wasn’t home, and I had the day off. That gave me plentyoftime.
Mount Rainier, Rainier cherries, Rainy weather. There were so many directions to go in. Narrowing it down would be my biggeststruggle.
ChapterTen
Rainier
It was hard notto get caught up in the band name excitement. Instead of getting angry or lashing out at me, Owen had taken my advice about the band name seriously. He’s started a competition to rename us. It was all over social media, and the suggestions hadn’tstopped.
Death Kitten, Boulder Boys, River Rockers, the names went on and on. I hated them all. They were too weird, too original, or in some cases, names that were already used by other bands. Which was the reason we were searching for a new name in the firstplace.
Despite the lackluster entries so far, I couldn’t keep away. It was exciting to be the center of so much attention, even if it was short-lived. I had my phone out and was browsing the latest suggestions when Michelle walked into the store. I’d only been there a few minutes, but I could already feel my blood pressurerising.
Tap,tap,tap.
I still couldn’t figure out why Michelle rubbed me so wrong. We hadn’t gone to school together; I was never the target of her bullying. The worst she’d done to me was not work when I asked hernotto.
My eye startedtwitching.
Michelle strolled into the store looking more smug than usual. The innocent look she had the other day was gone. Her hair was down once more, and her lips were bright red. Very appropriate considering she was abloodsucker.
“Hi, Rainier,” she said toosweetly.
