Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If the residents of White Potato Lake knew one thing, it was that the Kepners did not get along with the Taylor-Walsh family. 

Two summer houses, one belonging to each family, sat perched on the banks of a timeless lake, timeless in that White Potato Lake never saw change other than the rising and falling lake water levels. Same rabid woodland critters, same sunscreen-induced oily sheen on top of the water, same cockeyed fish gaping up at boats from the deep dark depths below, same warring families bit. 

A million things could be pointed to in an attempt to explain the animosity between the two families: Mrs. Kepner almost running over Mr. Taylor with her Subaru in 2013, Mr. Walsh and Mr. Kepner being in opposing frats at UW Madison back in the day, the very obvious difference in the families’ tax brackets, the ridiculous fights between Grandpa Taylor and Grandpa Kepner (may they both rest in peace) which Melissa wholeheartedly believed was caused by a situationship gone wrong way back in the homophobic day.

Regardless of how it began, the feud was simply a fact of place, just like how the earth was round or how maybe the earth wasn’t round at all and was actually flat instead. 

Melissa knew all of this. In fact she’d experienced it firsthand, from Mrs. Walsh screaming at her to get away from the Walsh family’s prized rottweiler to Jackie Taylor pushing her off of a paddleboard with a periwinkle paddle. She had participated in ten, soon to be eleven, Labor Day Games up at White Potato Lake and had seen the worst possible side of each family.  

Yet there she was, staring at the Taylor-Walsh dock, a foreign feeling of awe holding her attention like a cat with a red dot laser. 

It looked the same for the most part, its shining metal making a mockery of the splintered wood of Mel’s own family dock. What was not the same was the leggy brunette perched at the end of the dock.

The girl sat with one pale foot skimming the water as she squinted down at a battered book. It was like something out of a painting, one that Melissa would gawk at in a museum and fleetingly wonder if she could ever achieve that level of talent. 

Melissa was gawking now, staring openmouthed at the scene with her eye sockets glued to the lenses of a pair of worn-out binoculars. As deeply as she detested the Taylor-Walsh family, the girl on their dock was a nice sight for sore eyes and a welcome change from the six loathsome family members who typically inhabited the property next door.

There were about a million questions sprinting across her cluttered mind like little roadrunners and so she proposed one to the jury. 

“Do we think that the Taylors or Walshes have a secret second daughter that they’ve been keeping locked up somewhere?” Melissa muttered to her three brothers.

“Like in The People Under the Stairs ?” Arlo asked from where he sat next to her, legs swinging off of the porch railing.

Mel lowered the binoculars. “How do you know about that movie, buddy?” 

Arlo shrugged and pointed at their two older brothers. Baker winced and looked up at the sky as though he could spot a helicopter that would save him from the question. Levi, on the other hand, stared right back at Mel, ready to defend himself from any squawking disbelief.

Melissa simply shook her head, unimpressed. Apparently being traumatized by a horror movie was a rite of passage in their family; she still had nightmares about The Human Centipede even though she’d tucked her face in Baker’s shoulder and wept for most of the film.  

Baker cleared his throat. “Well, uh, we didn’t know that there were, uh, cannibals in the movie,” he began, squinting at a bird passing overhead, still looking for a way out.

“Lo was fine, he was nine.” Levi waved a nonchalant hand like Melissa’s question was a pesky fly. 

Coincidentally, Mel had also been traumatized by The Fly and, go figure, Levi and Baker were also to blame for that. She made a mental note to remind Gen of that fact the next time Mel inevitably burst into tears when a fly buzzed too close to her face. 

“ Nine ?” Melissa tsked disappointedly, scowling harder. Arlo was by no means an angel at that age, or any age, really, but that was a little ridiculous. “Oh my god, isn’t that the year he bit a kid on the playground, too?”

“You’re such a stick in the mud,” Levi complained. 

Mel crossed her arms and huffed. How she was the most responsible out of her family’s four kids while her high school soccer team didn’t even trust her to stack cones without blowing up the supply shed was truly a Scooby Doo-level mystery.

“Was that the one who tasted like an old boot? Because yes,” Arlo said through a concerningly nonchalant yawn. “Do you see cannibals over there, Mel?” He made a swipe for her binoculars. 

How many kids had the Kepner family piranha bitten? “No,” she huffed, holding the item above her head and away from him. Although she was pretty sure the Taylor-Walshes wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to feast on the flesh of a Kepner in some twisted revenge plot. 

New fear unlocked, great. 

“Oh.” Arlo scoffed in disappointment and turned away. 

Mel cleared her throat. “So, back to my original question, are we against the idea of a secret extra daughter or…”

“They would do some sinister shit like that,” Levi nodded, shoving his sunglasses further up his nose and stretching out on his lawn chair. “That family has issues, as we all know.”

Baker, Arlo, and Mel all nodded in agreement. The Taylors were catty and the Walshes were nutty, no argument there. 

“This is true but I think Jackie would kill herself if she weren’t an only child,” Baker chuckled as he ran a hand through his hair. 

Jackie Taylor, who was a year older than Mel, lived a double life: chirpy, chatty sorority girl by day, spitting snobbish adversary of the Kepner kids by night. Raised on a diet of organic produce and I hate the Kepners propaganda, Jackie typically spent her summertimes at White Potato Lake training for the Labor Day Games like a cadet shipping off for war or yelling at Melissa and her brothers from her third-floor balcony because apparently rich people put balconies on their lake houses.

“Being cousins with Randy is already bad enough as is,” Melissa mused, nodding along.  

“And Randy’s too ugly to have a sister,” Levi offered, chomping on a toothpick that he had pulled from his toothpick case because that was apparently something that some people carried. 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Melissa protested, rolling her eyes when she noticed his initials engraved on the case. What a tool. “And somehow feels insulting?”

“Why? I’m protecting womankind from the Walsh genes.”

“Mrs. Walsh is kinda hot, though,” Baker objected lazily. 

Yeah, Mrs. Walsh was kinda hot. Mel nodded along, grateful that their parents weren’t there to hear the betraying compliment. 

Levi thought it over and also conceded. “Ah, hell, you’re right. Top notch milf right there.”

“Gross!” Arlo doubled over like he’d been gut-punched and pretended to retch. “That’s the enemy!” 

“Good point, kiddo.” Baker pointed at him. “We revoke the previous compliment.”

Mrs. Walsh was no longer hot, the siblings nodded. 

“Okay, so back to my original question again,” Melissa stressed, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. “If there’s no secret daughter, then who is that?” She pointed towards the unknown girl. 

That finally seemed to grab the attention of her lethargic brothers. In an instant, she was being sandwiched on either side by curious shoulders.  

The binoculars were snatched from Mel’s hands in the blink of an eye. “Fuck,” Levi swore then peered into them. “Fuuuck.” His voice took on an impressed tone and Mel barely resisted the urge to hip check him off of the deck as she watched his teeth find his bottom lip. 

“Give those back,” she cried in horror, suddenly wishing she hadn’t drawn attention to the newcomer at all. She danced in place as she frantically grabbed for the binoculars.

“A hot new bombshell enters the villa,” Levi muttered, ignoring Mel’s tittering objection as he chomped on his toothpick. 

Mel stopped her prancing as she made disbelieving eye contact with Baker. “Did you just quote Love Island at us?” 

Levi blanched. The toothpick fell out of his gaping mouth as he lowered the binoculars. “Uh-” 

“Dude,” Baker snickered. 

“I’m still not over Tasha and Andrew’s breakup.” Arlo’s hands clawed at his chest like he was scrambling to catch the pieces of his broken heart.

“Dude!” Melissa’s eyes went wide as she swiveled her head in his direction, a smile of pure mirth spreading across her face. 

“So Arlo, Gen, and I watch Love Island sometimes, so what?” Levi huffed, cagey and trapped between the gleeful gazes of his siblings. 

At the mention of her best friend, Melissa’s smirk dropped quicker than one of Baker’s joints when their mom was around. “Gen? ”

“She gets bored whenever you go down one of your Minecraft rabbit holes,” Levi shrugged. “So, anyway…” he squinted towards the girl.

Mel knocked the binoculars out of his hand with a scowl, suddenly desperate to get his intense gaze off of the girl who she had seen first. 

“What’s your damage?” He complained, hopping around on one foot after the binoculars had successfully squashed his flip-flopped toes. 

Because the girl was pretty and it was the first time Melissa looked at the Taylor-Walsh property and didn’t feel complete and utter loathing. Mel blushed and shrugged in a way that feigned casualness. 

Levi noticed her act, as he typically tended to do, and raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah? Find someone in your own league, Beetlefart.” With that, he spun the hat around on her head just so he could flick the bill down over her eyes.

Baker scooped the binoculars up off of the ground and took a look. “You do know that this means they have a numbers advantage now,” he whined, nodding towards the Taylor-Walsh house.

The numbers advantage was related directly to the Labor Day Games, a White Potato Lake tradition rooted in friendly competition and Midwestern boredom. From beach volleyball to log rolling to the frankly laughable egg toss, the summer residents went apeshit for anything to fill the end-of-summer void. Some more than others, as most people couldn’t be bothered to get that into it. Meanwhile, the Kepners and the Taylor-Walshes treated the competition like it was the Hunger Games bloodbath. 

The Games were dumb but they certainly worked wonders to fuel a family rivalry. Since the games had started, the Kepners had won five times and the Taylor-Walsh family had also won exactly five times. On its eleventh anniversary, both families were determined to take home the plastic trophy and heckling bragging rights tied to the competition.  

“Maybe not,” Mel reasoned. Her initial delight was now gone; in its place dread as she really took the time to think about the girl being associated with the family she had been born to despise. 

“She still could be a cannibal,” Arlo pointed out somewhat wistfully. 

“Or we’re all just seeing things,” Baker offered.

It was entirely possible thanks to a four-hour, fume-filled car ride in a minivan that no longer fit two parents, a pair of adult children, a gangly seventeen-year-old, and a bottlerocket eleven-year-old like it used to. Mel’s legs certainly still ached from being folded up against the car door to make room for the grocery bags bursting with chip bags and hot dog buns. Maybe she was losing her mind, too. 

“Do you see this?” Levi leaned backwards over the railing just so he could shove a middle finger in both Baker’s and Mel’s faces. 

“Cute,” Baker snarked, shooing away the insulting hand.  

“Lunch is ready, Kep kiddos,” their dad shouted from inside, causing everyone but Mel to forget about the girl on the dock.

Mel’s brothers tripped over each other as they raced inside to fight for one of two dining room chairs that did not have a hole in the wicker seat. Their mad dash did not, however, stop each of them from tugging on her braid in an act similar to smacking the top of a doorframe or yelling “Kobe!” before flicking a wadded-up paper ball towards a trash can and missing. 

Once they were out of sight, Mel reached for the ratty binoculars once again. 

Mel knew her Labor Day week schedule at White Potato Lake the way a good Christian knew the Old Testament. She would wake up every morning for the next six days, tangled in scratchy sheets, and would sit upright in a twin bed that no longer fit her comfortably. She’d run the 5K that she and her brothers were forced to run each morning in the days leading up to Labor Day. She’d clean the canoe that she hated, exchange insults with Jackie if she stumbled across the other girl, and do the dishes only to get squirted in the eye by the broken kitchen faucet. 

She’d march over to the lake’s main beach on Labor Day in a matching tie-dyed t-shirt and yell at the Taylor-Walshes and hopefully leave with a hand on the plastic trophy and a pep in her step. 

The girl on the dock was a curveball smacking that schedule out of the ballpark. She almost seemed like an omen of sorts, ushering in some much-needed change to the slow pace of things. 

There hadn’t been a newcomer on the lake in a while, not since the Calvins moved into the cabin left vacant by the Haldens three years ago. Besides, the Calvins only had twin ten-year-olds who gave Arlo a run for his troublemaking money with their creepy Shining twins act.

But the new girl. She was pretty and looked like she knew her way around a bookstore from the way she expertly clutched her paperback book in one hand. She was fresh-faced if not a little bored, and Mel, maybe embarrassingly, needed to know who she was.

She was also perched on the Taylor-Walsh’s dock. The Kepners hated the Taylor-Walshes.  

Still, Melissa let herself indulge in one last peek. She squinted through the binoculars only to see the girl staring straight at her, one hand against her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun. 

In a panic, Mel hit the deck, knocking her elbow into the leg of one of the adirondack chairs. Hissing with pain, she rolled away only to roll right off the deck and headfirst into a bush. 

“Beetlefart down!” Someone unhelpfully hollered from inside.

Chapter Text

“Ready, Kepners?” Mr. Kepner barked the next morning.

“Sir, yes, sir!” Melissa and her brothers barked right back, their voices bouncing off of the pine trees like excited rubber balls.

It was early, the sun barely high enough to even have a UV that would scald Mel’s ever-pale forearms. Her neck screamed with pain from a night of cosplaying as the Bent-Neck Lady thanks to a pillow that had lost its shape a decade ago. Regardless, she pretended like it was part of the charm of the place as she rubbed at the tender muscles and jogged lazily in place. 

Mr. Kepner pulled out his stopwatch and reset it. “You have twenty seven minutes to do this run. Twenty six for the runt,” he winked at Arlo. “Head through the path in the woods to the big pine and back, the usual route.” 

“That’s two minutes less than last year’s time,” Levi grumbled, though he was already getting into position. 

“We have training to do,” Mr. Kepner shrugged, a dangerously competitive smirk overtaking his face. “Anything to keep the Labor Day Games victory out of the Taylor-Walsh household’s hands, right?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” His children bellowed, practically foaming at the mouth with vengeance. 

“See you on the other side in three…two…one…break!” 

Melissa was off in a flash, sneakers kicking up dirt. She expertly dodged Baker and Levi’s rookie attempts at knocking her over, grinning with satisfaction as she heard what had to be the two of them crashing into each other and cursing. 

She dove into the woods like a swimmer familiar with their practice pool, her feet tracing the dirt path like it was second nature. 

Mel could probably run the 5K loop with her eyes closed, which she was almost tempted to do because the rising sun was hurting her eyes. But then she remembered Gen’s whining complaints about blue eyed people being wussies and so the lookers stayed open. 

She took inventory of the usual sights as she jogged along. Pine tree with a thick branch good for perching on to fling juniper berries at Jackie and Randy…hole in the ground that used to house an ammo supply of foam Nerf bullets…aspen whose trunk bore a posture reminiscent of hottie Lottie’s willowy form…rock in the shape of a raccoon.

The area where Melissa spent her sluggish Midwestern summers was, in short, predictable despite its beauty. It was like things were frozen in a moment of time, preserved like a fly in a bead of amber. If only a dinosaur would tear through it all, things were maybe getting a little too familiar. 

But there were worse things than familiarity and so she trekked on. 

Mel ignored her brothers’ heckling calls in the distance as she tore through the woods. She was going to beat them and-

And then she saw something new. Something new in the woods that she knew like the back of her scabby hand. 

It was the brunette girl from the day before. Draped over a fallen tree, not a care in the world, dark hair twisted up in a clip, sun glinting off of her mirrorlike cheekbones-

The toe of Melissa’s sneaker wedged itself in between two gnarled tree roots, roots that she typically knew to hop over on the path. In a flurry of flailing arms, she went down like an unlucky windmill and hit the ground hard, wheezing as the wind was knocked out of her in one foul trip. 

“Sorry, kiddo.” Baker coasted by, shooting her a peace sign over his shoulder. 

“Tough luck, Beetlefart,” Levi snickered, nearly treading on one of her outstretched hands as he flipped her off. 

“See you at the finish line, Mellie,” Arlo chirped, barreling past in a cloud of dirt not unlike Charlie Brown’s dusty friend. 

So much for blood runs thicker than water. If she was trapped inside of a burning building, her three brothers would probably fight their way in to collect their baseball card collections and iPads and Gatorade stash and step on her dying body on the way out the door. 

Not even two minutes into the run and she was already down for the count. Melissa groaned and rested her chin in the dirt. 

