A Summer of Sundays by Lindsay Eland Read Free Book Online Page B

that one bit.
    She had plans for her life. Plans for getting out of Price, where nothing ever happened. Plans for making something of herself. Plans to prove to her good-for-nothing daddy that he was wrong about her. And one thing Lilly knew for a fact was that none of those plans included a boy with too-thick glasses who wasn’t allergic to poison ivy.
    My eyes started to droop. Yawning, I got up and slipped the pages underneath the mattress—safe from my nosy brothers and prying sisters.
    For now, the story was just mine.

I HAD just poured the milk into Bo’s cereal bowl the next morning when there was a knock at the front door. Jude. I don’t know how I knew it before the door even opened, but I did.
    Mom, who’d probably been up and dressed since five o’clock as usual, walked to the door and opened it wide. “Good morning. Jude, right?”
    He nodded. “Good morning.”
    Mom could get his name right, but not mine? I plopped into a chair, grabbed my spoon, and stabbed at the mound of flakes swimming in my bowl.
    “It’s good to see you again. Have you had breakfast?”
    “Hi, Jude!” Bo said, jumping up and spilling half of his cereal onto the table. He rushed over like he was going to wrap the boy in a hug, then hung back behind Mom.
    “Hi.” Jude walked in, looking more comfortable and normal in his loose blue T-shirt and shorts than he had yesterday in that white getup he’d been packed into. Still,I marveled at how clean he was. He looked like something out of a commercial for laundry detergent.
    “Sunday,” Mom said, leading Jude to the dining room. “It’s your friend Jude.”
    Jude smiled at me and took a seat as if that’s what he did every other morning of his life. “Hi, Sunday,” he said.
    I swallowed a bite of cereal, wiped the dribble of milk from my chin, and mustered up a halfhearted
hi
.
    “What can I get you? I’m sure you could still eat a little something?” Mom asked. “Toast maybe?”
    He smiled. “Yeah, sure. And thank you again for the pumpkin bread. It was the best thing I’ve ever had. My mom makes it sometimes, but not as good as yours.”
    I rolled my eyes. He must’ve taken a class on how to win over moms. She smiled, pleased, and then disappeared into the kitchen.
    “Where’s everybody else?’
    “Me and Sunday always eat breakfast together.” Bo smiled at me. “CJ and Henry are washing off the wall in the bedroom, ’cause they played tic-tac-toe on it last night. Mom said she’d skin them alive if they ever did something like that again. May and Emma are getting ready, trying on clothes and putting gunk in their hair, shaving their legs and plucking their eyebrows out. Stuff like that.”
    I stifled a laugh, thinking what my sisters would do ifthey knew Bo was telling a random boy about everything they do in the bathroom.
    Mom came in and set a plate of buttery toast in front of Jude along with a glass of orange juice and a jar of strawberry jam. “Now, don’t hesitate to ask for more,” she said.
    “Thank you.”
    “You have any brothers or sisters?” I asked.
    Jude shook his head no through a mouthful of toast.
    “Really? It’s just you and your parents?”
    “Yeah, well, just me and my mom. And then there’s Wally, my mom’s boyfriend.”
    “Oh. Your parents are divorced then?”
    He looked down at his plate and nodded.
    “Sunday!” Mom said, giving me another look.
    I shrugged. “I was just asking. He knows that Emma and May pluck their eyebrows out. I think we should at least know a little about him.”
    “What does ‘divorced’ mean?” Bo asked. His chin was covered in a white crust of dried milk.
    Mom smiled and took Bo’s near-empty bowl. “Come on, Bo, let’s get you washed up.”
    They disappeared into the kitchen.
    I waited until they were gone, then whispered. “So, you aren’t gonna tell, right?”
    “Tell?” Jude acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about. “Tell about what?”
    I sighed, exasperated.