"How did you survive?" Kylie asked.
"You just do. Of course, large ice cream consumption helps." Holiday smiled as she pul ed into the ice cream shop parking lot. "What do you say?
Wanna feed our worries with creamy, sweet, cold stuff?"
Kylie nodded.
Holiday reached for the door. "Fol ow my lead. First we have to sample at least five flavors each, then we order a triple scoop."
Kylie laughed. "What worries are you feeding?"
"Are you kidding? Do you know how many hours I've been stuck with Mr. Big, Bad Vampire?"
"Burnett," Kylie said, understanding. "Why don't you just say yes?"
"Yes? Oh, no. Over my dead fairy body. He's as irritating, rude, and obnoxious as he is ... hot."
"So you're in love, huh?" Kylie teased.
Holiday pointed a finger at her. "Keep this up, and you won't get any ice cream."
As Kylie and Holiday fed their faces with everything from chocolate mint to banana chocolate fudge, Kylie, hyped up on sugar, let a question slip that she normal y wouldn't ask. "How do you know you're in love?"
Holiday licked her spoon clean of her cotton candy-flavored ice cream. "You don't ask easy questions, do you?"
Kylie spooned up a bite of butter pecan. "Nope."
Holiday studied her ice cream. "I've thought I've been in love several times. A few times with my heart and even more times with my hormones."
Holiday's answer described Kylie's situation with Lucas and Derek perfectly. Kylie spooned up a bite of ice cream. "And none of those worked out?"
"Nope. That's the tricky thing about love. It walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and smel s like a duck. But after you sleep with it a month or so, or get dumped at the altar by it, it starts smel ing more like a skunk."
Kylie leaned forward to ask. "Is this your fancy-dancy way of tel ing me I shouldn't sleep around?"
Holiday pointed her spoon at Kylie. "Nope, it's my fancy-dancy way of saying you gotta be careful." She leaned in. "Just because a guy rings your bel , doesn't mean you have to toot his horn."
Kylie laughed and so did Holiday.
Holiday stirred her ice cream. "If I could go back, I wouldn't have slept with three of the guys I did. But you can't go back. And the memories. Bad, bad memories are tattooed on my brain." She tapped her spoon against her forehead. "You can't even get them lasered off."
Kylie nodded. She had a few bad memories of her own that she couldn't shake, so she total y related. When they finished their ice cream, they walked next door to the used bookstore. Kylie happened to catch the title of a book that had been left on a shelf. Overcoming Dyslexia. Picking up the book, she flipped through it and wondered if Miranda had ever read it. She walked over to the counter and asked if they had any other books on this subject. The lady took her to a whole section of books about different disabilities. Kylie selected three more on coping with dyslexia and paid for them. Holiday was stil browsing, so Kylie stepped outside and took in the smal town's main street. It was quaint. Antique stores, specialty shops, and even a candy store-the kind of place her parents used to drag her to when she was a kid.
A couple walked past holding hands and Kylie tried to remember if, on any of those trips, her mom and dad had ever acted like they were in love. She couldn't recal ever seeing them holding hands. They always did their own things when they were out. Her dad played golf. Her mom shopped. Kylie had just moved over to Holiday's van when she spotted another couple step out of the bed-and-breakfast. They were kissing. Not the quick, touch of lips kind of kissing, but tongues moving in and out of each other's mouth like they were in heat or something. The kissing quickly progressed to the butt-grabbing stage. Find a room, Kylie thought, wondering if they knew they had an audience or if they even cared. Ahh, but wrong or right, Kylie couldn't look away.
Mostly because alarm bel s were sounding in her brain.
There was something familiar about them.
She watched the woman's hands slip into the front of the man's jeans. Kylie's mouth dropped open. Gross. That was so lewd, yet Kylie, now hiding behind the van, stil couldn't turn away. When the couple final y parted mouths and the guy turned forward, recognition hit. Kylie gripped the side of the van, her knees suddenly feeling like jel y.
"Oh, my God."
Chapter Thirty-six
Dad?
Kylie grabbed the door handle to keep herself from fal ing face-first onto the street. What was her dad doing ... doing with ... Kylie's gaze shot to the woman, or she should say, shot to the "girl." Kylie recognized her dad's new assistant whom she'd met last month at a company picnic. The girl was in her third year of col ege.
Stil leaning against the van, Kylie did the math. While math wasn't her best subject, she figured the girl to be about four years older than Kylie herself.
And just like that, Kylie figured out a bunch of things. Like how her father's six pairs of underwear ended up being gril ed-how her mom's countless cold-shoulder moments toward her dad suddenly added up to be fair justice.
Realizing the couple had walked to where they might spot her, Kylie moved to the other side of the van. And the cold that fol owed her around the van told Kylie she wasn't alone. Yet, too emotional y distraught to think about the ghost, Kylie concentrated on not barfing up the triple scoop of ice cream she'd just consumed.
Holiday arrived shortly. "You okay?"
"Great," Kylie lied, too embarrassed, too horrified to give details. Bad enough her father had flirted with Holiday, but to see him with someone who probably stil treated her skin for acne, wel , it was just too much.
On the way back to the camp, Kylie looked at Holiday. "Do you know what qualifies as justifiable homicide?"
"No." The camp leader laughed. "But if I have to put up with Burnett much longer, I might become an expert. Who are you thinking of offing?"
"My parents." The vision of Kylie's dad groping his assistant fil ed her head and her chest ached. "Or maybe just my dad."
Kylie waited a few more minutes before she dropped the bomb. "Do you think ... you could hold off a few more weeks before you talk to my mom about my going home?"
Holiday didn't look at her, but Kylie saw the smile of victory in her profile as she continued to watch the road. "You betcha."
* * *
Monday night, almost everyone hung out at the dining hal to watch movies. Kylie, Miranda, and Del a had stayed up way too late Sunday night nursing the wounds inflicted by their respective parents. Then Kylie and Miranda went over the books Kylie had bought on dyslexia.