“Melissa?” An unfamiliar voice broke Mel out of her wallowing. 

Mel slowly raised her head, wondering if she had upset a tree spirit by tripping over the roots, and saw the brunette girl looking at her, still perched on her log. 

“Are you just going to lay there?” The girl asked, lowering her journal ever so slightly.

The binoculars hadn’t done her justice the day before, that much was apparent. Mel hadn’t seen the slant of inquisitive eyebrows, the clenching of a jaw that yearned to be soft. 

She was pretty, really pretty. Pretty in a way that Melissa would be entirely unable to get work done if they were trapped together in the same classroom with a droning teacher and other dead-eyed classmates. 

And there Melissa was, laying in the dirt in a tracksuit that was pulling away from her ankles and wrists thanks to yet another growth spurt that was only turning her body more awkward. 

Blushing and bumbling, Melissa pushed herself up to her knees and sat back on her heels. “Nah, I’m good,” she wheezed, air still a challenge as she attempted to dust all of the grime off of her front with hasty hands. 

When she looked up, the girl was still staring at her, gaze sharp and furtive, as if waiting for something.

“Wait,” Melissa murmured, taking her cue. “How do you know my name?” 

The girl sat up straighter, as if pleased that her guess was correct. “Jackie’s been complaining about ‘four blonde idiots in tracksuits’ since before I can remember.” She gestured over her shoulder to the Taylor-Walsh house, as if Mel needed a reminder of who lived there. 

Melissa scowled at the McMansion before glancing sheepishly down at her tracksuit. Jackie sure clocked her with that one. 

The girl must be a friend of Jackie’s, then, based on the casual name-drop. Maybe even Jackie’s best friend, the one whose name Jackie sometimes threw out paired with unveiled threats on Melissa’s life. 

A name that was unfortunately slipping through the clumsy fingers of Melissa’s ever-scattered mind.

The girl’s potential, and probable, affiliation as Jackie’s Best Friend 4Ever was unfortunate but could be worse. At least she wasn’t a secret sister or cousin. Unless Mr. or Mrs. Taylor decided to have an affair and the girl was a tragically beautiful estranged lovechild-

“And you don’t look like a Baker or a Levi or an Arlo,” the girl continued before pausing. “Although Levi could be an interesting girl name.” 

Mel made a mental note to kick her manwhore brother in the shin or break the fancy hair dryer he claimed he didn’t use which tended to disappear every time he left for college. Some form of retribution for taking the interesting name.

“So that left Melissa,” the girl finished, staring quizzically at Melissa, sizing her up like an oversized pumpkin at a county fair or a dresser on the side of the road with a Free sign slapped on its scratched top.    

“Or Mel.” Mel’s face burned as she wondered what else Jackie had shared about her, if anything. Probably several essays of reasons Melissa was a knobhead and a verbal reel of Melissa’s most embarrassing hits. “Whatever you prefer.” 

The girl leaned back and lifted her chin. “Which do you prefer?”

“Anything but ‘idiot in a tracksuit,’” Melissa admitted, rubbing the back of her neck with a sheepish hand.

‘“Idiot in a hat’ is also in the cycle.” The girl eyed the top of Mel’s head, as if attempting to conjure up the “biohazard of a hat” (thanks, Gen) that typically covered Melissa’s middle part. 

“Jackie seems to think a lot about my clothes,” Melissa muttered. As if she hadn’t seen Jackie’s lip curl every time Mel walked past in clashing stripe patterns or shirts with sayings that didn’t make sense. The Birds Aren’t Real shirt had really made Jackie scoff two summers prior. 

The girl bit back a smirk as she ran her thumb over the spine of her journal. “She asked for a synonym for ‘idiot’ that started with an ‘H’ to drive home the point.” 

Melissa rolled her eyes. Classic. “Come up with anything?” 

“Halfwit hat,” the girl supplied. She noticed Mel’s wrinkled nose and shook her head in agreement. “Yeah, it’s not the best.” 

“I guess ‘idiot in a tracksuit’ isn’t even the worst option,” Mel muttered mournfully.

The girl offered a wry shrug. “It is straight to the point, you are wearing a tracksuit.”

“We don’t usually do the whole tracksuit shebang,” Mel said blushingly, a weak attempt at defending her frankly ridiculous garb. “We’re not one of those kinds of families-well, not usually. Baker and Levi aren’t really into sports anymore, anyway. Which is actually too bad because they were both really good at basketball and…” she trailed off hesitantly. “Anyway, tracksuits are only for-”

“For the Labor Day Games?” The girl nodded, lips pursed together like she was trying not to snicker.

Fidgeting, Melissa traced circles in the dirt with the toe of her sneaker. They looked like boobs and she blushed. “Yeah, that.” 

Ah, the Games. Oh, the rivalry of it all. Internal business that only made sense to two families who had way too much time on their hands in the summer months and nothing better to do than sneer through the pine needles and tree branches at their neighbors. It sure must look stupid to the outside eye. 

The girl let her journal drop to her lap as she shoved her pencil behind her ear. “So what I’m hearing is that your family is into this thing just as much as Jackie’s?”

“Oh yeah, maybe even worse.” Melissa bobbed her head up and down, thinking about the training schedule her dad had been drafting up all summer.  “Well, actually, I don’t know if that’s true or not.” 

She wouldn’t put it past the Taylors or the Walshes to also force Jackie and Randy to go on runs to prove their fitness for competition. Naturally, the 5Ks would probably take place inside the air-conditioned gym that had just been remodeled at the country club down the road. Why train in the muggy heat? Who would do such a thing? 

“The whole family is scheduled to do swimming drills later,” the girl supplied. “If that gives any indication.” 

Mel almost asked if the girl would be joining them or, more specifically, if she was going to be competing in the Games at all. That was the fear Baker had raised the day before, after all. But she was feeling distracted by the way the girl’s top teeth grazed her bottom lip as she spoke and so the question fizzled out before it even had a chance of being posed. 

“Careful if you join them,” Mel said casually, dropping her gaze. “The lake has some pretty swampy areas.”

The girl’s lips twitched. “There was mention of a pool, actually” 

Ah, country club pool, right. Melissa really truly tried not to roll her eyes but her pupils caught a glimpse of her brain anyway. 

Training in a pool really didn’t make any sense because any swimming at the Labor Day Games would be done in, well, a lake, as god intended. God didn’t put chlorine in lakes back when he put Noah on a boat with all of those animals or however that story went. Chlorine wouldn’t be there to help anyone when they fell into the water during the Labor Day Games’ log rolling event, nor would it save anyone from the ever-present threat of e. coli in White Potato Lake.  

Oh god, was that how antivaxxers or those bizarre anti-fluorite people sounded? Melissa was entering dangerous territory.

“You would think that this competition had some really big prize for all the trouble you guys go to,” The girl continued, widening her eyes sarcastically. 

Mel grinned despite herself. “Nah, just bragging rights and a lame trophy. Oh, and a gift certificate to the local bait shop some years if business has been booming or whatever” 

She shuddered slightly, thinking back to when the Kepners had won two years back. Arlo had left the bait shop lugging two rusty buckets full of worms that lived in his room until they began escaping their confines and trying to find a home in the log walls. 

“Classy.” The girl wrinkled her nose. 

She had a nice nose. Mel wondered if it freckled in the sun or if it always stayed pale from being stuck in books and journals. Either way, there was no preference, both were good options.  

“I’m Melissa,” Mel blurted out before some jumbled nose-related compliment could slip from her lips. 

“I know.” The girl looked amused as she leaned back, hands digging into the scraggly bark on the tree. “We already went over that, remember?”

“Right.” Mel bobbed her head up and down, searching her cloud-filled memory for the name of Jackie’s best friend from the rich Minneapolis suburb that the Taylors were from. 

If Shauna were here, she’d string you up…Shauna could take you down…you’re lucky Shauna Marie Shipman isn’t here…

Shauna Marie Shipman. Jackie’s alleged closest chum, kicker of butts and taker of names. Mel had been half convinced that Shauna was a figment of Jackie’s imagination but that was only because Jackie had suggested the same thing about Gen and Mel was still salty over that dig. 

Girls like Jackie didn’t need to make up imaginary friends, anyway, not when they could have their pick of the litter in any school where they inevitably shined bright like a disco ball. 

So this was Jackie’s person of choice, sitting opposite Mel and staring at her with inquisitive eyes. Well, if Jackie was a disco ball then Shauna was a lava lamp. Quieter, cryptic, but just as interesting to look at. Scalding hot, too, based on the way Jackie wielded her name with such assured power. Maybe there was some terrifying rage buried under the girl’s nonchalant exterior and wry comments, then.

“Are you Shauna?” Mel asked hopefully, ready to lay herself back down on the ground and let potential-Shauna stomp her to bits with the heel of her Converse. 

“Yeah, I am.” Shauna looked surprised. “How did you know that?”

“Because on the rare occasions we do talk, Jackie says your name in, like, every other sentence,” Melissa said in an attempt at hiding her own satisfaction. “Once she threatened to sic you on Arlo when he beheaded her second favorite Barbie doll.”

Shauna blinked slowly. “Isn’t Arlo the little one?”

“Yeah.” Mel nodded in amusement. “He was, like, six at the time.”

“That’s messed up, Jackie,” Shauna clucked, unable to hide a snort. 

Threatening to sic a teenager on a kid would probably be messed up in any other context but Jackie was vicious and Arlo was no normal kid. His ability to turn anything ranging from a tube of lip balm to a paper airplane into a weapon needed to be studied by scientists. In a lab. Far far away. Maybe in Siberia or something.  

“He could probably hold his own against you,” Mel shrugged.  

Shauna raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t even seen my moves yet.”

“And you haven’t seen the untapped power of a middle schooler,” Melissa objected, then paused. “Well, unless you have.”

“Not really.” Shauna shook her head. “Jax acts like a middle schooler sometimes, though.”

Melissa had to agree. Jackie tended to end arguments with a whining “nuh uh!” and would stick her tongue out if her words ever ran out. Plus she watched old Disney Channel movies on repeat, if Mel’s mostly-obscured view of her window was accurate. 

Maybe Jackie was more akin to an elementary schooler. But that was coming from Melissa, who ate cereal for most meals if she could help it and who still asked Gen to tie her cleats before soccer practice, so that was really the pot calling the kibble black or however that saying went. 

It was still early but the woods were starting to get heat. Maybe it was from the sun creeping higher in the sky or maybe Shauna’s cool gaze was having the opposite effect it was supposed to on Mel. She fanned furiously at her neck before rolling her sleeves up to her forearms. 

“Are those from your most recent tumble?” Shauna asked, eyeing the scratched bruises decorating Mel’s elbows. “Or from when you ate shit off of your deck yesterday?”

Melissa’s fingers froze around the cuff of one sleeve. “Oh. You saw that?” 

“Uh, yeah.” Shauna raised an eyebrow. 

“Right.” Mel’s cheeks quite literally throbbed with embarrassment as she frantically fought to conjure a lie to hide the fact that she’d been eyeing Shauna through binoculars. “I’m into, er, birdwatching.”

“Really?” Shauna scrunched up her nose, giving Mel the chance to come clean and fess up. 

Melissa did not take that chance. “Yeah, I just love birds.”

Mel did not love birds. Mel was heckled by pigeons anytime she set foot in downtown Minneapolis. They sensed her nervous energy and squawked with joy, trailing her as she not-so-subtly crossed the street to avoid them. A peacock had once chased her at the zoo and she still had nightmares themed with brightly colored feathers and beady eyes. A bird pooped on her once and another stole her sandwich and, no, she still wasn’t over either instance. 

“Do you have a favorite bird, then?” Shauna asked, still looking skeptical. 

Think, Melissa, think- “Seagull.”

Shauna wrinkled her nose. “Seagulls?” 

“They make me think of the ocean,” Mel lied through smiling teeth. 

Shel had never been to the ocean. The largest body of water she’d seen was Lake Superior. She used to think that the Mississippi River was the Gulf of Mexico and Nicollet Island was Cuba.

“That’s not my main hobby, though,” she insisted quickly, backpedaling so Shauna would not think that she was a freak who carried seeds in her pockets and had a bird identifying app on her phone or something. “I play soccer and I draw and I-ah, shit.”

Jackie Taylor was suddenly approaching, tanned and toner than ever as her tawny ponytail bobbed up and down against her neck. 

Mel’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Well, it was nice knowing Shauna for even just fifteen minutes. She hoped that Jackie counted her lucky stars every day for getting to have such a smart, hot friend. She immediately winced, knowing that Gen had likely heard her telepathically and was probably rolling in a hypothetical grave back in St. Paul while cursing Melissa’s name.

Jackie’s eyes were glued to her phone as she walked so there was still a chance that Melissa could dive into yet another bush or slide down a sinkhole and save herself from Jackie’s fury. 

Birdbrained instincts prompted her to drop to hands and knees and scamper away. 

“What’s wrong?” Shauna frowned as Melissa crawled furiously towards a birch tree that never had a chance of obscuring her body from sight. Regardless, she wedged herself behind it hopefully. “Melissa, I can see you.” 

Mel sucked her stomach in and crunched her shoulders like she was trying to fit into a crawlspace. “How about now?”

“Um, still yes? What are you doing?” 

“Jackie’s coming.” One hand snaked out from around the tree to point at the approaching girl.

Shauna looked over her shoulder and looked back at Melissa. “Yeah, she is.” 

Melissa peered around the tree trunk, eyes narrowing at Shauna’s nonchalant expression.

“So…?” 

“I’m not supposed to be over here,” Melissa offered, wondering why Shauna was not picking up on the potential repercussions. “And we probably shouldn’t be talking since you’re Jackie’s friend and, well, I’m me?”

If Jackie so much as smelled Melissa’s lemon shampoo, Mel was as good as dead. She would be strung up by her shoelaces like a Sporty Spice-themed piñata and forced to suffer Jackie’s wrath. Jackie would beat her with her snowy white tennis racket and the rolling papers and Tic Tacs probably gathering dust in Mel’s pockets would rain down on Shauna like funeral party favors. 

Shauna’s expression hardened into something unreadable. “Jackie doesn’t decide who I talk to.” 

Mel went a deeper shade of red. “Oh-” 

“Shipman! There you are, I was wondering-” Jackie stopped in her tracks and her eyes narrowed. “Kepner?” 

Melissa raised her hand in greeting only to offset her squatting balance and land on her ass with an oof . She pushed her hair back with a huff and squinted nervously up at a clearly miffed Jackie. “Heya, Taylor. Long time no see.” 

The last time Melissa had seen her, which was back in June, Jackie was yelling at Mel for almost decking her in the side of the head with a frisbee intended for Baker’s outstretched hands. In retaliation, Jackie had punted Randy’s football at them in anger only for it to land in the lake which led to a four-way screaming match.  

Needless to say, Jackie and Mel did not get along a majority of the time. Sure, the family rivalry had conditioned them to dislike each other since birth but that aside, they were different to the point of no reconciliation. 

Jackie was all pastel linens and family heirloom jewelry while Mel was hand-me-down denim and untied shoelaces that collected dead bugs and dirt as they dragged. Jackie was polished and magnetic, Mel was scrappy and had an unhealthy attachment to her iPad. Jackie had finesse, Mel had the ghost of a childhood stutter and a dream. 

Melissa smiled at Jackie in an attempt at being cordial for Shauna’s sake, who seemed amused with the current situation.

Jackie squinted at her like Mel had just asked for the keys to Bikini Bottom. “Why are you being weird? And did you even brush your teeth this morning?”

Well, so much for being amicable. The tentative smile slid off of Mel’s face as a hand shot up to cover her mouth. She yearned to be back home, where the Mississippi separated hers and Jackie’s hometowns, essentially ensuring they wouldn’t ever see each other. 

Shauna looked back and forth between the two of them, mirth turning the corners of her eyes crinkled. 

“You’re on our side of the walking path,” Jackie sniffed, pointing at the dirt path that doubled as a geopolitical border. “So can you, like, back it up?”  

