The Last Summer of Us Read Online Free Page A

the piss.
    I pull a face and they chew and the local radio DJ waffles on about the temporary traffic lights on the bypass and, dear god, does he not have anything better to talk about? This is the thing about living in a small town: however small it is, it might as well be the whole world. As far as some of the people who live here are concerned, the universe stops just past the end of the dual carriageway – and it only goes that far because the garden centre’s off the roundabout, and if you lose that, you lose your begonias and your coffee shop with Sunday carvery. Mrs Davies who lives at number 32 in our road? She’s never left town. Not at all. Not even for a holiday. Can you imagine? She’s so comfortable here that she doesn’t want to be anywhere else, to go anywhere else. She’s content to simply be where she is; where she’s always been. What a thought.
    The bacon is gone. I know this without even looking at the plate, because Jared’s pushing his chair away from the table and no way does Jared leave a table with food still on it. I don’t know where he puts it all: “hollow legs”, my grandmother used to say. If that’s true, then Jared’s hollow all the way down to his toenails.
    â€œWhat’s the plan?” he asks, looking from Steffan to me and back again.
    â€œDon’t ask me,” I splutter back at him. They’ve worked their way through the whole pile of bacon, and I’m still chewing my second piece. “This is his party.” I wave my hand in Steffan’s general direction. He responds by stealing the last bite of bacon from between my fingers and eating it, winking at me.
    â€œNo plan, is there?” he says. “Just us, in the car. Driving.”
    â€œDriving where, though?” I slip down from the worktop and wipe the bacon grease off my fingers with the kitchen towel. “You can’t just… drive. ”
    â€œWhy not? That’s the whole point of a road trip, isn’t it? It’s all about…” His eyes glaze over as he stares into the distance… “The journey.”
    â€œDuring which you usually see stuff. Or do stuff. World’s biggest ball of string, Grand Canyon, that kind of thing? Hence it being ‘A Journey’ and not just ‘three of us sitting in a car, listening to your dodgy taste in music’.”
    â€œI resent that. I have excellent taste in music.”
    â€œYeah, right. Keep telling yourself that.”
    â€œOi! I— Woah there. No.” Steffan breaks off from insulting me and darts across the kitchen, slamming the fridge door shut. While he was busy Not Having A Plan, Jared’s started poking around the cupboards. Honestly, he’d eat the furniture given half a chance. “Not the fridge,” says Steffan firmly.
    â€œGet in trouble for the beer, did we?” Jared doesn’t sound even the least bit sympathetic.
    â€œNot exactly.” Steffan looks sheepish for a second. “Might do for this, though.” He grins and jerks his head towards a flat, oblong box sitting on a shelf near the door. It looks like it’s made of cardboard, and I haven’t the faintest idea what’s in it. There are what look like flowers and women in flouncy dresses printed on it, and some kind of gold sticker sealing it shut. The seal’s been broken.
    â€œWhat’s that?” I ask, but neither of them pays me any attention. Of course they wouldn’t: it’s two-plus-one. Two in the know, one not, in this case. Mechanic’s Paradox, remember? Always the bloody way.
    Steffan yawns louder than he needs to and stretches, tossing the box into a carrier bag. “Are we going then, or what?”
    â€œSeriously. The plan?” I say. I’m not daft enough to buy this all-about-the-journey bollocks he’s trying to sell me. In fact, I’m vaguely insulted that he thinks I’m thick enough to believe it –