My dad’s car—a silver SUV with dark windows and shiny chrome—is sitting along the backside of the little house, in front of a massive wall of firewood that lines the driveway. Beyond it, the old metal swing set is bordered by tall grass, where Charlie has clearly given up on trimming it. It makes my twelve-year-old heart a little sad to see it neglected. My phone buzzes, pulling me out of my lawn-gnome-and-swing-set-induced haze, and I swipe the screen to life as I open the door and push it with my hip. Not even out of the driveway, and already my mom has texted me three more things she forgot. And I’m not finding them at The Little Store—I’m going to have to drive into town, to the “big” market that is still little by normal standards. Texting my mom a quick ok, I drop into the seat and twist the keys in the ignition. Without warning, the car is filled with a deafening jolt of drums and screaming. My hand flies for the volume knob, my heart in my throat. What the …

“Dammit, Asher,” I mutter, just as a messy mop of brown hair pokes up over the backseat. I startle again, not expecting that he’d be in the car. He cocks his head to the side and his blue eyes twinkle as a smile spreads across his face.

Like most epic rivalries, it would be impossible to pinpoint the exact reasons I loathe Asher Marin. Maybe it’s the way he walks into my family’s cabin each summer—the one identical to his next door—and smiles at my mother as if he’s thrilled to see us all. As if he hasn’t been dreaming of tormenting me for the last ten months, the way I’ve been dreaming of all the things I’ll do to him. It could have been the self-tanner he put in my sunscreen when I was fourteen, or my frozen swimsuits when I was sixteen, or last year’s crowning glory, the cayenne pepper he laced my toothpaste with.

But those all came after. And there are so many that it doesn’t even matter what started it anymore. All that matters is that this summer, the summer before I go off to college—probably the last summer I’ll have to see Asher Marin for eight weeks straight—I’m going to finish it.

“Happy first day of summer, Sidney.” He meets my narrowed eyes and laughs, deep in his throat. And just as he clears the door and steps aside, I put the car in drive and peel out of the driveway, a bright red brontosaurus craning its neck around the house as I leave them behind me.

Also by Jessica Pennington

ALSO BY JESSICA PENNINGTON

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