Melissa couldn’t help but think of the very brief, emphasis on brief, crush she’d had on Jackie back when she was a kid and thought that the whole family hatred thing was romantic . Oh, if only eleven-year-old Mel could see what Jackie had turned into. 

“Sorry,” Mel muttered, making a show of raising her hands in defeat and scooting backwards onto the path. 

“You don’t have to say sorry, Melissa,” Shauna tutted, shooting Jackie a loaded look. 

“So you two met, then?” Jackie’s lip curled. She stared accusingly at Melissa as if Mel had intentionally tripped in front of Shauna and nearly gotten trampled by her brothers on the Taylor-Walsh side of the path.

Which was fair enough and a move that Melissa would probably have pulled if her clumsy feet hadn’t already sent her tumbling. Shauna seemed like someone worth getting to know despite her poor taste in friends. 

“Briefly,” Melissa insisted, crawling to her feet and standing her ground despite Jackie’s withering glare. 

“I’m just trying to get acclimated with this place,” Shauna addressed Jackie, as if Melissa was one of the Seven underwhelming Wonders of Wisconsin. Mel’s chest automatically puffed up, she could pose like a geographic marvel. 

“There’s no need for that.” Jackie responded with a sugary, syrupy smile and rested her elbows on Shauna’s shoulders, as if warning Melissa that she was allowed to look but not touch. Maybe no looking, either, based on the way Jackie bared her teeth through her plastic smile.  

Mel heard her loud and clear but Jackie’s warning didn’t stop her from huffing. 

“Don’t you have to get back to your family run?” Jackie asked pointedly. “I heard the other three wonder kids tromping through the woods up ahead.” 

“I do as a matter of fact,” Melissa grumbled, zipping her jacket back up and pulling down the sleeves after seeing Jackie’s perfectly proportioned Lululemon cuffs sitting primly on her wrists. “Thanks for the reminder, Jackie.”

“Anytime.” Jackie wrinkled her nose deviously. “Toodeloo.”  

“Nice to meet you,” Melissa offered up to Shauna, barely resisting the urge to tip an imaginary hat at her. 

Shauna nodded in response. A small thing, bemused and accompanied by a raised eyebrow, but a gesture that nevertheless carried Melissa through the rest of her run. 

“Not your best, kiddo,” Mr. Kepner sighed with disappointment when Mel jogged back into the clearing, not even looking down at the stopwatch that no doubt displayed an unsatisfactory time. “Not by a longshot.” 

“What happened to your clothes?” Mrs. Kepner also sighed, disappointed for another reason entirely as she eyed Melissa’s dirty knees.

“Nearly got trampled, sorry.” Melissa squinted accusingly at her brothers, who were swarmed around the breakfast-covered picnic table like blonde horseflies.

“Terrible excuse.” Levi pointed a gnawed-down watermelon rind at her. “That was literally ages ago, Beetlefart.”

Mel chewed on her lip, woefully uninterested in clueing in her family on who she had just met. 

“I ran into Jackie,” she offered, a half-truth.  

That drew the group’s attention, giving her the expected reaction. Her mom and dad shook their heads wearily like they couldn’t believe Jackie’s parents had raised her the way they had while her brothers scoffed in unison.

“Yeah?” Baker dumped the remaining water from his Nalgene onto his head and shook away the water droplets. “And how is the princess?”

“Still her same sparkly self,” Mel muttered. Unfortunately. Stupid disco ball Jackie Taylor. 

“Pity. Hey, did you see that new girl, too?” Levi asked, flicking watermelon seeds at Arlo who resumed cartwheeling around the yard with a pancake clutched in one grimy fist. 

Mr. Kepner’s head snapped up, fingers going limp around the knife he was using to furiously saw a bagel in half. “What new girl?” 

“Some girl who was sitting on the Taylor-Walsh dock yesterday,” Baker supplied before Mel could jump in and diffuse the startled expression on her father’s face.

“Crucial piece of information to keep away from your old man,” Mr. Kepner huffed, shielding his eyes with one hand as he stared at Jackie’s house and then back at Melissa like she had just revealed that Christmas was canceled. “This is going to put us at a major disadvantage for the Games this year.” 

“She might not even be competing with them,” Melissa protested weakly as her father fanned himself like he was about to start hyperventilating like one of Santa’s laid-off workers. “Maybe she’s just here to cheer them on?”

If Shauna shared even a fraction of Jackie’s interests, she was likely just as competitive and just as athletic as the Taylor daughter. It didn’t seem like Shauna was fit for an audience or cheerleader position, even with her well-loved journal and languid posture. There was something brazen under the surface of her skin, if Mel could just be given the opportunity to get a better look and-

“You know how that family plays, Mel,” Baker said over the sound of Mr. Kepner muttering out a string of insults geared towards the Taylor-Walshes. “They’ll use any advantage they can.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Mel muttered. 

Everyone stared at her, as if their furtive eyes could will some more determination into her body or truth into her affirmation. Even Arlo had stopped his mucking off to gawk at Mel like he couldn’t believe her nonchalance. She fidgeted under their gaze and shrugged.

“Sit down Melissa,” Mrs. Kepner finally said, probably tired of watching Mel stand there like a suspect in an investigation room. “Have some fruit.” She patted the seat next to her. 

“Have some protein,” her father corrected numbly, eyes still glazed over with exasperation as he shoveled far too many scoops of scrambled eggs onto a chipped plate with a cow painted on it. “Bulk up for the Games.” He shoved the plate in her direction and then dropped his head into his hands and groaned.

Mel sat and stared mournfully down at her monstrous pile of eggs, which had to have rivaled a mountain somewhere out west, and sighed. Being in an egg ick phase, she was tempted to pawn off the plate to one of her brothers. But they were at war, just as they always were, and eggs were in need of eating. Plus her dad looked to be one second away from a Labor-Day Games-related meltdown and two seconds away from wailing, “this is going to ruin the tour!”

So Mel quietly ate her eggs and wondered to herself if she was going to see Shauna in the Taylor-Walsh team t-shirts on Saturday. 

Chapter Text

“Kepner!” A shrill voice pierced through the still air. 

Mel bit back a groan, thumping her head against the scalding hot metal lip of the canoe she was cleaning cobwebs out of only to recoil at the heat. “Ouch!” 

“Huhuhuhuhuh,” came an unfortunately familiar, startlingly girlish, giggle. 

Mel didn’t need to turn around to know that Randy Walsh was probably power-posing behind her like Chum Chum. She hoped to god that Fanboy (Jackie) wasn’t standing there with him. 

Randy was, in simple terms, an oaf. An oaf with an instinct to say the first chauvinistic thing that came to his head. He lacked the finesse and tact of Jackie which bumped him down to “bumbling henchman” status in the Taylor-Walsh family but that henchman sure locked in when asked to pick up slack during the tug-of-war event. 

If Randy kept his mouth shut and just passed a football back and forth, maybe he would be fine. Unfortunately, his mouth never stayed shut and so Mel had quickly grown tired over the years of hearing about his baseless sports bets, comments about her underwhelming flat ass, and, durr, what is a pronoun?   

“What, Randy?” She snapped, not even looking up as she pressed a hand to the burning skin on her forehead. 

She was irritated as it stood, being stuck on canoe cleaning duty during what had to be the hottest day of the summer. Everyone always said they wanted to use the canoe until Mel emerged from the metal boat with second-degree burns and spider eggs burrowed beneath her skin. Then suddenly they hated canoes and her by association. 

Her brothers were probably sitting inside, each with their own personal fan, eating popsicles and thinking about how they wouldn’t be using the canoe that week despite whining for it earlier. 

Randy didn’t dilly-dally with his request. “Can I look through your toolbox?”

“Why?” Mel swiped one last time at her forehead before returning to her cleaning. Anything, even the worst chore to exist, was better than speaking to Randy Walsh. 

“We need a Phillips to set up our volleyball net.”

Melissa let out a disbelieving laugh, knowing all too well that the Taylor-Walsh family’s volleyball setup only went up when they were practicing for the Labor Day Games. As if she was going to help out the enemy like that. Especially not after Mr. Taylor spiked on her last summer with a deadly hit that had little Tweety Birds flying around her head even twenty minutes after.  

“It sunk to the bottom of a lake after a bear chucked it off of our dock,” Mel deadpanned, slapping the bottom of the canoe with the scraggly rag.  

“Man, that’s fucked up,” Randy whistled before the sound of the rusty gears turning in his brain drowned out the shrill noise. “Hey, wait a minute-” 

“Answer’s no, Walsh.” 

Randy huffed in disappointment and Mel could imagine him crossing his arms over his chest with a pouty mouth. “Sorry, Shipman, Melissa is just as lame as I told you she was.” 

Melissa snapped to attention at the namedrop. Reeling, she spun her head around so quickly that it nearly flew off of her neck like a rogue tetherball. 

Sure enough, there was Shauna, standing a generous distance away from Randy with one shoulder leaning against an old birch tree. Longline tanktop, hair scooped up in a ponytail, freakishly cool expression on her face despite the unbearable heat. 

“Melissa.” Shauna nodded when they made eye contact, devastatingly nonchalant. 

Mel sneezed in return, betrayed by the spiders and their dusty cobwebs despite Spiderman being one of her favorite movies. 

“Guggenheim,” Randy said in a rare act of, albeit incorrect, benevolence. “I’m taking German at St. Cloud State this fall,” he addressed Shauna, jabbing his chest forward importantly as if learning how to list out fruits and housepets in German was eyelash-flutter worthy.

“Almost had it, Randy,” Shauna sighed wearily and Melissa snickered into her elbow, which she clumsily disguised as a cough.

Randy squinted at her, his shoulders slumping. “Wait, what do you mean?” 

“Why don’t you go and ask the other neighbors on the other side for a screwdriver?” Shauna suggested coolly and Mel perked up at the suggestion. “I’ll catch up in a minute.” 

Randy looked suspicious, his eyes darting back and forth between Melissa and Shauna. Shauna batted her eyes and his expression suddenly turned moony. “Yeah, sure, cool.”  

Randy continued to stare at Shauna, causing Shauna’s eye to twitch slightly. 

Mel took that as her sign to scooch Randy along. “Bye, Walsh,” she said pointedly, happy as a clam that Randy hadn’t somehow verbal blundered his way into Shauna’s heart.

Randy pointed at her threateningly. “You’re going down on Saturday, Kepner.” He paused and his beady eyes crinkled gleefully. “Wait, haha, that’s funny cause aren’t you a-”

“Go find that screwdriver or whatever,” Mel huffed before Randy could have his annual Mel is a lesbo! remembrance.   

Randy shrugged and lumbered away, leaving an eager Melissa blinking up at Shauna and an unflappable Shauna staring down at Mel. 

Stoked did not even begin to describe how Mel felt seeing Shauna again. Particularly because she was not sporting that stupid tracksuit. She looked down only to find Lightning McQueen, plastered across the chest of her tshirt, smirking up at her, and her satisfied smile evaporated before it could even take form.

She hastily crossed her arms over her chest and cleared her throat. “Hi again.”

“I could use a break from him,” Shauna said immediately, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder as if defending her place on the wrong side of the property line. 

Everyone, including Randy’s mother and father and probably Jesus also, could use a break from Randy. There was a reason he was allegedly shipped off to boarding school every fall for a decade despite his (what had to be) near-failing grades. 

“You sure? You two could be…cute.” Melissa joked as she pointed her finger back and forth between Shauna and Randy’s retreating back. 

“Don’t even,” Shauna rolled her eyes, scrunching up her nose in disgust. “I’ve met Randy probably five times before and I swear he gets a little worse every time.” 

It was a fair observation, perceptions of Randy did not age like fine wine. In fact, Randy was like the opposite of Darwin’s theory of evolution, his brain growing smaller with each passing month.

“Really can’t disagree with you there.” Mel shrugged helplessly.  

“I mean, Jackie kind of hates him.”

That was old news to Melissa, who had seen Jackie push Randy off of their family’s speedboat countless times. “Go figure.”  

Shauna must have noticed the sarcasm in Mel’s voice for she paused, letting a close-lipped smile show for a nanosecond before biting her lip. 

Mel sucked in a breath that was threatening to rush out of her and maybe turn into improper words along the way. Shauna’s unfortunate affiliation with Jackie suddenly seemed like the least offensive problem in the world but maybe that was just because Shauna’s teeth were awfully pretty and terribly distracting. 

“So you’ve met Randy but haven’t been to the lake before,” Mel blabbed, blinking away delusion. She pushed herself to her feet, letting the rag drop to the ground. “How come?”

“My family is usually traveling during the last week of summer,” Shauna shrugged. “But divorces tend to ruin family traditions and, well, families in general.”

Mel wrinkled her nose regretfully. “I’m sor-”

“Don’t.” Shauna held up a firm hand. “Really, I’ve heard it a million times. Besides, it’s fine. I’ve always wanted to see Jax’s lake house, anyway.”  

“Oh, yeah, it’s…” Melissa searched for a nice way to describe the house that her family waxed hateful poetry that would’ve had Shakespeare cackling about every other night. “Uh…” 

“Big?” Shauna offered, one eyebrow raised. “Suburban? Somehow utilitarian despite being out in one of the most Midwestern places on earth?”

Melissa’s shoulders relaxed slightly and she nodded. “I mean, it wouldn’t hurt for them to have some ugly cabin decor, right? Like, we’re in Wisconsin, not the Hamptons.” 

“I was expecting more patchwork quilts and less marble countertops,” Shauna admitted. “They don’t even have one of those talking rubber fish where you push a button and it speaks.”

The Kepners had that exact item. The voice box on the fish had worn out over the years but Elvis Fishley remained an institution in their summer home.  

“Exactly!” Mel giggled, unable to stop a beam from pulling at her lips. 

Shauna reciprocated with a bemused, slightly begrudging smile that worked its way up to the corners of her eyes. It also worked its way into Melissa’s chest, sending a blush chasing up her neck and heating her entire body. 

“The rest of this place is classic small-town Wisconsin,” Melissa promised Shauna but spoke the words at the ground, fighting off her own flustered reaction with an imaginary plastic sword. 

“Like the Labor Day Games?” Shauna’s raised eyebrow was telling when Mel glanced up at the Games’ mention.

It was Shauna’s second time bringing up the Games up, there was no chance she would just be watching. 

“The most Midwestern way to pass the time.” Melissa writhed uncomfortably in place. Mr. Kepner’s frantic face showed up behind Shauna like a Zordon-style floating head. Gather intel, he silently screeched at her. 

“Better than tipping cows, I guess,” Shauna said with a shrug as Mel winced. “More ethical, though I suppose yours and Jackie’s families play dirty.” 

“I resent that,” Mel objected, blinking away the vision of her dad’s blotchy face.

“Jackie told me about when you filled their tennis shoes with honey one year,” Shauna’s second eyebrow found its way up towards her hairline. Despite the accusation, she was still smiling. 

Mel’s eyes widened. “Uh-” 

“Very Parent Trap of you.”

“That was the inspiration,” Melissa murmured blushingly. The DVD existed in their lake house’s movie shelf, protected by a battered case and serving as the perfect ammunition for the revenge. “Maybe they shouldn’t have left their shoes outside the night before the Games, I don’t know. Besides, they won that year anyway.”

“Bummer.” Shauna’s eyes glinted with dangerous mirth. 

Melissa cleared her throat, still fighting off enamored mental demons. “So are you going to be joining the shenanigans on Labor Day, then?” It was like she was possessed by dad-Zorodon and-wait, Zordad, his agenda. 

“Yep.” Shauna nodded and Mel choked on her own gasp. “Jackie said she’s already got some events in mind for me.”

“Does she?” Mel tried not to sound too interested in that fact. She could’ve guessed that, though. It wouldn’t be even slightly surprising if the Taylors had gotten together to redo their battle strategy the second they learned Shauna was coming. 

“I’m sworn to secrecy,” Shauna warned her, as if picking up on her curiosity.

