Titolo: Life, Love & Lemons
Autore: Magan Vernon
Genere: Young adult contemporaneo
Trama: When life hands you lemons, sometimes you have to say screw the lemons and bail.
Seventeen-year-old Bentley Evans had it all. Then her Dad got laid off.
Now she has to move across town to a small apartment and leave her life of luxury for public school and a job at the local burger place. Just when her world seems like it's crumbling she finds solace in the unlikely punk boy next door, Kai Stone. But as their relationship blossoms, a jealous ex-girlfriend and a secret to tell that threatens to bring disaster back into Bentley’s life.
Seventeen-year-old Bentley Evans had it all. Then her Dad got laid off.
Now she has to move across town to a small apartment and leave her life of luxury for public school and a job at the local burger place. Just when her world seems like it's crumbling she finds solace in the unlikely punk boy next door, Kai Stone. But as their relationship blossoms, a jealous ex-girlfriend and a secret to tell that threatens to bring disaster back into Bentley’s life.
Magan Vernon is a Young Adult and New Adult writer who lives with her family in the insurance capital of the world. She is in a very serious, fake relationship with Adam Lambert and constantly asks her husband to wear guyliner. He still refuses. She also believes her husband is secretly an alien, disguised as a southern gentleman.#1
“Are you okay?”
I sat on the cold tile floor of the
break room with my head between my grease stained knees. The last person I
expected to come back and check on me was Kai.
In my frenzied cry I somehow managed to
blurt out that I female problems and that got Jason to find someone else to do
the sweeping. No guy ever wants to fight that one and Jason’s face turned red
when I mentioned it.
“I’m fine." I sniffled, hoping that
Kai would just go away. I wanted to be alone. How could my friends have done
this to me? It was bad enough that I already lost my house, my school, and now
some of my best friends since grade school. To top it all off I had some kid
with hot pink shoes acting like I was the one with issues.
“Well obviously you’re not." He
reached his hand out toward me.
I crossed my arms firmly over my chest.
“I don’t need your help." It came out whinier than I intended.
Instead of walking away, he just plopped
down beside me and spread his long legs out next to mine.
“You can only try and make lemons into
lemonade for so long before you just have to say, screw the lemons, and
bail." He stretched his arms out over his head.
I couldn’t help but smile. “I didn’t
think anyone but me actually used that expression.”
“Well looks like you were wrong."
He slowly stood up and turned to face me. “Now c’mon and let me show you what
else you’re wrong about.”
As I looked at him, I didn’t know what
came over me. Maybe it was just my girl emotions working overtime or maybe it
was his pleading puppy dog eyes, but for some reason I took his hand and
followed him out the back door.
“So where are we going?" I
questioned, letting go of his hand as soon as we got outside. I was really glad
we exited out the back so no one saw us. I really didn’t want people getting
the wrong idea. Kai was a nice guy and everything, but I knew the other
co-workers would have a field day if they saw us together. Luckily it was just
my little red mini and a giant orange car in the parking lot.
“Just get in and you’ll find out,"
He said conspiratorially and opened the passenger door of the giant orange
thing.
“What is that?" I pointed at the
car, tilting my head.
“This would be my car, a Ford
Falcon." He motioned again for me to get into the car.
Slowly I approached the car and got in
as he slid over the hood of the car to the driver’s side.
“Isn’t that like something out of Star
Wars?" I asked as he got in and started the car.
“No, that would be the Millennium
Falcon, and that would be Star Trek." He smiled and pulled out of the
parking lot.
“Sorry, I’m not up on my geekery."
I laughed and I held out my palms toward him.
“It’s okay I didn’t really expect you to
be." He slid his long fingers over toward me. I thought he was going to
reach for my hand but instead he turned on the stereo, letting a loud screaming
guy’s voice blast over the speakers.
“Ugh!" I put my hands over my ears
and screeched, “What is that?”
Kai sighed and turned down the music.
“It’s the Circle Jerks, you know Punk Rock.”
I shook my head. “Never heard of them,
maybe you have something else that I might like." I reached up into the CD
visor and browsed through his CD’s. Bad Religion, The Misfits, Dead Kennedys
—All these bands I had never heard of and sounded really depressing.
