Sunkissed, Kasie West [best authors to read TXT] 📗

was right—he was talking to someone, and at first I was just mildly curious, but as we walked closer, I realized it was Brooks. I picked up my speed but then saw the smile on Brooks’s face, and by the time I got to his side, my dad was smiling as well.

“Hi,” I said. “Everything okay over here?”

Mom hugged me. “Good job, honey.”

“Thank you, Mom.”

Dad took me in his arms and kissed the top of my head. “You were so brave.”

I smiled against his chest.

“When do you find out if you won?” he asked, and I laughed.

“At the end of the night, sir,” Brooks said.

“You got that all on video, right?” Dad asked Lauren.

“Of course. What do you think I am, an amateur?”

As they talked about Lauren’s video, I looked over at Brooks.

“I promise to never run away from things I want, even if they scare me.”

“Good promise,” he said.

I took his hand. “I want you to make it too.”

“You think I run away from things that scare me?” he asked.

“Far away,” I said. “What is this, like four hundred miles?”

He smirked. “Good point.” Something over my shoulder caught his eye and his smile slid off his face.

“What is it?”

“Mom?” He moved around me and was soon embracing a dark-haired woman.

“I think he owes me something,” said Maricela, who had just joined us. “Did I forget to finish that bet earlier?”

“I think you did.”

Brooks turned back toward me and held his hand out.

“Wish me luck,” I said to Mari, and she gave me a shove in Brooks’s direction.

“Mom, this is my girlfriend, Avery,” he said when I was at his side. “Avery, this is my mom, Teresa.”

“Avery, nice to meet you. I enjoyed the performance.”

“Thank you.”

Brooks seemed awkward, a bit uncomfortable, but I had a feeling his mom being here was a huge step in the right direction.

I wanted to say it didn’t matter if we won the prize or not that night, that we’d won either way. That we’d learned things about ourselves and proven things we couldn’t have any other way. But that wasn’t true. It did matter. And as we sat on the blanket, my back against Brooks’s chest watching the other bands, I wanted the win so bad. Not for me this time. The singing had been for me. I wanted the win for Brooks. For his future.

So when they called our band’s name at the end of the night as the grand prize winner, I cried. And as we stood on the stage, hundreds of people clapping and cheering for us, I’d never felt so proud and happy in my life.

Brooks put his arm around me. “You were right,” he said. “We couldn’t have done this without you.”

“We did it together,” I said through my tears.

Brooks squeezed my side. “If you don’t stop crying, you’re going to make me cry,” he said.

I wiped under my eyes. “I can’t stop.”

Kai, who was on my other side, scooped me up in a lung-crushing hug. “If you think you can walk away from this band now, dude, you need to think again.”

“Don’t crush my girlfriend,” Brooks said.

Kai released me and moved on to Levi and Ian.

“Hey, Avery,” Brooks said.

“Yeah?” I looked at his smiling face.

“Repeat after me. I am amazing!”

“You are amazing,” I said.

“No.” He wrapped his arms around my waist. “You were supposed to say I.”

The campfire was going strong behind the employee cabins. I had my chair as close as possible to Brooks’s chair, a little separated from the group. We watched them throw twigs and sticks into the flames while daring each other to do increasingly dumber things. Lauren was up, and Tia had just dared her to eat a chip that had been on the ground for who knew how long. Days? Lauren was studying it carefully in the fire’s glow.

Brooks was playing with my fingers. “I can’t believe you’re leaving tomorrow.”

“I know. How are you going to survive the rest of summer without me?”

“It will be very, very boring.”

I slouched farther down in my seat, letting my head lean on the backrest. I stared up at the stars. “But when you get home”—I flopped my head to the side so I could look at him—“we’ll see each other?”

“Is every day too much?”

I smiled. “No.” I brought his hand to my lips and rested it there. “And you got your megasign. You won the festival.”

“We won.”

“So music is in your future.”

“Yes.” His eyes seemed as bright as the fire with that thought. “I’m going to buy some studio time and go from there.”

“Good plan.”

“Will you sing with me? At least for our songs?”

“What’s in it for me?” I teased.

He circled his free hand in front of his chest, as if referring to his entire self. “All this BS.”

I laughed. “Deal.”

Acknowledgments

Every new book I get to put in the world feels like a happy bonus that I am grateful for. Thanks to my readers for making it possible for me to keep writing. This book was important to me. Avery reminds me a bit of myself as a teenager. I was a pleaser. A peacemaker. And while I think this is an admirable quality, I also had to learn that sometimes making someone else happy came at the expense of my feelings or happiness. I had to learn to stand up for myself even when the other person was kind and deserving. Being able to write Avery doing this was very cathartic for me, and I’m grateful for this story and this opportunity.

Thanks a million to Wendy Loggia for pulling out the best in this book and helping me shape it just right. She is a rock star editor and I’m happy to be working with her. And thanks to the whole team at Delacorte Press: designer Cathy Bobak, associate director of copyediting Colleen Fellingham, production manager Tracy Heydweiller, SVP and publisher Beverly Horowitz, president and