Melissa coughed innocently for good measure but knew that she had been caught red-handed. “I didn-” 

“I’ve been warned how seriously your family takes things,” Shauna cut her off, curiosity instead of disdain lacing her tone.  

Melissa was really blushing at that point. It wasn’t every day that an outside party was privy to what went on at White Potato Lake between the Kepner and the Taylor-Walsh families. Sure, Gen and Mel’s other friends from school heard all about the happenings at the lake house, mainly the ridiculous things that Jackie and Randy did every summer, but never had any of them been there to witness the happenings at the lake in time. 

“That’s rich coming from Jackie,” she objected with a twisted sense of defensiveness. 

Shauna pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. “I never said the Taylors weren’t just as crazy. Yesterday I saw them putting away champagne for when they supposedly win it all this weekend.” 

“Yeah?” Mel looked up. “That feels like jumping the gun a little bit.”

As if Baker hadn’t rolled the joint to end all joints to celebrate the Kepners intended win at the Labor Day Games. It was sitting in his stash box like some priceless scroll or ancient treasure map.

“I’m not judging your family, Melissa,” Shauna clucked her tongue and leaned back. 

Mel scoffed, mostly because she wouldn’t blame Shauna if she did. She caught strays from Gen everytime she brought up the rivalry or the Games or how annoying Jackie was on any particular occasion. 

“Or you,” Shauna added tactfully, blinking at her through thick eyelashes. “I don’t even know you.”

Well, there was a simple fix to that but Melissa wasn’t going to say that. 

“Surely Jackie’s told you about me,” she said instead. Bold claim coming from someone who had a knack for being forgotten. 

Shauna’s mouth twitched. “That’s a biased observer as I’m sure you know.”

Shauna was very clearly giving Melissa an opportunity to remedy that. The way her head tilted to the side spoke volumes, Shauna was offering Mel the floor. 

“I’m from St. Paul,” Melissa started eagerly, her words spilling out before Shauna could change her mind. “I’m graduating high school next spring, probably going to go to Madison if I get in. I want to major in illustration if I can, I love to draw. I’ve got those three stupid brothers who you’ve probably heard about more than you’d like to. I’m allergic to our family cat but love him anyway and I hate brussels sprouts. I’m a fullback on my soccer team…” 

She trailed off when her breath finally ran out. Shauna’s mouth had fallen open at that point. 

“Does that help?” Mel asked shyly, knowing full well she had overshared. 

Shauna blinked owlishly but there was no malice in her stupor. “Yeah, yeah it does. But what about birdwatching?”

Mel almost scrunched up her nose and blurted out a, what? but then she remembered her lie from the day before. “Right! Birdwatching…” She blinked innocently at Shauna. “I mean, that’s a given.”  

“Give me a birdcall.”

Mel’s smile dropped. “What?” 

“Give me a birdcall,” Shauna shrugged. “Since you seem like you’re the real deal.” 

So Shauna wanted proof of a hobby that Mel had never partaken in. She really was a liar liar pants on fire. Instinctively, her hand drifted to the hem of her shorts. 

“Is this like ‘name five Arctic Monkeys songs’?” She managed to snort through her nerves.  

“I could name ten.” Shauna’s brow took on a competitive tilt.  

Mel’s mouth fell open another half inch at the dark look in Shauna’s eyes. “Let’s hear it, then.”

“What?” Shauna scoffed as if she wasn’t expecting the pushback. “I’m not gonna do that.”

“Then I’m not gonna whistle.” 

Good thing, too, because Mel would probably end up wolf whistling instead and would have to dive into the lake to hide her embarrassment. What noise did birds make, anyway? Tweet tweet tweet? Wait! Was that why Twitter-

“I don’t think you were birdwatching yesterday,” Shauna said simply. 

Mel nearly keeled over backwards into the boat she so venemously hated. She flung out her arms to steady herself and blinked dumbly at Shauna, who was’t looking nearly half as peeved as she should be. She instead looked knowing and maybe even a little smug. 

“Guilty,” Melissa wheezed, honesty forcing the word out of her mouth like someone’s hand fighting a destroyed shoe out of a dog’s mouth.

For reasons unknown, Shauna gave a satisfied nod. “Okay.” 

Melissa grinned in spite of herself, relief turning her tensed muscles mellow. “What about you?”

“What about me?” 

“Tell me about yourself?” Mel twisted her fingers into an anxious, hopeful knot. 

Shauna scrunched up her nose, as if attempting to remember all of the talking points Melissa had covered earlier. “I’m from Edina. I go to Kenyon but hate Ohio and I’m majoring in English Lit. Uh, I like to read, hence the degree. Only child who misses the dog my dad took with him to Indiana. Not a fan of cherry-flavored things. And I play soccer at Kenyon.”

The last fun fact was thrown out so casually and yet Melissa perked up so intensely that her brain must have hit the top of her skull. 

Jackie played soccer at Edina High when she was a student there. Mel knew this and had borrowed Lottie’s crystals, a handful of herbs from Akilah’s garden, and the plastic wand that Gen pretended she didn’t still keep in her bedroom desk drawer to beg the higher powers above to prevent her own soccer team from playing against Jackie’s. 

Little did she know that there was someone worth seeing on that team. Had she self-sabotaged by banishing Shauna and her Edina shamrock green jersey from the soccer pitch with her at-home magic? Hell, she’d even asked for the name of Mari’s Etsy witch to place a banishing spell on the Edina girls’ soccer team. 

“Did I miss anything?” Shauna prompted when Mel failed to answer her. She snagged her belt loops with nimble fingers. 

Melissa zeroed in on the action, silently in awe of how a simple movement could look so smooth. One of Shauna’s thumbs found the loop on her left hip and she waggled her free fingers at Melissa. 

Blushing, Mel looked up to find Shauna smirking. 

“Kenyon,” Mel rasped, blinking away embarrassment at being caught watching again. “Smart.”

Shauna snorted and shrugged one shoulder. “If you say so. Madison’s nothing to scoff at, either.”

“If I get in,” Melissa insisted through a smile. 

“So, incoming illustration major at Madison, then?” Shauna’s observant eyes zeroed in on the sketch pad poking out of the tote bag Mel had ditched at the edge of the dock. “Is that your sketchbook?”

Mel nodded shyly and ducked her head. “Yeah, it is. I was gonna try to sketch the house from out on the lake since it’s the best view.”

“Sounds pretty picturesque.”

Except for Jackie’s house sitting right next door, yeah, it was.

“I don’t like landscapes very much,” Mel admitted, rocking back and forth on her heels. “But I’m trying to expand my repertoire.”

Plus Lottie had asked Mel to draw her a landscape to hang up in her Grinnell dorm and who was Mel to say no to a request like that? 

Shauna shifted her weight to one hip, still blinking at the tote bag. “What do you like?”

Cartoons! was an embarrassing thing to admit, especially while wearing a Cars tshirt. It was easier to show rather than describe and so Mel walked over to the bag. She brushed past the large sketch paper Shauna had first taken note of and reached for her battered sketchbook, one of several stickered Moleskines she possessed, chock full of her doodles. 

Shauna’s hands were hesitant as she skimmed the cover of the book that Mel had handed her, as if unsure of whether or not she should open it. 

Mel deflated slightly. “Oh, you don’t have to if you don’t want to-“

The sketchbook flew open with fervor before Mel could finish her sentence. 

Shauna studied each page with a thorough eye, giving generous attention to each drawing. She made sure not to smear any of the ink drawings, and Mel silently acknowledged that fact with admiring gratitude. Shauna laughed every so often at the drawings that were accompanied by speech bubbles with stupid text inside and Mel’s blush got darker with each giggle.  

She finally looked up when she’d gotten the gist of Mel’s style, a small smile on her face. “These are great.”

Mel sagged with relief, ducking her head to hide her blush. “Thanks, that’s really nice.”

“May I?” Shauna gestured down to the larger pad of paper. 

Mel nodded and traded Shauna the grimy Moleskine for the spiralbound sketchpad. 

Shauna looked through the sketches of trees and skylines just as attentively. There was far less content to peruse and Mel wrinkled her nose every time she caught a glimpse of the graphite lines that weren’t up to her standards. 

“They’re nice,” Shauna said, flipping the cover shut. “Really impressive. But this feels more like you.” She pointed at the cartoon sketchbook clamped in Mel’s hands.  

Oh, to feel seen by a stranger. Melissa was in deep deep trouble and it had barely been twenty four hours. 

Shauna faltered slightly at her own words, as if she had been caught being too caring. She cleared her throat and shrugged. “What do I know, though?”

“You do go to Kenyon,” Mel offered. “Heard they’re smart there or something.”

Shauna scoffed but smiled anyway. 

“What do you write about in your journal?” Melissa asked, eager to learn more about Shauna’s artistic expression after sharing her own. Shauna’s head snapped up at the mention of the journal. “I saw you writing yesterday,” she added hurriedly. “When I tripped off the path?” 

“Oh, right.” Shauna shook her head, her expression slightly crestfallen. “Nothing interesting, just my thoughts.” She winced and shook her head again, small wisps of hair floating around her face like gauzy curtains blowing in the breeze. “That sounded pretty stupid.” 

Shauna’s train of thought was probably about as boring as a fantasy movie from the 80s, Mel nearly scoffed at such a notion. If she wanted uninteresting, she’d take a trip up to Randy’s head and high-five the wind-up monkey sitting atop his dusty brain. 

“Do you write stories elsewhere, then?”

Shauna looked surprised at the question. Her eyes darted to the left, as if making sure the Taylor-Walsh family wasn’t listening. Maybe more specifically Jackie but what did Mel know? “Um, yeah, I do sometimes.” 

Mel grinned and nodded. “Cool.” Catching the vibe that maybe Shauna had overshared to her a little bit, she didn’t ask any follow-up questions. 

Shauna responded with a shy smile. 

Mel’s eyes drifted back and forth between Shauna and her art supply bag, a frankly foolish idea sprouting up in her mind like an eager daffodil. The canoe was clean and there was no chance any other Kepners would be gracing the canoe with their presence. 

She cleared her throat. “I don’t suppose you’d want to-” 

Mel stopped, the offer fizzing out on her tongue like a sherbert-filled Zotz when she heard the familiar sound of her family’s screen door screeching open like a peeved banshee.  

“That’s one of your brothers,” Shauna muttered as Mel snapped her head to the right. 

Baker was lumbering down the porch steps up the hill. There were sunglasses perched on his nose so she didn’t know if he saw them or not. Her eyes jerked back to Shauna and she spotted another figure approaching from over Shauna’s shoulder. 

“So’s your biggest fan,” Melissa nodded regretfully, pointing at Randy who was waving for Shauna with the screwdriver he had acquired along the way. It slipped out of his hands and the handle hit him in the face on its journey to the ground, causing him to slap both hands over his undoubtedly stinging eye. “Heh.” 

Shauna’s nose was wrinkled. Maybe it was because she didn’t want to leave but more likely it was because Randy Walsh was waiting for her with a screwdriver and a dopey thousand-watt smile. 

Regardless, it filled Melissa with naive hope. 

“This was a nice break from Randy,” Shauna said decidedly, nodding like she had just given her stamp of approval on a bottle of wine brought by a waiter to the dinner table.  

Mel sure felt like one lucky bottle of Charlemagne. Chardonneigh?

“Anytime,” she breathed out, not quite sure that was the right response but it got both a raised eyebrow and a raised corner of Shauna’s mouth in response. 

“Bye,” Shauna said over her shoulder before trudging off towards a wounded Randy.

“Bye.” Melissa watched Shauna go, curiosity and excitement rushing up her neck in the form of a blush. 

Delight soon turned to disdain when she cast a glance to her right and saw Jackie standing on the expansive Taylor-Walsh deck, hands perched daintily atop the railing. 

Mel had good vision, at least good enough to see the curled snarl on Jackie’s face. Jackie looked like an angry royal, scowling down at her kingdom or, more accurately, a dissenting peasant. Melissa winced, wondering if her next stop was the guillotine. Were they living in a surveillance state now?

The sound of flip-flop soles hitting calloused heels alerted Melissa to the fact that Baker was approaching. She dropped back to her knees, grabbed the rag, and pretended that she was still working on de-cobwebbing the vessel, simultaneously pretending she hadn’t been conversing with a potential enemy and greatly enjoying it at that. 

“Let’s take the canoe out,” Mel demanded as soon as Baker lumbered up to her, eager to ensure her hard work would see the light of day. “I’m almost done.” 

“Ah, it’s too hot for that,” Baker objected, squinting at Shauna’s retreating back as she traced the shoreline with her steps. “Hey, is that-”

“Is that popsicle juice on your hands?” Mel blurted out, fueled by a need to distract from Shauna but also genuine frustration that her earlier prediction had been correct. She could practically feel the cool air radiating off of her brother. “And why didn’t you bring me one? I’ve been working like a dog out here and you show up empty-handed.”

“I brought you my company,” Baker shrugged unhelpfully, peeling his gaze away from Shauna as he wiped his hands on his black shorts. “Oh, and a joint.” 

Maybe Baker was no longer on thin ice. “Rad.” Melissa reached for the item he had plucked from behind his ear but he held it over his head. 

“Saw you talking to that new girl,” Baker said carefully, peering down at her over the frames of his sunglasses. 

Caught in the act. Mel’s outstretched hand sagged midair. “Oh.”  

“Yeah, oh.” Baker snorted in disbelief and crossed his arms. 

He stared at Mel and Mel stared back, squirming like a cartoon worm stuck in an apple.

“Well?” Baker’s eyebrows rose higher, if possible. “Did you find anything out?” 

Mel had learned a good amount about Shauna but nothing that needed to be relayed to her oldest brother and, by proxy, the rest of her rabid family. “Nah.” 

“Mel.” 

Melissa huffed in frustration at the annoyingly knowing look on her brother’s face. We are family, his eyes screamed. I got all my sisters with me…We are family…Get up, everybody, and sing-

She was about one second away from nodding her head in time to music that wasn’t even playing. 

Shauna was as interesting as could be but Mel was still loyal to her own side at the end of the day. “Okay, yeah, she is gonna be competing in the Games. I think,” she added the last part hastily, as if that was going to cover her ass. 

“I figured,” Baker sighed, wiping the sweat from his brow with a heavy wrist. “Dad’s gonna hate this.” 

Was he ever. 

“Maybe we don’t have to tell him,” Melissa suggested hopefully. Maybe she and Baker could act surprised when Shauna rolled up on Monday with one of the classic Taylor-Walsh team water bottles. They could drop their jaws and bug their eyes out just like the rest of the family, blissfully, and untruthfully, ignorant. 

Baker squinted at her suspiciously. “Why?”

“Oh, you know.” Mel twitched under his gaze. “So we don’t stress him out. Keep him focused on the Games rather than the personal drama.”

She had thought it was a decent enough excuse but Baker apparently hadn’t by the way his eyes stayed in their narrowed position. “You know that fuels his hate fire.” 

“He needs to watch his blood pressure!” Mel was grasping for translucent straws. “Remember? Doctor’s orders.”

“The doctor you’re referring to is WebMD.” Baker pursed his lips, watching her squirm under his scrutiny.

Well, Melissa was getting nowhere with the excuses. She let out a defeated sigh and merely shrugged a shoulder when Baker raised an eyebrow at her. He already seemed to know too much as it was, what was the point in hiding anything anymore?

“Let’s smoke in the canoe,” Baker finally offered when Mel’s pouting seemed to be too much for him, nodding down at the canoe. “Mom hates the smell of weed getting anywhere near the house, anyway.” 

“Great, yeah,” Mel sighed, relieved at the suggestion, and reached for her tote bag. 

They grabbed paddles and one lifejacket for the off chance that the canoe capsized and they both somehow forgot to swim. The canoe was still scalding hot but it was light between the two of them as they carried it down to the shore. 

“Head in the game, right?” Baker nudged Mel before she could swing a leg into the boat. When she looked back at him he was staring at her with a knowing expression. “For dad’s sake, if nothing else.”