“How about we just turn on the radio?”
“You’re kind of demanding you know
that?" Kai looked at me out of the corner of his eye and leaned back in
his seat.
“Gee, you’re such a charmer," I
mocked. “But seriously, where are we going anyway?”
“It’s a surprise,” he said
mischievously, smiling as he turned down State Street.
“Okay," I said and pulled my
uniform top over my head.
“JESUS, what are you doing?" Kai
swerved the car and almost hit the curb in the process, causing me to almost
bounce my head off the dashboard.
“Ugh!" I folded the shirt in my lap
and then ran my fingers across the straps of my white tank top that I had on
underneath. “I just didn’t want to show up to wherever we were going in my
uniform; what did you think I was doing? Trying to strip down in the Star Trek
car?”
“I don’t know."
He shrugged. “I thought the Falcon had some magical powers or something.”#2
From Monday to Friday it was like
everything had changed. Instead of walking through the halls alone with my head
down, Kai was always by my side. This, of course, led to some very interesting
stares and nicknames from people. I think my favorites were Bonnie and Hyde or
Sid and Nancy Drew. Anything people could think of to come up with a couple
name for the punk kid and the preppy girl. There were others, but the East High
kids could get pretty raunchy when they came up with some of these nicknames.
“Do you still want to go watch Grant and
Brody’s band play on Saturday?”
It was that lull after I had fourth
period gym class and before lunch. I was leaning against my locker, and Kai
pressed his palm against the other locker and faced me.
I still wasn’t sure what to think of
Grant and Brody. They were nice and all, but I always felt like they were
gawking at me like I was some sort of a zoo exhibit.
“I don’t know, maybe.”
The truth was that I already asked my parents
about the concert. Mom just rolled her eyes and couldn’t believe that her
daughter wanted to go to some crummy warehouse to sweat with a bunch of
teenagers, but Dad was a little more interested. Just by asking about the
concert hosted a whole slew of questions about the bands and who I was going
with. I especially got nervous when he started asking questions about Kai.
“What do you mean maybe?” He asked as he
ran his tongue over his lip ring. We still hadn’t kissed. I was pretty adamant
about the whole not kissing until he was my boyfriend thing. But I couldn’t
deny how much I thought about his lip ring.
“I mean, maybe I’m busy or
something." I twirled a strand of hair around my fingertip.
“What? Are you going out with one of
your other boyfriends or something that night?" He leaned in closer. A
couple of jocks walked by and yelled some disgusting comment, but I pretended
like I didn’t hear them.
“I don’t have any boyfriends at all, so
I really wouldn’t be going out with any of them, now would I?" I batted my
eyelashes.
“Why don’t you be my girlfriend then?”
He traced his free hand down my arm, full-on putting on the charm.
“Maybe," I answered very quickly,
almost too quickly, since he blinked really hard.
“What do you mean, maybe?” He tilted his
head to the side and he reached down to grab my hand.
“Ew, get a room." A very tall girl
with fiery red hair and cat’s eye glasses yelled and then walked over to us.
“Teegan, if you think that hand holding
is bad, then you really need to get out more,” Kai quipped, quickly looking
from me to Teegan.
“Oh, I saw plenty of that with you and
Brynne. Remember I’m her band mate,” Teegan snarled and walked closer. “But
when it’s with little Miss Sandra Dee, it’s kind of disgusting.” She giggled
and headed over to a group of girls a few lockers away. Once I caught sight of
the group I immediately saw Brynne’s big green eyes glaring in my direction.
“Do you really want to have to keep
dealing with that every day? The weird vampire girls and jocks talking about
us? Because that’s what you’re going to get,” I said, looking up at him. My
cheeks were still hot after Teegan’s comment and I hoped I didn’t look too
embarrassed.
He laced our fingers together. “I
wouldn’t be still standing here if I didn’t want to be with you." He
looked from our hands and back down to me. “Now what do you say, will you be my
girlfriend?”
“Maybe." I smiled again.
