Sunny Daze (22 page)

“What?” he asks.

“No taking food from people whose name you don’t know,” I say, poking him in the chest.  It hurts my finger more than it hurts him, and we both know it.  “No shoving ANYONE’S head down the toilet, and no bullying the zoo kids at all.  Understand?”

I might love him, but like I mentioned earlier, he IS a super villain.  He’s also a bit of a bully when he’s in a bad mood.  “Hey, now--” he starts out.

“Promise me, Jack,” I say, staring him down.  “I heard how snappy you got when I went to Texas--we won’t have a repeat of that, understand?”

He sighs.  “Fine,” he says reluctantly, “except Max or Trent!  You can’t make me swear anything about those two, got it?”

“Those two can handle themselves,” I agree.

“And Ace!”

“Nuh uh.  You don’t get to bully Ace,” I say.  “You can tease him, sure, and if it’s a legitimate fight, you can fight him, but no bullying.  He’s doing Emily a huge favor by being her debut villain, and we’re going to thank him by being nice to him, got it?”  Technically the summer camp is over, but the boys have kept up their little game of “points” as they call it.  I’m not sure they’ll ever stop, honestly, because they talked Nico into turning the game into a phone app.  And as soon as Sunny and Adanna get back from Texas, Sunny will start playing, too--at least that’s what Jack told me.

“Oh come on, Aub, Ace can take care of himself, too!” Jack protests.  I give up, hugging him instead of arguing.  He wraps his arms around me lightly, resting his chin on my head.  “I already miss you,” he mutters.  That has got to be the sweetest thing he’s ever said to me.  Well, one of them.  Every once in a while he sneaks in a really sweet moment.

“Me too,” I say, almost feeling the urge to cry.  It’s silly, I’ll only be gone a week, after all.  I sigh, cuddling closer and resting my head against his chest.  I can hear his heartbeat, strong and steady.  “Hey,” I say, pulling away and looking up at him, “I’ll bring home souvenirs, okay?”

“Can I have a polar bear?”

“Absolutely not,” I say firmly.

“Not even a little one?”

“Not even a little one.”

“Then I’m good,” he says, grinning at me.  I reach up, kissing him lightly.

“We need to get back to our apartment,” I tell him.  “There’s no point in trying to sleep, but we can at least close our eyes for a little bit.  We’re leaving in four hours.  You need sleep, too, you’ve got school in the morning.  So... This is goodbye,” I say, pulling away.  “I’ll call you, okay?”

“Okay,” he says, reaching up and touching the metal rose hanging from my neck.  It shifts, changing into his super symbol.  I can’t help but roll my eyes.  “What?  Can’t have the supers up in the Arctic thinking you’re free,” he says.

“Oh, please, Jack,” I drawl, “I don’t need to be branded--I’ll be faithful, regardless.”

“It’s not you I don’t trust,” he says.  “Just think of me when you see it, okay?”  He reaches up and pushes my hair behind my ear, leaning down and kissing me again.

“I prefer the rose,” I tell him.

“Okay, we’ll compromise,” he says, touching the necklace again.  A rose appears above a much smaller version of his symbol.

“I can accept that,” I say, amused.  I give him one more hug before grabbing Emily and Ditto.  “Enough teasing your boyfriend, we need to go,” I tell them as they let out a laugh.

“Bye Trent!” Ditto says, waving happily as I drag them off.

“Bye,” Emily says, looking a bit sadder than her doppelganger.  “If you get lonely, we’ll send Repeat, okay?”

“Please don’t,” Trent says dryly.  Repeat is Emily’s second doppelganger, but she’s a bit harder to get along with than Ditto is.  “Send Ditto, instead.”

“Love you, too, Trent!” Ditto says, grinning from ear to ear.  We head into our apartment, heading for our rooms to lie down.

***

Would you like to own Sunny’s SVSC shirt?  It’s now a teespring campaign!  But it’s only available until April 7
th
!  Check it out at
http://teespring.com/capehigh_sunnyshirt

Also, Pen and Cape Society has a brand new anthology coming out Mar 30
th
!  It comes with a short story featuring Skystep (it takes place before this book, but it’s still a lot of fun!) Preorder it here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UQLJ2I4

~About the Author~

R.J. Ross has been writing since junior high, when she discovered that it could help her keep an A in English Class. She lives in Missouri, where she works as a secretary for the family business and spends all of her free time writing.  If you would like to see more of her work, you can find several short stories at amazon.com/author/rjross! 

Like her on Facebook for bonus material such as character profiles, unpublished information, and status updates at https://www.facebook.com/capehigh!  Or check out her blog for free Cape High short stories at https://capehigh.wordpress.com or follow her on twitter @nosidekickhere