He always had been the best at reading through her lies, even back when the only things she fibbed about were missing Pokemon cards and gogurt tubes. A girl on the wrong side of the property line was an entirely different affair. 

“Right,” Mel muttered, ducking her head and trying not to wince as the heated metal seat made contact with the backs of her thighs. “Yeah, of course. Head in the game.”  

Chapter Text

Melissa awoke from the dead with a patch of dried drool on her chin and a ravenous need for a bowl of cereal. 

The craving airlifted her right out of bed despite her phone reading 7:47AM. She slipped out of her room and tiptoed down the stairs, making sure to skip the creaky step at the bottom of the staircase. 

The scent of burnt coffee clued her into the fact that her dad was up and at em! but a tentative peek around the doorframe revealed that he wasn’t in the kitchen. 

Mel opted for a mug because the cupboard where the bowls were stored had a wailing hinge. She filled it with Lucky Charms, added milk, and stuck a spoon in the mess with a satisfied smile. 

As she turned around to make a quick escape and enjoy her breakfast in the comfort of her room and probably spill it all over her stiff mattress, she came face-to-face with her dad. 

She yelped and, in her initial panic, tossed the mug of cereal over her shoulder. The milk ricocheted against the low cupboards, splashing her and the pile of clean dishes on the drying rack in the process. Despite the mess, she somehow caught the mug with her foot before it hit the ground. 

Mr. Kepner, baseball hat perched atop his head and clipboard clutched in determined hands, raised an eyebrow. “Nice reflexes. Poor execution, though.”

“Dad,” Melissa groaned, wrinkling her nose at the sticky feeling of cereal milk on the backs of her calves. 

The night before, Mr. Kepner was throwing a tantrum over burning all of the hotdogs on the grill in his distracted, frazzled state. It was amazing what a good night’s sleep could do for he was back to sporting his determined, still maniacal, smile. 

“Mel,” Mr. Kepner nodded at her. “You’re up early.” 

Mel tossed a thumb over her shoulder at the mess behind her. “I was hungry.” 

“Protein, Melissa, remember?” Mr. Kepner chastised, plucking a piece of thick card stock paper off of his clipboard and handing it to her. “Here are some suggestions.” 

Mel squinted down at the list. “Yogurt, eggs, meat, almonds? Dad, Arlo’s still allergic to those, you know.”

“He’s growing out of it.” 

“And isn’t this the birthday card I gave you?” Mel turned over the scrap paper to reveal a birthday cake design on the front of the card. She opened the card and immediately saw a sloppy happy birthday! in her own handwriting. “Hey!” 

“There is a very clear paper shortage in this house,” her dad tutted in response, clearly unbothered. “Desperate times, Melissa, desperate times.”

Had she ever heard that before. Mel crossed her arms and huffed, knowing all-too-well what was coming next. 

“Well, now that I have you here, how about we do a little intel gathering?”  

Hit the nail on the head with that prediction. Despite knowing it was coming, Melissa winced at the suggestion. “Dad?”

“Some light espionage, if you will?” Mr. Kepner laced his fingers together. 

“That’s even worse.” 

“This is wartime, Mel,” her dad reminded her. “We need all the information and advantages we can get, especially with the question of this new girl on their team.”

Shauna mention in the wee hours of the morning. Mel blinked away her sleepiness and stood up straighter. 

“We don’t even know if she’s competing,” she reminded him pointedly. 

“Which is why some information harvesting could do us some good.”

Information harvesting? More like trespassing and maybe even breaking and entering. Mr. Kepner was trying to make light criminal activity sound like a botany-related hobby. It was too early for all of that. 

Mel learned her hip against the counter and gazed pointedly at the cat clock on the wall. “Right now?” 

She had been hoping to sneak back to her room like a bandit and pass out for another couple of hours. If that didn’t work, she would work on her landscape sketch practice. What was not on the table was some good old fashioned unethical espionage.  

Apparently it was on the table for ten minutes later, Mel was decked out in a hunting jacket, tripping through brush behind her dad because he had offered to exempt her from the morning 5K if she tagged along with him. 

“Where did you even get this?” Melissa yawned, raising one sleeve to inspect the camo print as they wove in between tree trunks. 

“The Haldens.”

The Haldens had moved out of their White Potato Lake house years ago so that was obviously a lie. Not to mention the fact that the entire Halden family was vegan and attended PETA banquets. So unless Mr. Kepner had stripped the jackets off of a pair of dead hunters, he had probably bought them for specific nefarious purposes such as snooping on deplorable neighbors. 

Melissa silently wished it had been her mother who she’d run into in the kitchen that morning. Though never Mel’s first choice in family members, at least Mrs. Kepner, by marrying into the Kepner family, could acknowledge the ridiculousness of her husband’s inherited hatred for the family next door. At least her mom wouldn’t be taking Melissa on a ridiculous journey to harvest information or whatever, they’d probably drive to the mall in Marinette and fight with each other the way kids and parents were supposed to do. 

God, she and her dad were probably one step away from being arrested. Mel’s brothers were going to have to bail them out since Mrs. Kepner would actually cause an earthquake high on the Richter scale with her anger over the hypothetical arrest. The Three Stooges wouldn’t have enough money to bail them both out and so their dad would very obviously walk free while Mel rotted in the Coleman Police Department’s holding cell. 

Enter savior Gen. Gen would have to brave the Minnesota-Wisconsin border to save Melissa but Mel knew she wouldn’t want a convict for a best friend so Gen would likely do it. 

Melissa had encountered the local police force two summers ago when Mrs. Walsh called them in as backup, believing Mel and Levi had stolen the Walsh family’s rottweiler (Champion) when in reality the beast had lumbered over to their side of the yard to beg for a hotdog and shit on their deck. She’d already met the officers once and wasn’t looking for a reunion anytime soon. 

“This feels illegal,” Mel muttered, wondering briefly if Shauna liked blondes in horizontal prison stripes donning a ball and chain. Follow up question: would Gen be able to Venmo Mel’s bail money to the local jail? 

“Just scouting out the competition,” her dad whistled jauntily, leading them to the edge of the Taylor-Walshes huge lawn because if anyone could somehow have a grassy lawn in the woods, it would be the uber rich. “It’s healthy and perfectly normal.”

Mel wasn’t sure about that one. 

She made eye contact with a garden gnome positioned near the volleyball net and almost laughed because it looked like Randy. She wondered if Mrs. Walsh, who was known to have an affinity for collecting anything troll or gnome-themed, bought it for that exact reason. 

Better yet, maybe Randy had upset a witch in the woods and she cursed him into a garden gnome. Mel made a note to run over and kick the gnome later. 

“See if you can get a view from up there,” her dad pointed up at a low tree branch decorated with dewy moss.

Mel could stomp her foot and object but they had come this far, hadn’t they? Plus she could never say no to a tree in need of climbing and so she shrugged and scurried up the trunk. If the feds came for her, Gen would know what to do. Or Mari, Mari always “knew a guy.” 

Binoculars knocked against Mel’s ankle as she settled down on the requested branch. She hadn’t even seen her dad grab them on their way out the door. 

“What am I even looking for?”

“Things out of the ordinary,” her dad called up to her. “That girl you saw. New equipment. A scandal that could send them packing.” 

Mel wasn’t sure about a scandal but looking for Shauna? She didn’t need to be told twice. 

“Roger that.” Mel pointed the binoculars towards the Taylor-Walsh house and peered into the lenses.

She didn’t see much. All of the windows on the upper level of the house were obscured by curtains while the downstairs windows revealed nothing more than photos on the wall and an ungodly number of fruit bowls posted up around the kitchen and living room. There was no sign of any peeling paint or chipped vinyl exterior, everything looked frustratingly picturesque. 

Motion at the left side of the house sent Melissa’s binoculars veering in that direction. 

A head of dark mahogany hair almost entirely obscured by the porch railing was ducking out of the giant house’s side door. Now that was something worth noting. Mel’s mood instantly lightened and she bit back a smile only for it to naturally fall away when a honey ponytail followed behind it. 

Decked out in a neat onepiece swimsuit, Jackie closed the door behind them and trotted after Shauna. The two girls stopped near the edge of the woods, where they began to exchange silent words with each other. 

Melissa glanced down at her dad and found him struggling with a knot in his shoelaces. Satisfied with his distraction, she turned back to the binoculars and readjusted her position in the tree to get a better look.

She watched with unignorable curiosity as Jackie and Shauna exchanged words before Jackie headed for the lake with a towel draped over her shoulders while Shauna, clutching something in her hands, moved towards the woods next to the Hernandez family’s lake house and disappeared from sight. 

“There goes Jackie,” Mr. Kepner, shoelace fixed, looked back up, patting Mel’s shoe to get her attention. “Mel, that way.” 

Melissa obediently swung her binoculars to the left, catching Jackie’s self-assured smile as she disappeared down the hill. “Yep, there she is,” she muttered disdainfully.

She was saved from counting every single highlight in Jackie’s hair by the sound of smooth, robotic metal sliding upwards. On cue, she and her dad swiveled their heads to the right.

“Garage door at the end of their driveway is opening up,” Melissa said, narrating what she saw through the binoculars. Two figures tromped down the paved driveway, both as bulky as bowling balls. “There goes Mr. Walsh and Randy.”

“See anything else?” Mr. Kepner shielded his eyes from the sun and squinted, looking like he was rearing to go. 

Mel saw an opportunity and took it, glancing one more time in the direction of where Shauna had disappeared to. “Oh my god yeah, dad, is that the latest Yamaha jet ski model in their garage?” 

Mr. Kepner’s head shot up like a bloodhound catching a scent trail. “What? ” 

Jet skis had always been a sore subject for him, he’d nearly cried three years ago when the Labor Day Games introduced the jet ski challenge.

“Oh my god yeah, I think it is,” Mel continued, nodding hastily. “Maybe you should go scout it out.” 

“You bet I’ll be scouting it out.” Her dad took the wimpy bait like a gullible bass. “You stay here and keep an eye on Jackie!” And with that he was off, striding through the perimeter of the woods on light feet, knees bent as if ready to dive into a bush to hide at any time. 

Jackie didn’t need eyes on her, she wasn’t an eight-year-old at risk of drowning in the lake. Shauna on the other hand…she could be lost in the woods in need of assistance. 

“Godspeed,” Mel called out, a pleased smile finding its way to her lips. Hook, line, and sinker. 

“Keep your voice down! We’re undercover!” 

Stars were aligning and who was Melissa to ignore the astrological call? Her dad was distracted, Jackie was down by the lake, and Shauna was flying solo. So was Mel. Two tended to be better than one, anyway.

When her dad was far enough away, Mel lost the jacket and binoculars and shimmied down the tree back onto the ground. She gave herself a silent pep talk by jogging in place followed by a couple of jumping jacks for good measure. Then she trudged off in the direction of where Shauna had gone. 

Mel was going to gather intel, just as her dad had suggested. She was rearing and ready to go. What had Baker said the day before? Keep your head in the game? 

Mel’s head was not in the game but it was in another game. 

Her head was anywhere but in the game it was supposed to be in. Her head was down in a gutter so deep that she could smell Pennywise’s rancid breath. Her head was up in the clouds, getting smacked by birds that she supposedly looked at with binoculars for hobby. Her head was stuck in a game called “stare at Shauna and get to know her!” 

Shauna was about to receive the performance of a lifetime from Melissa, who was going to pretend she’d accidentally stumbled into the area in search of a soccer ball. Maybe Mel would even trip for good measure, slip on an imaginary banana peel. What was the wilderness equivalent of a banana peel? Giant pine cone? Dead squirrel carcass? Dirt path of broken dreams?

Oh look, there was Shauna, standing between two pine trees up ahead. What a happy little coinkydink, as Laura Lee would say. What a gorgeous aligning of serendipitous stars, as Lottie would say. What a stupid idiot poopy fart plan oh you think you’re so slick, huh? Melissa I hate you, as Gen would say. 

Shauna was holding an egg. Shauna was holding an egg and looking pissed off, frowning down at the object like it had personally insulted her sleeveless checkered top. 

Mel allowed herself to admire Shauna’s anger for a moment before throwing herself into the fray. She attempted to emerge from the woods in the least suspicious way possible. “So they’re putting you in the egg race, then?” 

Shauna stopped glowering down at the egg she was cradling between two hands and snapped her head up. “Melissa.” 

“You’re up early,” Mel supplied, taking note of the fact that Shauna had put her hands, and the egg, behind her back. She also eyed the carton at Shauna’s feet, concluding that Shauna must be preparing for one of the two Labor Day Games events involving eggs. 

“So are you,” Shauna responded immediately. 

“Cooking breakfast out here or something?” Mel joked, nodding down at the carton. “Or maybe doing your own Labor Day Games training?”

Shauna squinted at her, assessing the question for any hidden motives. In all reality, Mel didn’t care what Shauna was doing there, egg toss and family rivalry aside. Shauna could be building a cannon for the purpose of destroying the Kepners’ house and Melissa would step in front of the cannonball with a thank you, Shauna.  

Point was, Shauna was there in front of her and that was all she could really ask for. Melissa blinked back, trying not to burst into flames like a hibachi grill under the heat of Shauna’s gaze. 

“What are you doing here?” Shauna finally retorted, though there was no disdain in her voice. “I thought Jackie scared you off of this side of the path the other day?”

Jackie had, and Mel had left with her tail between her legs. But Jackie and her toned arms and thin swimsuit were nowhere in sight and therefore Melissa was safe. Safe assuming Shauna wouldn’t turn on her and sound the alarm or ring a gong or simply stand with her fists clenched at her sides and scream. 

Shauna was peering at Melissa with curiosity and maybe a little bit of warmth that went beyond just the color of her eyes. Even though her jaw attempted to crunch her expression into nonchalance, Melissa was picking up silent signals that Shauna was pleased that she was there. 

In short, maybe Melissa didn’t have to worry about a fire alarm or giant gong hidden in one of the tree trunks. 

Mel relaxed. A little too hard, for the next words that came out of her mouth were, “And I thought that Jackie didn’t have a say in who you talked to?”

Where Mel learned to grow some gall was a mystery. The self-sabotage was nothing new, however. 

The effect was immediate. Shauna’s brow furrowed and she recoiled like Melissa’s words had formed themselves into a hand and slapped her right across the face. She took a step back, the heel of her Birkenstock clog hitting a stump in the process. 

Mel had hit a nerve, that much was apparent. What that nerve’s origin was, she did not know. Cue the marching band for her apology tour.

“I mean, you are your own person,” Mel rushed, resisting the urge to raise her hands and surrender right then and there on the spot. 

Shauna squinted at Melissa, as if sizing up the peace offering to determine whether it was ill-intentioned or not. Mel offered a tentative smile that she hoped would sway the reaction. 

Stars continued to align for her despite the morning’s rocky start, for Shauna finally nodded. “Yeah, that’s right, I am. She doesn’t decide who I talk to.” She said it like an affirmation one would give to themself in the bathroom mirror before carpe dieming.

Mel did a mental jig. Hooray for forgiveness and nonconformists! 

“That doesn’t explain why you’re over here, though,” Shauna persisted, bouncing back from her previous stupor. 

“Just looking for a lost soccer ball,” Melissa chirped, shoving her hands into her pockets like the little liar that she was. “Think I kicked it somewhere over here.”

The binoculars and camo jacket laughed at her from off in the distance, as did the soccer ball that did not exist. 

“Yeah?” Shauna looked left, right, then back at Melissa. “Then where’s the ball?” 

In a beautiful place called La La Liar Land, right next to Melissa’s common sense. “Still haven’t found it.”

“Didn’t your coach ever teach you to keep your eyes on the ball?” Shauna teased, tilting her chin up. 

“No but that sounds like great advice.” Mel eyed the way Shauna’s gesture revealed a stretch of milky skin she hadn’t seen before. “You learn that at Kenyon?” 

