Summer almost shed a tear at the pieces of orange plastic in her grandmother's hands. She went so far as to write 'search the garden' on her calendar board, but the events of the last couple of days ruined any sense of normalcy.

"Why on earth was this in my garden? I almost broke my foot out there."

Summer closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I hid it there when I came back from the sanatorium."

"Why would you hide... oh yeah, that's when you thought you could get away with lying to me."

She meandered to the kitchen with the pieces of her water gun in hand. After throwing them away, she pulled out her phone to check the time. A good morning text from Connor had her grinning from ear to ear.

"I know that look," her grandmother said as she grabbed her car keys from the counter. "I used to dread this day. But your first boyfriend being an angel is probably the ideal scenario. I always envisioned you going for the bad boys at first. Like I did."

Summer perked up, still smiling. "You used to date a bad boy?"

"Bad boys," she clarified, a smirk across her face. "I was in dire need of some excitement. So many of the boys in my school were exceedingly dull."

"No way!"

"Honestly, most of them were teddy bears under all that leather and hair gel. But there were a couple that were just as toxic as advertised. Speaking of bad boys, for a while there, I thought you had a crush on Victor."

"V? I mean, he's handsome, and I think he's a very sweet guy—on the inside. But he's a bit of a womanizer. No judgement, of course, it's just not my thing."

"A womanizer? Him? Wow, I didn't know he had it in him."

"Granny!"

"What? I had a life before I met your grandfather, you know."

"Was grandpa a bad boy?"

Summer's grandmother paused with her hand on the doorknob, gazing upon a photo of her in a flowing Hawaiian print wedding dress. "No," she said. "He was the sweetest man I've ever met." She jerked her head forward, as if being thrust back into reality. "Now, let's get you to school."

Summer sat on a bench in the school's courtyard. After that kiss, Connor constantly ran through her mind. There were short periods of time when she thought about other, more pressing matters. But they paled in comparison to the time spent thinking about that special afternoon.

Wait, did granny call him my boyfriend? she thought. The shock of her grandmother revealing anything about her dating history caused her to skip past the mentioning of that word. Is he my boyfriend?

"Hey Summer, you alright?" a voice from behind her asked. Summer turned around to the sight of Victor and Connor staring at her. She must have been a little too lost in thought. "What were you thinking about?" Connor asked, leaning in to give her a peck on the lips.

"Uh, nothing. How's your hand, V?"

Victor presented his fully healed hand, rotating it like a showroom car turntable. "It's as beautiful as ever."

"Did you seriously just call your hand beautiful?" Connor asked.

"Well, it was technically my first love."

Summer couldn't hide the disgust on her face. "There are some things that you should keep to yourself."

He kissed his palm. "You're just jealous. What you and Connor have doesn't even come close."

Connor took a giant step toward Summer.

"Anyway, I found out that my granny had a type. I'm a little bummed out, though. I always envisioned my grandpa being her first love."

"Why'd you think that?" Victor asked.

Summer shrugged. "I honestly have no idea. But it sounds really romantic, doesn't it? Imagine her seeing my grandpa from across the room. He walks up to her and she immediately notices that he's a little nervous, but she's flattered. He then collects himself and—"

"Summer, you got a little drool coming from your mouth," Victor mocked. "You should really take care of that."

Summer rose, glaring at Victor. "I also found out that she thought I had a crush on you."

Connor adjusted his backpack. "I sort of used to think the same thing."

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"Seriously?" Summer asked, resting her hands on her hips.

"Well, yeah. Victor always had girls crushing on him. It wasn't too farfetched to think that you liked him, too."

"Okay, so when did you find out that I didn't?"

"It didn't take long," Connor said. "Once he manned up enough to actually start going out with the girls that would ogle at him all day, I noticed how little you cared."

"So my lack of jealousy clued you in?"

"Yep."

"Manned up? Should you really be the one talking? It took you how long to finally make a move on Summer?" Victor asked.

"We're not talking about me."

Victor started toward the school's entrance. "Yeah, whatever."

For some odd reason, Summer suddenly found Connor's Pop-Tart ritual sort of cute. His look of concentration and the biting of his bottom lip became charming to her. I'm losing my mind, she thought as she watched him remove the last bit of crust from his Pop-Tart.

Victor took a bite of his eggs. "Hey Summer, who—oh shit. I completely forgot about Connor ruining our little game. Man, I had so many awesome things lined up."

Summer flashed a wry smile. "Isn't it funny that saying I had a boyfriend is the thing that made him stop ignoring us?"

"Yeah, that is kind of weird," Victor said, mimicking Summer's tone.

Connor flushed. "Please, go back to saying nonsense, I beg of you." Summer threw her arms back in laughter, accidentally hitting her bottle of orange juice. Spurts of the orange-flavored sugar water landed on her backpack.

"Darn!" Summer exclaimed. The bell for first period rang. Victor shot up out of his seat.