He started to roll his eyes when I got
up on my tippy toes placing my hands on the back of his neck. I slowly pulled
him closer as our lips met for the first time. I couldn’t believe how warm and
rough his lips were in contrast to the cold and smoothness of his lip ring. Nor
could I believe all the people that were cheering as he pulled me closer to
fully envelope himself in the kiss. I didn’t want it to end and swear I
literally almost melted in his arms when I felt his tongue on my bottom lip.
A large hand thrusted between us,
knocking our bodies apart. I got off of my tippy toes and quickly let go of Kai
as I turned to see my gym teacher, Mr. Brown, with his large and quite furry hand
placed firmly in the middle of me and Kai. He faced Kai with his spit-stained
mustache.
“Handshake, Mr.
Stone." He took Kai’s hand from mind and shook it senseless. “Handshake!”#3
"You know I'm pretty sure that all
that's involved in high school dancing is just dry humping and swaying back and
forth," I said as Kai helped me move my parent's couch back.
"Well, I don't want to dry hump or
just sway back and forth," he said with a big grin on his face before
setting the couch down.
"We don't have to do this right now
either. It's a Sunday morning and all." I walked over to the front of the
couch, not taking my eyes off of him.
"Homecoming is Saturday, and the
only dance I know is the Hokey Pokey." He shrugged. "Besides Mom and
my sisters are at small group and your parents can sleep through anything, so
why not now?"
"Okay." I let out a deep
breath and opened my computer. "But you really didn't take any kind of
dance classes? I had ballroom dancing freshman year in gym."
"Bentley, I've gone to public
school all of my life. The only dance we ever learned was line dancing when I
was in grade school up in Wisconsin, and I'm not doing that at
Homecoming." He laughed.
I started up the song and set my laptop
down and stepped in front of Kai, putting my right hand up toward him. “I
definitely don’t think there will be line dancing at Homecoming,” I said,
putting my hand in his.
“And you make fun of my music?” Kai
asked as the song crooned through the speakers on my laptop. I put Kai’s right
hand on my hip, and then placed my left hand on his upper arm.
“This is Sinatra, I really don’t think
there is anything to be making fun of, and besides I don’t think we could
really do ballroom dancing to punk rock.”
“I’m sure we could try." He smiled
and kissed my forehead.
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, now that we have the arm position it’s time
to move our feet, and if you step on my bare feet I am going to punch you.”
He playfully hovered his foot over mine,
so I pinched his arm. “If you don’t behave then I’m switching the music to
country.”
He let out a big sarcastic sigh. “Fine.”
“Okay, so left foot then right foot then
together,” I said as we moved in unison.
“Then right foot goes back and then the
left foot meets it.”
We moved together doing a few box steps.
It felt kind of silly to be dancing in my pajamas in the living room.
“You know, I really don’t think that
anyone is going to be doing the waltz at Homecoming,” I muttered
I
looked up to see him mouthing ‘left, right, together’.
“Well what do people usually do
then?" He looked down at me and stopped mouthing the words.
The Sinatra song ended and a slower punk
rock song played, one that Kai had actually put on my computer.
“Usually…" I put both my arms
around his neck. “It’s kind of more of a close, swaying motion.”
“Oh." He wrapped his long arms
around my waist and pulled me as close as I think two people can get when one
was over six foot and the other was barely over five foot three.
“Like this?" He swayed slowly back
and forth.
“Usually it’s not some sort of a giant
dancing with a midget.” I laughed.
“Fine then." He bent at his knees
and picked me up off of the ground, so that my legs were dangling in the air
while he continued to sway back and forth. “Is that better, shorty?”
I wrapped my bare legs around his waist.
“Now it is."
I leaned in and ran my tongue along his
bottom lip, tracing the lines of his lip ring.
“I don’t think that’s part of the
waltz." He smiled and pressed his forehead to mine.
“It is now." I kissed him, pretty
hard, since he fell back into the couch with me still in his arms.
Maybe I should have
taken him up on the night alone instead of Homecoming. It felt so good to just
be in his arms, and the kissing wasn’t so bad either. I could forget about the
world every time that Kai kissed me. It was like his lip piercing had some kind
of magical powers that just made all my problems disappear as long as we were
kissing.
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