Shauna graced her stupid joke with a huffed out chuckle. “Clever. Wit like that could land you a spot at Madison.” 

Melissa didn’t even try to hide her grin. “So, back to the egg,” she insisted, craning her neck in an attempt at spotting the object.

“What, this?” Shauna brought her hand forward, revealing the buttercup yellow yolk resting among cracked shells in her fingers. 

Mel couldn’t stop the ridiculous snort that fell from her nose. Wide-eyed, she slapped a hand over her mouth but the damage had been done. 

The noise seemed to surprise Shauna, who snorted even louder right back. Just like Melissa, Shauna gaped at her own unrepressed action and covered her mouth in shock.

They stared at each other, silent and blinking. Then Shauna’s eyes crinkled and Melissa nearly bit a chunk of her own palm off. 

“How long were you holding that?” Mel giggled, finally lowering her hand. 

“Too long,” Shauna snorted, dropping the broken shells and shaking her eggy hand.

“So unless Jackie sent you on a mission to egg my house-”

“I think she’d be the one doing the egging if that was the case,” Shauna cut her off, clucking her tongue and crossing her arms. 

“Great point,” Mel nodded. “Where is she, by the way?”

As if she hadn’t witnessed Jackie trot off towards the lake in the swimsuit she wore every year to the diving competition of the Labor Day Games. It looked like Jackie really meant business if she wasn’t going to be practicing in the comfort of that damn chlorinated pool. 

Shauna’s seemed to be biting back a grin at the nickname. “Practicing her diving. It’s one of her favorite events, I think.”

“I think that’s a good guess.” Mel had never seen someone so undeniably cocky as Jackie Taylor climbing out of the lake after landing a beautiful dive, beads of water dancing off her skin like tiny crystals. “She unfortunately wins that challenge every year.” 

“She threatened to quit soccer and join the diving team when our high school coach was annoying her,” Shauna shook her head fondly. 

Mel mulled it all over. “So if she’s working on her dives then you must be practicing for the egg toss?”

Shauna seemed to be silently weighing her options. She finally caved and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll bite, it’s for the egg toss.” 

Mel grinned, pleased with herself. Intel! Not that her family would be hearing anything about it, that fact would go into the Shauna piggy bank that had materialized in her head just a couple of days ago. 

“Jackie said my skills rest in my speed and strength but the egg toss needs grace,” Shauna recited, wrinkling her nose at Jackie’s observation. 

“Do you disagree?” Mel teased gently, spinning silent sonnets about what Shauna’s speed and strength would look like on the soccer pitch. 

“No,” Shauna muttered before shaking her head in disbelief. “I’m sorry, I just can’t get over how dumb this all is. I mean, beach volleyball is one thing but an egg toss?”

Mel’s mouth twitched, Shauna had no idea. “Have you heard there’s an egg race, too?”

“Don’t tell me-“ Shauna’s eyes widened comically. 

“Spoon on the egg, spoon in mouth, make it to the finish line without dropping it,” Mel confirmed. 

“Is that why Jackie sent me out here with a spoon, too?” Shauna pulled a spoon from her back pocket and eyed it disdainfully. “Oh, of course that’s why. Egg sports, who would’ve thought?”

“It’s kitschy,” Mel agreed, subtly shuffling closer to Shauna, close enough to pick up the pine scent wafting from her hair. “But you have to lean into it in order to enjoy it.” Shauna rolled her eyes. “Fine, tolerate it, then.”

“Feels like a waste of some perfectly good eggs to me,” Shauna said, still dubious. 

“Only if you drop them,” Mel responded cheekily. “Which has never been an issue for me, personally.”

Levi, on the other hand, tended to enjoy throwing eggs at his sister with intention to harm more than he enjoyed winning. How he hadn’t ever been replaced by anyone else in the family was a mystery.   

Shauna’s mouth twitched. “Does that mean we’ll be facing off, then?” 

Melissa nodded eagerly. “Yep, it’s typically me and Levi versus Mr. and Mrs. Taylor since Jackie doesn’t like getting egg on her and the Walshes are smart enough to pretend like they have an egg allergy to get out of it. Allegedly.” 

“Do you think it’s too late for me to fake that same allergy?” Shauna muttered.

“I’m afraid it might be,” Mel sighed, eyeing the yolk still drying on Shauna’s palm. “But you should be good at this, you have the right hands for it.”

Shauna raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “I have the right hands for it?” She kicked the broken eggshells at her feet for added effect. 

Small, supple, soft. Shauna did in fact have the perfect hands for it even though one was currently curled into a rather daunting fist and the other still dripped with the carnage of a broken egg. 

“It’s true, you do.” Mel nodded encouragingly. “But you need practice. I can help, if you want.”

Shauna’s head snapped up and her wide eyes met Melissa’s. “Really?” 

Mel nodded again and bashfully shoved her hands into her pockets. “Can’t practice throwing an egg back and forth with just yourself, can you?”  

“Aren’t you not supposed to be over here?” Shauna asked, parroting Melissa’s words from two days prior. “You did hide behind a tree two days ago when Jackie showed up.”

Yeah, Mel probably could’ve been a little more slick with that maneuver. “I was just-”

“Scared?” Shauna teased, subtle and coy.

Pretty much, yeah.

“Jackie tends to throw things when I come too close,” Mel defended herself. 

“Seems like you should know better than to kick your ball over here, then,” Shauna said offhandedly. 

“Maybe I should,” Mel mumbled, fighting off a blush. “But you and Randy were on my side of the line yesterday,” she reminded her, fighting to hold her own in a sparring match with an obvious winner. 

“Out of a need for a screwdriver.” 

“You could have gone to the Hernandez house first,” Mel pointed out tentatively. 

“So I suggested to Randy that we go to your place first, so what?” Shauna shrugged one shoulder. “I liked talking to you.” 

Mel did a double take. When her wild eyes finally calmed down and the giant hearts that had materalized around Shauna’s head exploded into confetti, she saw Shauna smirking at her through the imaginary paper rain. 

They stared at each other, Mel waiting for Shauna to pull a gotcha! on her. Shauna was waiting for something, too, though Mel wasn’t quite sure what.

“I did too,” Melissa finally croaked, nearly grasping at her rapidly closing throat. Was she having an allergic reaction to her own sapphic yearning?

Shauna nodded once, satisfied, and the smirk turned into something more genuine. “Is that why you’re here now?”

“I thought my soccer ball was over here,” Mel insisted but she was smiling. “And maybe I thought you could use some company. Or a coach.” And meaningful conversation with some eye candy, paired with a break from her crazy-eyed father. 

“Doesn’t this go against the whole hatred pact?” Shauna toggled her finger between the Kepners’ house and the Taylor-Walsh house. 

“Oh, ignorance is bliss and all that.” Mel waved her hand, knowing very well that she would be shanked and strung up to dry if any of her family members caught her assisting the opposing team. But most of her family was asleep and Mr. Kepner was probably midway through a screaming match (or a fistfight) with Mr. Walsh so she was relishing the peace. 

“Because this is one of my events and I want real competition,” she continued. “Not a girl who crushes eggs.” 

“Low blow,” Shauna immediately objected, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. “And didn’t you say I had good hands for this?”

“Oh you do,” Mel nodded. “But they need to be trained first.”

Shauna scoffed at the claim. Still, she flexed her fingers. “Fine. Bring it on. Let’s have a fair game on Saturday.”

“That’s the spirit!” Unable to hide a smile, Mel snagged the carton of eggs from the stump next to Shauna and backed away. 

“Typically you’re five to ten feet away from your partner so I’ll start further away and move closer every time you catch it,” Melissa suggested, rolling one egg between nimble fingers. Technically she should be doing it the other way around but there was something delicious about the buildup of moving closer to Shauna.  

Shauna nodded, the muscles in her neck taut as she rolled back her shoulders and bent her knees. She cupped her hands and nodded again to indicate that she was ready.

Mel tossed an egg. Shauna snatched it out of the air with one hand, only for it to crack and leak between her fingers. 

Melissa disregarded her own directions and instinctually surged forward. “You have to-”

“Again,” Shauna instructed, cutting her off as she shook the raw egg off of her hand like it was water. 

Mel shrugged helplessly but complied, unwilling to disobey the determined glint in Shauna’s eyes. 

Another egg flew and cracked under the force of Shauna’s grip, causing her to groan with frustration. 

“You should try with both hands, Melissa offered, cupping her hands into a makeshift bowl. “Like you’re trying to hold water in your hands, like this.” 

Shauna raised an eyebrow. Mel raised one right back, nodding down to her hands. Shauna sighed but mirrored the gesture begrudgingly.

That time, the egg found its way to safety between two pillowy palms. Shauna had to dive for it but it did not break. 

“Nice,” Shauna chirped, admiring the uncracked egg in her hand. Pride arched across her brow like a rainbow after a tumultuous storm. 

“Third time is always the charm, good job,” Mel praised with a grin, taking a step closer and holding out her own hands. “Try me, now.”

Shauna obliged. The egg arched through the air and, at the last minute, Mel let one hand drop while she caught the delicate object with her free hand, which snaked behind her back to snatch it out of the air. 

“Showoff,” Shauna tsked but she was smiling. 

“I’m an old hat at this,” Mel shrugged cheerfully, taking two significant paces forward. 

“Was that a hat pun?” Shauna maintained her smirk even through the scoff she let out. 

“Do you even need to ask that?” Another stride for good measure. 

Shauna caught Mel’s next throw with increased ease and, that time, she was the one to move closer. She threw it back and Melissa stepped forward to meet it before the egg even touched her palm.

They continued until, at last, they were standing so close that the toes of their shoes nearly brushed. Melissa let the egg drop and Shauna’s nimble fingers caught it without breaking eye contact.

Melissa could see a gold band circling Shauna’s wide brown irises like one of Saturn’s rings and nearly lost her breath at the sight. 

Shauna was the one who broke the contact to look down at the egg, lips pursed in satisfaction. She looked up at Melissa and her mouth turned into a shy thing laced with gratitude. “Thanks.”

Mel’s stomach somersaulted. She had to bite her tongue to stop it from running around in verbal circles that would likely get her into trouble. 

“I bet you’ll be picked for the egg race too,” she finally blurted out when she could taste blood in her mouth. 

Shauna’s face fell slightly, as if disappointed with Mel’s words. “Yeah? You think so?”

“Jackie did send you out here with a spoon.” Mel pointed hurriedly at the object. “I could give you some pointers with that, too?”

Shauna looked up. “Really?” Her mouth twitched before she shook off what a delusional Mel was probably misinterpreting as enthusiasm. 

They worked until Shauna could hold the spoon handle between her lips without it wobbling. She could even do it while grinning, lips pursed proudly as Mel goaded her with encouragement. 

At the point when Shauna was finally able to meander around in purposeful circles without losing the egg, the faint sound of arguing voices wafted through the air. That likely meant that Mr. Kepner would soon be back from the wild goose chase Melissa had sent him on. 

“I should go,” Melissa said regretfully, already scanning the premise for a head of salt and pepper hair and a scowl. 

Shauna’s glowing expression dimmed slightly. “Oh, yeah, right.” She crossed her arms and cleared her throat. “Thanks for the help this morning. It’s been the most interesting training I’ve done so far.”

Mel didn’t even feel inclined to ask about what other training Shauna had done, all she heard was that she was in first place for something and Shauna was the judge. She puffed her chest up like Arlo’s missing pet bearded dragon.

“You know,” she began boldly, working with the courage Shauna had unexpectedly shoved into her chest, “if you ever need a break from the training, or Jackie’s family in general, again, I’m right next door.”

Shauna’s mouth fell open slightly. 

“Since you don’t seem to mind property lines,” Mel added, her face heating up at her own audacity. She twisted her fingers like they were stuck in a woven fingertrap.  

“Yeah, I guess I don’t.” Shauna’s words rumbled with uncertainty. She squinted at Mel, sizing up her offer. “I-”

A gust of wind picked up the sound of two men shouting at each other, causing Shauna to falter. 

Melissa also winced, wondering if they would soon be hearing the sound of fists connecting with stubbled skin, too. “I really should go,” she said regretfully, tossing a thumb over her shoulder. 

“Bye,” Shauna chirped as Mel turned around, adding, “I’ll see you soon.”

Mel paused and looked over her shoulder. Shauna was staring back at her, one lip snagged between her short teeth. By god, was that ever a stunning sight. Maybe Mel had a tooth fascination. Should she become a dentist? Well, maybe not, maybe she would be inclined to take teeth rather than fix them-

Career paths aside, Shauna said Soon. Not a promise but certainly a pledge. Melissa could work with that. 

“Yeah, Mel said through a bursting grin. “See you soon.”

The practice sketch was ugly. The lake house’s roof was off, the porch was askew, the trees looked like prickly pencils. It looked janky and dumb and probably like how Jackie saw it through her hateful eyes. 

In short, it was bad.

Melissa frowned down at it and huffed as Dayglow hummed in her headphones. Her practice drawing wasn’t giving her much hope and landscapes were dumb. If Lottie wanted chicken scratch, she could have it but Mel would not be signing the bottom corner with her signature.  

A shiver suddenly ran down her back. She slowly turned and flinched when she saw Arlo standing in the doorway, one shoe in his hand likely to lodge at Mel and get her attention. 

“I’ve been yelling for a while now,” Arlo said matter-of-factly when Mel finally took her headphones off.

“What’s up?” Mel dropped her pencil, eager for a distraction. 

“Dad called a war council meeting downstairs,” Arlo said, stomping hard on the floor to indicate that the family was waiting below in the kitchen. 

Their mother’s frustrated shout from downstairs was muffled and likely along the lines of, stop stomping!

“Ah.” So Mel’s family was in strategy mode for the battle on Labor Day if they weren’t already. The British Loyalists really should be grateful that the Kepner ancestors were still being impoverished in Germany during the Revolutionary War. 

“Dad said that the Walshes let it slip that they’re getting a seventh team t-shirt made,” Arlo offered as Mel got up off the bed and moved towards the door. “Apparently it’s for that girl you saw the other day, she’s competing with them.”

“Is she now?” Melissa asked through a frozen expression of carefully-crafted curiosity. As if she hadn’t just been cavorting with said friend of Jackie’s, much less helping her learn one of the events for the Games.

The rest of the family was sitting around the wide kitchen table when Melissa and Arlo trudged downstairs.

Before Mel could even think to make a break for it, Arlo was sliding into the second worst chair, leaving her with the lemon. She sighed and sat down in the broken chair, one ass cheek hanging uncomfortably out of the seat hole. 

“Thank you for joining us, Melissa.” Mr. Kepner nodded tautly. He may as well have been decked out in a suit of armor (having shed his hunting jacket from earlier) while pointing at an ancient map but Mel was used to the theatrics that came with the time of year. 

“Sure.” Mel reached for the bag of goldfish sitting in the center of the table. 

“You missed breakfast,” Mrs. Kepner sighed, squinting at her from her place at the foot of the table.  

“Sorry, Mom. Side quest with dad this morning left me tired.”  

After her outing with Shauna, Mel had immediately scampered back up to her room to hug her pillow and grin at the clouds she had painted on her room’s ceiling when she was younger and pass out for several more hours. Breakfast was a nonissue. 

“You mean his trespassing stint?” Mr. Kepner received the stink eye from his wife. 

Mel swallowed her crackers and nodded. “Yep, that.” 

“And where were you for all of that?” Levi butted in nosily. “Dad nearly got the cops called on him.”

“Keeping tabs on Jackie,” Mel said automatically, cheeks burning at the thought of Shauna and their close proximity earlier. “Like I was supposed to, Levi. At least I was helping at all. Where were you this morning? Sleeping?”

“Mel was very helpful despite fleeing the scene. Plus no cops were called, we were all good,” Mr. Kepner waved his hand. “Now, onto business. We have a lot to cover this afternoon.” He pulled out a piece of paper with a hasty agenda scrawled on it. 

“Is that Arlo’s summer book report?” Baker craned his neck to look at the back side of the list. 

