“He wastes no time. I don’t know what happened to him in college because he was a good dude in high school.” I pushed myself to the end of my bed and hit the valve to release the air in the mattress.

As I stomped on the mattress to get it as flat as possible, I got a text from Austin.

AUSTIN: Wanna go get your dog?

He sent a picture of himself smiling. I could tell from his surroundings he was right outside Teddi’s window. I crawled over Peaches, and Teddi retracted her legs so I wouldn’t smoosh her. I got to her window, flipped the locks, and opened it up instead of texting him back.

He covered his eyes from the late morning sun. “Hey, Juliet. We can’t stay too long today, got to get you back to the old homestead.”

He was merging the Wild West and Shakespeare.

Teddi pushed her way next to me. “Remember when you used to sneaky smoke out there and thought no one knew, but really, we all knew?”

Austin tossed up his hands. “Are you always this good at keeping secrets, Bear?”

“Hey, if you’re rolling up on my girl here, I need to make sure she knows everything about you.” Teddi gave me and then Austin a big cheesy wink.

“She grew up in that room with you. I doubt there’s very little she doesn’t know about me.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket and twirled them. He was killing me with a leather jacket and black jeans.

“You’ve got a very Goth thing going on today.” Teddi was really into the ball-busting at this point.

“Maybe you should close that window. There’s a huge bees’ nest just above it.” Austin pointed and Teddi popped her head out to look.

“Oh, shit.” She and I slammed the window down together just as a bee flew into the glass.

Peaches screamed like the bee was a horror movie killer, which sent Teddi and me into fits of laughter.

After we stopped laughing and making fun of Peaches, I helped her roll the airbed up before getting dressed. Later, a light knock sounded on the door, and Teddi opened it to reveal Austin waiting, leaning against her door jamb.

I spoke around the hope in my throat. “Almost ready.”

Peaches slapped me on the ass before giving me a full body hug, and then Teddi joined in so we had a three-way situation going on. I loved these girls so much. I almost felt teary thinking about how the times together had gotten so few and far between since we were in school.

Austin held out his hand and I grabbed it. After a whole extra round of goodbyes and thank yous, Austin and I were on the road.