That Summer

Eight

"People like her?" Ian echoed, surprised, narrowing his eyes at me. "You don't even know her properly. What are you talking about?"

"Sorry, but it's already been one question. Don't you know how to count?" I smirked in triumph.

"Touché."

"My question, were you guys forced on this trip, and by who?" I asked.

"Our parents forced on this trip. It's supposed to be a 'bonding trip'," Ian said, making air quotes with his fingers.

"Sounds like fun," I chuckled.

"Sure is," Ian said, sarcasm dripping from his voice, like honey. "What do you mean people like Quinn?"

"I mean rich spoiled brats who think they own the world. The kind of people who abuse and insult people on a daily basis without so much as giving two shits about other people's feelings." I said, angrily.

"Woah, chill, Quinn isn't as bad as you think she is. Quinn's definitely not a bully. In fact, she's harmless. You should see the way she runs away from bunnies. It's priceless, actually." Ian defended her automatically.

"You seem to be too much on her side for someone who supposedly hates her." I chuckled, bitterly.

"I don't so much hate her, as much as I dislike her for being so mean to my mom." Ian said, softly. "Especially after she had tried to get Quinn to like her. My mom really tried - she did."

"We really are a bunch of fucked up people, aren't we?" I said, bitterly.

Ian opened his mouth to respond when a scream from downstairs came.

"If you two asses are done with your gay love session, lunch is ready," Kyle yelled.

Leave it to him to yell inappropriate comments loud enough for all of Crestville to hear.

"You're just jealous I can bang your cousin and you can't." Ian yelled back.

With a look of approval, I said, smirking, "We are going to be really good friends. I can tell."

•••

After lunch, we laid out a gigantic map of Crestville and its surroundings areas, in the living room, which Shawn, the villa owner, had been kind of enough to leave for us.

"Whew, who knew Crestville could be so big?" Kyra said, as she unfolded the last part of the map.

"Crestville is not the only thing that is big around here," Kyle said, slyly, throwing a thoroughly disgusted Kyra a wink.

"It's okay, Kyle. We all know that you need to reduce your amount of body fat." Kyra smirked, grinning triumphantly.

"Burrrrnnnnnn," I exclaimed, surprised.

Kyra was probably the only girl I knew who had resisted Kyle's advances. That made me actually respect her on some level.

"Oh shut up, and look at the stupid map," Kyle grumbled.

I sent him a look, making sure that he knew that I wanted to talk to him about Kyra and him.

"How about this?" Quinn said, pointing, to an area marked as Amber Valley trails. "We could go hiking here for a couple hours."

"Sure," Ian agreed. "And afterwards, we can head out to eat some place."

Within half an hour, we were ready to go and in the car. The trails were only a short twenty minute drive from the villa.

Like always, I was driving, with Derek as my navigator. Ian's car still hadn't come from the repair shop (something about repainting it), but while we'd been to the islands, Quinn had gotten my car fixed (and paid for the damages, might I add).