Their dad turned the paper over and peered down at it. “Ah! So it is.” 

Mrs. Kepner did not look amused as she peered over her glasses. “Why would you write over your son’s book report?” 

“It was the only paper in the house that I could find,” Mr. Kepner protested. Mel thought about the birthday card and rolled her eyes. “Maybe if these four were more academically disciplined, they would be interested in reading and writing. Then there would be more notebooks in this house to, well, write my lists on.”

Mel and her brothers stared at him, dead-eyed. 

“You couldn’t have taken any of Mel’s sketch paper?” Levi offered unhelpfully.

“That paper is expensive,” Melissa objected immediately. Arlo’s book report was a fair enough sacrifice, her art supplies did not deserve to be yet another casualty in the Kepners’ feud with the Taylor-Walsh family.

“Maybe because you’re broke,” Levi fired back.

“So are you!” 

“That book report was shit anyway, mom,” Arlo piped up, looking at their silently fuming mother. “Maybe it would just be better if you write it for me instead, like last time?” 

“Don’t swear,” their mom chided, tactfully ignoring his request. 

“We’re getting off track.” Mr. Kepner waved a hand. “Lock back in, Kepners. Now, the problem at hand. As Melissa so kindly, albeit belatedly, told us on Sunday,” Mel huffed, “it looks like the Taylor-Walshes have added another person to their team. When I, er, spoke with the Walshes this morning, they confirmed that.” 

The table booed. Mel jeered half-heartedly alongside them.

“She seems to be about Mel’s age,” Mr. Kepner continued. “Maybe she’s a friend of Jackie’s or a girlfriend of Randy’s. I didn’t get much more information than that.”

Melissa snorted at the implication of Randy not only having a girlfriend, but having multiple girlfriends and one of them being Shauna.  

“Sorry Mel,” Mr. Kepner said sympathetically, as if remembering that he was politically correct. “Or she could be Jackie’s girlfriend.” 

A goldfish that Melissa had just shaken into her mouth got lodged in her throat at her father’s attempt at being woke for his gay daughter. She spat it out between hacking coughs and it landed on Levi’s forehead like a soggy third eye and stuck there.

“You are so disgusting,” Levi seethed, flicking the cracker off of his forehead loathingly. 

“I’ll save you!” Arlo jumped into action and began karate chopping Melissa on the back with the gusto that most paramedics were lacking for good reason. She attempted to protest but was silenced when one particularly enthusiastic swing sent her face planting onto the upsettingly hard kitchen table. 

“No hitting.” Mrs. Kepner was hardly paying attention as she scrolled through her phone. 

“Back to business,” Mr. Kepner insisted as if Mel hadn’t just been fighting for her life moments before. “I, er, spoke with Herbert today and he confirmed that the girl is on their team this year.

Mel could only imagine how that conversation between Mr. Kepner and Mr. Walsh went. She almost wanted to go find Randy and ask him about it but that would involve intentionally seeking out Randy Walsh of all people.

“They,” her dad continued, pointing towards where the Taylor-Walsh house stood off in the distance, “now have an advantage over us. Let’s discuss options.”

“We should fight fire with fire.” Levi immediately slapped a hand on the table. “They added a body to their team, why shouldn’t we?” 

“It would only be fair,” Mrs. Kepner agreed half-heartedly, still not looking up from where she sat thumbing through her inbox. 

“Might be nice to have an extra person on deck,” Baker added, resting his chin in one cupped palm.

“We need to bring in backup!” Arlo pounded on his chest with his fist, mimicking Levi and his fiery expression.  

“Excellent, glad we’re all in agreement.” Mr. Kepner laced his hands together and leaned back in satisfaction. “Do we have anyone in mind?”

The table went silent, one particular name resting on the tips of everyone’s tongues. Everyone slowly turned to look at Melissa, who was rubbing at her nose which was still stinging from being smashed into the table below.  

“We need to bring in the big guns,” Baker nodded at her when she finally looked up. “Think you can manage this one?”

Mel waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll call her up when she’s off from work.” 

“Everyone in agreement, then?” Mrs. Kepner asked, finally putting down her phone to contribute to the conversation.

The room nodded solemnly. 

“Alright, this motion passes.” Mr. Kepner tapped his empty cup on the table like it was a gavel. “Next order of business, debunking the rumors that the Taylor-Walshes have a new jet ski…”

Later that day, Mel slipped out of the house and onto the deck, phone in hand. 

The sun was low in the sky, bathing the lake and trees in generous pools of burnt yellow light. Golden hour, Mari had once told Mel then proceeded to pose for photos and chastise Melissa for her wobbly camera skills. 

Melissa arrived right in time to see the speed boat belonging to the scoundrels next door coasting by. Randy was at the wheel and Jackie was at his shoulder, squawking and trying to take over the captainship. 

The boat typically made Melissa sneer. Maybe she’d throw up a middle finger if the pair of cousins weren’t squabbling for steering wheel control and would return the gesture. But the scene was different from previous summers and there was precious cargo onboard.

Shauna sat on the far end of the boat away from the chaos. Knees tucked up against her chest, she clutched onto whatever can that Randy’s shitty fake ID had bought them. The wind had gathered all of her hair and was blowing it towards the jet engine like a streak of brown paint across the pale pink sky. 

Just like with the egg, Mel allowed herself a second to just breathe and enjoy the sight in front of her. And when Shauna turned her chin towards the shoreline, Mel waved. Slight and small enough for someone who didn’t want her waving at them to convince themself that she was just fixing her hat or swatting away at a bug. 

Shauna stared at her and Mel was half convinced she was going to receive the cruel letdown. Then Shauna’s hand crept up into the air and she waved back, unbeknownst to the two driving the boat.

Mel’s grin nearly split her face, hand still in the air even as she watched the boat vanish behind a cluster of pine trees lining the shore. 

She was still smiling as she pulled up the contact of the person who had been voted in as tribute. “Hey, you. Big favor but what are you doing this week?” 

Chapter Text

The ace up the Kepner family’s sleeve rolled up the next morning in a silver Mercedes with matching lavender luggage, an iced coffee the size of a milk jug, and a self-righteous smile slapped across her heart-shaped face. 

“So I was finally deemed worthy enough of joining the Kepners’ legendary summer competition shenanigans?” Gen snarked, taking off her sunglasses and squinting up at the house like a prospective homebuyer. 

Well, if any of Melissa’s friends was going to own a house before twenty-five sans nepo connections (sorry Lottie), it was going to be Gen Baines and her gawkable work ethic and inherent need to claw her way up through the chain of command. Even back in the sweet days of childhood, Gen ruled over kindergarten with an iron fist and a wicked smile that had Mel organizing crayons for her in rainbow order without a second thought. 

“You said you’d rather eat your own arm than set foot in Wisconsin,” Melissa reminded Gen from her position draped over the porch railing, braids still sweaty from that morning’s run and a half-eaten apple in hand. 

Gen held up one arm as she approached, teeth poised threateningly over tanned skin. “Yeah, so why am I here?” 

“Desperate times.” Mel shrugged one shoulder as she smiled down at her best friend. “Bail us out?” 

Gen spread her arms wide. “Your hero is here. Sweeten me up, buttercup.”

Mel snorted and pushed herself up to go give Gen a proper greeting. Before she could move towards the stairs, a three-headed monster breezed past her and down the steps. 

Baker, Levi, and Arlo swarmed around Gen, three blonde bees flocking to their queen. They wrapped her in a sloppy hug, lifting her off of the ground as they mumbled out a chorus of gratitude like they were being held hostage at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

“Thank you for saving us, Gen,” Baker chanted, a choked tremor lacing his words. 

“You are an American hero,” Levi praised her, stroking Gen’s head like she was a Westminster Kennel Club purebred. Or like Gen had magic glowing hair that turned the person brushing it youthful again, Levi was vain like that. 

“You will save us, Gen,” Arlo muttered, eyes squeezed shut as his arms around Gen’s middle tightened. 

“Geez Louise,” Gen managed to squeak out, squashed between three boys who almost certainly hadn’t showered since their morning 5K. “You guys stink.” 

Melissa hastily charged down the steps. “Get off of her!” She fought off the mishmosh of arms with one ratty flip flop until finally only their petite messiah remained, slightly rumpled but grinning nonetheless.

“Mellie!” 

“Gennie!”

They embraced like it was an ocean that had been separating them rather than a four hour drive down a highway littered with beer cans and roadkill. 

“It’s been too long,” they admonished in unison, leaning back to hold each other by the shoulders.

“It’s been four days,” Levi muttered in disbelief. “You two were cackling over car crash videos, like, on Saturday.”

“So when you guys hug her it’s okay but not when I do it?” Melissa snarked, tossing a glare over her shoulder at him. 

“Nothing you do is ever okay.” 

“Carry the lady’s luggage in, why don’t you?” Mel scowled. 

Levi grumbled but Gen always had him toeing the line with her charm and probably some sort of blackmail that Mel didn’t know about and so he reached for the duffel. As she watched Baker grab Gen’s suitcase, the precious cargo jumped on Mel’s back.

“Ride em, cowboy,” Gen tittered in Mel’s ear. “Lead the way.”

With Gen clinging to her back like a monkey, Mel struggled up the steep deck steps behind her brothers. She faceplanted on the top step, which was when Gen finally decided she was granted a break with a request that Mel “go to the weight room or something because geez.”

They walked into the house where Mrs. Kepner greeted Gen with a hug and Mr. Kepner nearly fell to his knees and clutched her hand like a beggar meeting royalty for the very first time. Mel whisked Gen away before her dad could slap adoption papers in front of Gen and take the Baines family to court for custody. 

“Negotiations with the neighbors happening in ten minutes at the gazebo,” Mr. Kepner shouted after them as they climbed the stairs. “Game face on, Gen, okay?” 

“Yessir!” Gen hollered back over her shoulder before tugging on the hem of Melissa’s running shorts. “Negotiations?”

“Negotiations” was a pretty untruthful description of what was likely about to take place at the gazebo resting at the edge of the Kepner family property line. “Verbal abuse with a smattering of bared teeth and open insults” was probably more apt. 

“We might need your conflict resolution skills,” Mel nodded.  

She and her brothers had gotten back from their run that morning just in time to see Mrs. Taylor’s Gucci sandal disappear behind a tree. According to Mrs. Taylor, she had been “concerned about the health” of the Douglas firs growing on the Kepner family’s property, not the thick log that Mr. Kepner had nabbed from a neighbor to help Baker practice for the log rolling event. 

A perturbed Mr. Kepner, who at that point had popped up out of nowhere as if someone had chanted bloody Mary three times into a mirror to summon him, then let it slip that their family would be adding a new member to their team that year. That then led to a shouting match between the two adults which had all of the animals in the surrounding area quaking in their wilderness boots. 

Mrs. Kepner eventually inserted herself into the situation and cooled off the heated temperaments by suggesting the two families meet to discuss the terms and conditions of that year’s Labor Day Games but not before insulting Mrs. Taylor’s new cut and color job. 

In short, it had been an eventful morning and that wasn’t even counting Mel being smacked into a tree by Levi in the fight to make it to the finish line first. 

. 

“Are the negotiations gonna be with fists?” Gen asked, perking up with interest as Melissa subconsciously rubbed her throbbing collarbone. “Is your dad gonna wrestle Jackie’s dad?”

“At this point maybe,” Mel muttered, knowing full well that her mother, who liked to pretend to be above all the nonsense, had threatened to beat Mr. Walsh to a pulp if he didn’t stop blocking their cluster of mailboxes with his big SUV. Family fight club was honestly not off the table. 

“They say violence isn’t the answer but you lot are a special case,” Gen tsked, nearly walking into the piece of string that pulled down the set of attic stairs from the ceiling. “Maybe in this case it is.” 

“Not very international peace and cooperation of you,” Mel teased, wondering if the Model UN gavel that Gen had a startling emotional attachment to was buried somewhere in her suitcase. 

“I’m off for the summer,” Gen shrugged with a grin as Melissa pushed open her bedroom door and ushered her inside. “Then it’s all We Are the World from here out come September.” 

Gen’s luggage was already in the room thanks to the combined efforts of the brothers. Her suitcase sat perched on the spare twin cot they had found in the attic and briefly checked over for bedbugs and rat families the night before. 

“Not too bad, right?” Mel bradished her arms, accidentally slapping a spiderweb in the process. The chipped china lamp on her bedside table flickered pathetically on cue. She kneed the table with a huff then did it again, trying to stop the lamp from strobing. 

“Well, at least some things never change.” 

Mel looked up at the sound of plastic clacking against wood just in time to see Gen give the mess of pens and markers on the ground a stir with the toe of her sneaker. 

She opened her mouth to chide Gen until her eyes landed on the sketchbook next to Gen’s left foot. It had fallen open, revealing a drawing of a girl sitting on a boat with a flannel billowing around her as she held a can in her hand. Swoop of dark hair, denim cutoffs, a trademarked smirk curled across her cartoon lips-

Melissa choked on air. 

Gen looked up and rolled her eyes. “I’m not gonna tromp on your favorite pen again, don’t worry.” 

“Right,” Mel wheezed, squinting down at the book. Shauna’s wave from the boat had clearly struck a nerve in Melissa’s high-as-a-kite mind the night before. She could barely remember making the drawing and yet those lines were her own. 

Melissa was in crush purgatory, so much so that she was developing a brain fog that rivaled covid and that deadly gas in Catching Fire. It was all a little delusional and probably a little pathetic. Maybe that had been Jackie’s plan all along, bring in a hot friend to distract the gay next door and have her make a fool of herself. Mel’s eyes widened as the drawing practically winked at her from the floor. 

As Gen turned to run a trail through the dust on the dresser with one judgy finger, Melissa threw a sandal. It hit its target, the Teva sole closing the cover with a soft thud. 

“Was that supposed to be me?” Gen huffed, spinning around. “Control your rage, I didn’t even break anything. And maybe don’t leave everything on the ground, you slob. Ever think of that?” 

“Sorry,” Melissa whined, relief washing over her at the sight of the stickered sketchbook cover. Gen didn’t need to find out about Shauna through a drawing, Mel would never hear the end of it. Especially not after Gen found out about Melissa’s previous crush on Mari through a big-boobed drawing of their friend. “So, what do you think? This place up to your standards?” 

“I don’t know the last time I’ve slept in a twin bed,” Gen sighed regretfully, gazing down at the rusty metal frame. “Good practice for college next year, I suppose, right?” 

Still crestfallen after making eye contact with cartoon Shauna, Mel searched for ideas for how to make the beds resemble Gen’s generous queen mattress at home. “We could make a megabed?” She starfished onto her own twin bed for added effect.

The corner of Gen’s mouth twitched. “Innovation that excites.” 

Despite the incriminating evidence being hidden, Mel’s pulse continued to race as Gen resumed her inspection of the room. A stupid drawing of a forbidden girl who hadn’t even touched her yet, and likely never would, was making Mel speechless. 

She focused back in on Gen as her friend took stock of the quilted patchwork made by Mel’s grandma on the walls and the ancient box fan creaking pitifully in the corner. 

Gen drifted towards the window and leaned against the windowsill, peering out at the trees and lake in the distance. She gasped at the sight of what had to be the Taylor-Walsh lair (cue the organ dun dun dunnnn). Forgetting her prior embarrassment, Mel bit back a groan at the awestruck look on Gen’s face. 

“Is that-” Gen began, finger pointed at the sloping roof Jackie’s house peeking out from the canopy of trees.

Melissa sighed, and let her head fall back onto an upholstered throw pillow with an acorn pattern on it. “Yep.”

“Dang.” Gen leaned out the window to squint at the monstrosity. “That’s a fortress if I’ve ever seen one. It makes your place look-”

“Tiny?” 

“Rustic,” Gen corrected, moving away from the window and falling onto the spare cot. It squeaked under her weight and she scowled down like it had personally insulted her. “So give me the scoop, Mellie. What’s going on in White Potato Lake land?”