"Summer, you good?" Victor asked while frantically tapping his foot.

"Yeah, I'm fine. You guys go ahead without me."

Victor sprinted out of the cafeteria. Connor gathered his food on the table. "You sure you don't need any help?"

"Can you please hand me some paper towels?" she asked. Connor snatched a handful from the food line.

Summer started dabbing her backpack. "Thanks."

"I'll see you soon," Connor said as he walked out of the cafeteria.

"Hey um, do you need any help?" said an unfamiliar voice. A girl with long auburn hair and emerald green eyes was the source. Her aura was the same beautiful shade of green, but there were large swirls of gray swimming around.

"Oh, that's really sweet, but I pretty much have everything cleaned up."

"What happened?"

"Well, I'm a klutz, so I accidentally hit my bottle of orange juice with my arm, and it spilled all over my backpack."

"Wow, that's horrible."

Summer balled up the used paper towels. "It's not the worst thing in the world." The auburn-haired girl was tapping the side of her thigh with her index finger. Summer's eyes moved up to her silky red hair. "You have such beautiful hair."

"Thank you!"

"Have we met before?"

"No, um, you're V's friend, right?"

"Hold on, are you Catelyn?"

"He told you about me?"

"Yeah, he told me he was taking you to that new coffee shop. How is it, by the way?"

"Oh. Did he tell you if he had a good time? Also, the shop was great. Amazing coffee."

"I'm sorry, but I completely forgot to ask him how the date went. It's been a crazy couple of days."

The gray swirls in Catelyn's aura expanded, and she sped the tapping on her thigh. "It's no problem, really. It's just... I said hello to him on the bus this morning, and he acted kind of weird."

Summer sat in her chair. The crumpled up sheets of paper towel were still in her hand. "Weird how?"

"I don't know. He just kind of acted like he didn't really know me. After we kissed, I thought there was something there but maybe he doesn't feel the same way."

"That jerk." Summer squeezed the paper towels so hard that her nails made a deep indent in her palm.

"Oh, it's fine. I just wanted to ask you if everything is okay with him. He still hasn't texted me back."

Summer picked up her backpack and threw the used paper towels into the garbage can. "I'm gonna talk to him."

"Please let him know that I'm not mad, just a little confused."

"You're not mad?"

"No, not at all."

"Well I am. It was really nice meeting you, Catelyn." Summer sprinted toward the gym.

Victor and Connor were seated on the bleachers, already dressed in their gym clothes. Connor noticed Summer stomping toward them. "Hey, Summer."

"Vict—ouch!" Summer yelled, reeling her hand away from the bleachers.

"What happened?" Connor asked.

"It shocked me! Victor, what is wrong with—ouch!"

"Summer, stop touching things," Victor said, using a hand to cover his smile.

She put her hands behind her back. "Victor, what is wrong with you?"

"A lot of things, actually. What specifically are you referring to?"

"Catelyn. You went out with her, kissed her, didn't text her back, and then acted like you didn't know her when you saw her this morning?"

"So did you just forget the whole demon slaying thing that happened this weekend, or..."

"That was one day, and how hard is it to send one text? More importantly, how hard is it to say hi to someone you just went out with?"

Victor rolled his eyes. "I said what's up to her."

"You gave her a head nod," Connor added.

"She was really hurt. Catelyn likes you a lot, and you treated her that way?"

"Trust me, Summer. I know what I'm doing."

"How about you just act like a decent human being instead of playing these mind games?"

"Girls love mind games. Besides, you never cared this much about any of the other girls I've been with. Why is Catelyn so special?"

"That's because every girl you date hates me."

"Why would you say that?"

"It wasn't obvious? Every time I saw them in the hallways or outside of school, they would give me the stink eye."

"Connor," Victor said, "do you think my exes hated Summer?"

"Keep me out of this."

Summer sat down. "V, do you like her?"

"She's beautiful, has a nice body, sweet, and an athlete. I like her a lot."

"Then why are you acting like you don't?"

"Like I said, I know what I'm doing. Girls like to chase a little bit."

"Connor, are you really just going along with this?"

"What?" Connor said, taken aback. "I call him out literally every single time he does stuff like this."

"Did she tell you I promised to go to her field hockey game this Saturday?" Victor asked

"No, she didn't mention that," Summer said, her anger quelled.

"Well, I'm going. And she's gonna look up and see me cheering for her. Then afterwards, we'll see where things go..." Victor presented a terrifying grin.

"That's sweet," Summer said. "Well, it was until that last part. Can you at least text her back before next week?"

"Summer, I know what I'm doing."

Connor dropped his head. "Guys, can we please stop fighting? Gym is about to start and you haven't even gotten changed yet."

Summer looked at her outfit and then bolted toward the locker room. She stopped halfway, turned around, and yelled, "Session number three at my house after school! Don't forget!"