Women with madness (Melissa) and men with bad habits (Mr. Kepner) was what was going on. Espionage, secret meetups with enemy forces, lying and trespassing, the list went on and on.

Gen hadn’t received the full debrief over the phone the night before, mainly because she hadn’t needed much convincing to drive up. After assuring Mel that she could in fact end her internship a couple days early because her boss had been begging her to take vacation days all summer anyway (paired with a couple of Wisconsin-related insults), Gen was hanging up to go overpack.  

Gen was good like that; dependable, gungho, ready to jump into the fray at Mel’s hasty request. Mel almost felt guilty for dragging her friend into the mess but Gen was always looking for ways to release her bloodlust so this would probably be good for her. Maybe, if Mel was lucky, Randy would lose some teeth to Gen and her fists of fury.

“The losers next door are playing dirty this year,” Mel began with a dramatic sigh that shook the bed. 

“How so?” Gen leaned forward and rested her chin on laced fingers. “Don’t tell me they’ve already bribed the judges with backdoor deals? God, did they buy the town? Schitt’s Creek style?” 

Melissa snorted as she combed through the ends of one of her ratty braids. “Not quite but I wouldn’t put it past them.” Her gaze drifted towards the sketchbook on the ground. “They added a team member this year.” 

“Which is where I come in, then? What, am I just another body to you?” Gen sniffed.

Mel shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “We did need to even out the team numbers. But if it helps, you were voted in by the masses to be our secret weapon. MVP title coming your way if you help us bring home the win.” 

Gen tapped her chin and shrugged. “Fine, I’ll take it. Where’d they manage to scrape up another team member? Are they a Taylor or a Walsh? Better yet, which is the lesser of two evils?” 

“Not a relative.” Luckily. “Jackie brought in a friend this year.”

A bewilderingly hot friend who crushed Mel’s thoughts like they were grapes under a winemaker’s feet, turning her senseless and stuttering. One who had wormed her way so deeply into Mel’s subconscious that she had drawn a damn picture of her like she was thirteen years old. But Mel would get to that soon enough, once she’d found the words. 

Gen’s brows shot upwards like overtoasted Wonder Bread out of a toaster. “The monster brought a friend? Is she just as bad as your arch nemesis?”

Melissa almost laughed at the suggestion. “Surprisingly no.” 

As she shyly opened her mouth to tell Gen about Shauna, her dad’s ringing voice flew up the staircase. “Let’s go, soldiers!” 

Saved by the bell. Mushy gushy talks could wait, there were bigger fish to fry. With the way Mr. Kepner was talking about it, those fish were more like hammerhead sharks. 

“Duty calls, I guess,” Mel sighed, tossing her two braids over her shoulder and adjusting her hat. She stood up and offered Gen a hand. “We’re in wartime, Gen, haven’t you heard?” 

“I’m too pretty to be drafted.”

The Kepners plus Gen rolled up to the gazebo on the edge of the walking path, a structure built so long ago that there was no way to know who even built it and yet both families tried to claim it as their own. 

The Taylors, Walshes, and Shauna were already there, standing in a straight line in order of height like soldiers in preppy garb. Shauna looked like a cute, out of place bookend on the far right with her worn out clothes that clashed with the Taylor-Walsh family’s khakis, hair rumpled to perfection.

“So there’s Jackie in the flesh, then?” Gen muttered as they approached, nodding towards the end of the unamused line in front of them. “Brassy, blonde, and bitchy, right?”

Melissa could tell that Jackie was there from the familiar sound of her huffing. But Mel was currently caught in the line of Shauna’s bemused gaze and so Jackie looked like nothing more than a frowny face stick figure with a fluffy ponytail. 

She nodded absentmindedly, as her eyes turned into spinning curlicues. “Uh…yeah.”   

“Interesting,” Gen hummed. 

Interesting?? Jackie wasn’t interesting, Jackie was catty and frustrating and diabolical. Melissa almost turned to Gen with a look of betrayal but then Shauna raised one corner of her mouth at her and Mel could do nothing other than senselessly smile back.

A chorus of pointed coughs, produced by the unexpected two-person choir of Jackie and Baker, had Mel guiltily blinking back to reality.  

“I feel like this is the Jets and the Sharks facing off,” Gen whispered in Mel’s ear as Mr. Kepner shooed the two of them further down the row so that they stood parallel to Jackie and Shauna.

“You know I can’t dance,” Mel muttered back mournfully, still scarred from the time she and Mari got caught in the middle of a flash mob at the Mall of America which ended with multiple broken fingers and a trampled pink hat. Shauna, whose crossed arms had no business being as taut as they were, looked like she would hate flash mobs and for that, Melissa was grateful. 

“Levi could carry us to victory,” Gen said with a decided nod. 

In unison, the two of them turned to look at Levi. He scowled back at them from over Arlo’s head, as if picking up on the fact that they were referencing his brief middle school musical theater stint that no one was allowed to bring up. 

“Too bad he doesn’t fit into his tap shoes anymore,” Mel leaned forward to whisper in Gen’s ear, the back of her neck prickling with the feeling of someone’s, hopefully Shauna’s, eyes on her. “I think mom kept them for sentimental reasons.”

Levi definitely heard the trigger word, for his nostrils suddenly flared like those belonging to a blonde bisexual dragon. 

Mel and Gen hastily averted their eyes, eager to be rid of Levi’s dangerous attention. Gen’s gaze settled on a spot near Jackie’s elbow and Mel’s naturally gravitated back to the magnetic force that was Shauna. 

While her teammates looked wound up tighter than a pack of riled up dogs, Shauna looked positively languid next to Jackie. Her eyes betrayed her nonchalant posture, however. 

Something resembling curiosity framed her wide pupils and Mel detected a sparkle of mirth, too. Whatever emotions Shauna was feeling, it made for a delicious shaken cocktail that left Melissa slack-jawed and useless. 

“So the gang’s all here, then,” Mr. Taylor finally broke the silence hanging like a curtain between the two families with a pointed clearing of his throat. Mel hastily snapped to attention at the sound of his sharp voice and looked around dazedly. “I would say it’s nice to see you all here again, but-”

“Save it.” Mr. Kepner rolled his eyes. Backup singers Levi and Arlo supported him with harmonized scoffs. 

Mr. Taylor met their disgust with a reciprocated huff. Then, in freaky unison, the Taylor-Walshes swept their eyes over the Kepner lineup, doing an analytical once-over as their lips curled with disdain. 

Not Shauna, though. Shauna was a free thinker, it seemed. One who was playing an entirely different game, one that involved making Melissa squirm with the intensity of her gaze. 

“Why do I feel like I’m on display at a car show?” Gen muttered, bumping shoulders with Mel. 

“You could use a new coat of paint,” Mel managed to choke out, receiving a crushed foot in response. 

“Arlo, you look like you’ve gotten taller,” Mr. Walsh offered once the scan was done loading in his pea brain.

“All the better to take you down,” Arlo growled, bending his knees and assuming a ferocious, semi feral, stance. 

“Oh my god.” Gen snorted so loud that she had to turn around to hide her laughter. 

“And you’re looking older, Wendell,” Mrs. Walsh added in a simpering voice, nodding at Mel’s dad. “Have you hit the big seven oh yet?” 

Mr. Kepner and the cucumbers he put over his eyes every night to depuff his eyebags, sputtered in horror. “Why you-”

“I could practically hear his knees creaking with old age when we caught him following us in the woods,” Mr. Walsh said loudly, gesturing to himself and Randy.

“You missed a lot,” Melissa muttered before Gen could even ask. 

“No kidding.” Gen’s eyes bugged out. 

“You lot can hardly talk,” Mrs. Kepner snapped, dropping her uninterested facade. She zeroed in on Jackie’s mom. “By the way, so nice seeing you this morning, Janet. There was no need to hide, we’re all friends here, aren’t we?”

“Oh my god your mom is wild,” Gen wheezed, turning around once again to cackle into her arm.

“I was coming over to talk to you,” Mrs. Taylor insisted, a nervous blush shooting up through her veiny neck. “About, well, the trees.”

“Let’s not forget that your family started this,” Jackie piped up, her malicious gaze finding its usual target. “Melissa crossed the property line first.”

A selectively-crafted narrative from Jackie, what else was new? “I literally tripped onto your side of the walking path,” Melissa snapped, looking to Shauna for support.

“Did you also trip over to our yard yesterday when he was spying on us?” Jackie butted in before Shauna had the opportunity to support or ignore Melissa’s claim, finger trained on Mr. Kepner. “We found a matching camo jacket hung up in a tree. This has your messy fingerprints all over it, Melissa.” 

Through the embarrassment blurring her vision, Melissa made eye contact with Shauna and her raised eyebrow. Now felt like a good time to turn into goo and sink into the ground. 

“Oh my god, were you spying?” Gen hissed. “You freak!” 

“Gathering intel,” Melissa corrected weakly. “Plus it wasn’t my idea!”

“I fear I underestimated the insanity of the situation” Gen sounded downright gleeful. She let out a loud maniacal giggle that had the Taylor-Walsh machine zeroing in on her with their beady eyes. 

“So you brought in someone new, then?” Mr. Walsh grumbled, squinting pointedly at Gen as if she had suddenly materialized out of thin air.

Gen immediately bared her teeth in response and Mel’s heart surged with pride.

“No different from what your family did,” Mr. Kepner argued, gesturing at Shauna who smiled so snarkily that Melissa hoped her dad could recover from the stinging smirk. 

“You’re all playing dirty this year,” Levi added. 

“As if your family’s ever played a clean game,” Mrs. Taylor said with a scoff. 

“Us Kepners value good, clean competition,” Mr. Kepner insisted. 

The camouflage costumes kind of said otherwise, not to mention all of the personal fouls Levi received back in his high school basketball days. And the notes home to the Kepners regarding Arlo’s playground etiquette. Regardless, family loyalty had Mel keeping her mouth clenched shut. 

“Why the change of heart this year, then?”

“Because you started it!” Mr. Kepner howled, pointing at Shauna once again. 

“I’m just here to spend the last week of summer with my best friend and her family,” Shauna said coyly as Jackie took a threatening step forward. “Sir.” 

Melissa bit the inside of her cheek.

“And compete in the Labor Day Games,” Mr. Kepner protested, eyes darting back and forth in his delirious state. 

“Which is exactly why you brought her.” Randy pointed a pudgy finger at Gen. 

“Maybe I also have a best friend who happens to have a lake house next to yours,” Gen snarked, hands falling to her hips. “Randy.”

Randy blinked nervously, the name drop throwing him off. Gen wrinkled her nose threateningly at him and he blanched. Point to Gen for fear mongering! Mel didn’t have to look at her dad to know that he was likely blinking back proud tears. 

“Yeah, Gen’s staying if she is.” Baker pointed at Shauna. 

Mel would also be staying if Shauna was, what a win-win scenario. 

“Shauna’s not going anywhere,” Jackie retorted, bolstering Mel’s mental pledge. 

“Well, this has been productive,” Mrs. Kepner sighed, running a hand down the side of her face. Mel sensed her gearing up to put on her “HR conflict resolution” hat which, funnily enough, she had never thought to put on before in the context of the Labor Day Games. 

“What do you suggest, then?” Mrs. Walsh snapped, tapping her wedge sandal impatiently. 

“Since we’re getting nowhere with this, how about we get down to business and part ways until Labor Day.” Mrs. Kepner crossed her arms. “Melissa’s friend is here and so is Jackie’s. They’re new additions who haven’t been around for previous competitions. Let’s establish some terms and conditions for what events they can and cannot do. Sounds fair?” 

Mrs. Kepner must be really good at her job, which was a thought that had never crossed Melissa’s mind before. The group nodded warily.

“Begin.” Mrs. Kepner waved her hand and pulled up the Notes app on her phone. 

“She’s banned from beach volleyball,” Levi, never one to beat around the bush, demanded, pointing at Shauna.

“Fine by me,” Shauna said immediately before her team could protest.

“She’s banned from diving,” Mrs. Taylor insisted, nodding at Gen. “She’s got a good build for the sport.”  

“Thank you” Gen puffed up her chest. “Enemy,” she added after receiving warning glances from Baker and Levi.  

“No log rolling for her.” Mr. Kepner pointed at Shauna.

“No archery for her.” Mrs. Walsh pointed at Gen.

“Archery? Oh my god, what century are we living in?” Gen whispered to Melissa. 

“Don’t act like you didn’t want to have a Katniss moment,” Mel whispered back. Gen’s smile slipped, as did her metaphorical mockingjay pin. 

“No basketball for her.”

“For her, either.” 

Miraculously, none of Melissa’s family members had banned Shauna from the egg toss or egg race. Yolks stayed winning. If she squinted, maybe Shauna looked relieved at that fact, too. 

“Are we happy, then?” Mrs. Kepner raised her eyebrow once the conversation had stalled, looking up from the Notes app she had been scribing all of the requests on. 

“One more thing.” Jackie raised one prim hand. “Opposing teams need to stay away from the new players.” 

That certainly caught Melissa’s attention. Her head snapped up right in time to make eye contact with Jackie’s fiery hazel eyes. Jackie raised a knowing eyebrow at her and jutted out her chin defiantly.

“Easy enough,” Arlo scoffed while Mel’s silent train of thought screamed nononononononono. 

“No cross-team fraternization,” Jackie insisted. “I’m serious. They’re here to stay for a couple of days, compete, and go home. They don’t need any distractions.” 

Mel slowly looked towards Shauna. Shauna blinked back innocently, tilting her head almost as if she was confused. Mel almost huffed in defeat until Shauna smirked at her. 

“That sounds fair enough,” Baker said like the traitor he was.

“Super fair,” said other-traitor Arlo. Oh, the Brothers Kepner were in for it. Mel was going to fill their shoes with worms that night. She was going to cut nipple holes in all of their shirts and throw their mattresses into the lake and let a rabid raccoon lose in both of their rooms and-

“What say the newbies?” Mr. Taylor asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“I don’t get distracted,” Gen hollered like a drill sergeant, throwing her shoulders back. “But that’s fine by me,” she added hastily after Mr. Taylor winced at the sound of her shrill shout.

“Shauna?”

Shauna shrugged. “Whatever.” 

That one singular word stamped Mel’s hopes and dreams out like a cigarette butt. 

It also ended the negotiations. Shauna was swept away in the sea of Taylors and Walshes, hand clutched tightly by Jackie as the family departed, probably off to go drink imported lemonade and laugh about poverty or whatever it was that rich people did. Mel’s shoulders slumped in defeat. 

“So!” Mr. Kepner clapped his hands together as the Taylor-Walsh family disappeared into the trees. He brandished a piece of paper chock full of madman scribbles from his pocket and smoothed it out with one hand. “Who’s ready to train?”

“Oh boy,” Gen muttered, wide eyes trained on the paper.  

Melissa was untangling Arlo’s knotted kite string later that day when a soccer ball rolled across the ground and hit her ankle. 

She yelped at the sudden contact and yelped even louder when she saw the ball, which seemed to have materialized out of thin air. 

Levi used to fill her head with stories of ghosts in the woods as a kid and maybe, for once in his life, his words held some truth. Maybe there really was a dead Taylor or Walsh ancestor out there looking to kill a Kepner to free themself from purgatory or something. 

Mel stumbled backwards, fearful of a potential ghost Taylor in the premise, only to twirl herself into a mess of string. She went down with a pitiful grunt. 

Shauna emerged from the woods, hands shoved into her pockets. “Lost my ball, sorr-” she paused when she saw Melissa on the ground. “Uh, Mel?” 

“Shauna!” Eagerness and shock had Mel fighting to push herself into a seated position. She fumbled with the crooked hat on her head and spat out the piece of hair that had found itself stuck in her lip balm. 

Shauna crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “For a soccer player, you sure seem to fall over a lot.”

“And that stays true on the field,” Mel nodded hurriedly. “Sometimes my flailing elbow hits the ball and it passes.” The landlocked kite fluttered in the wind, as if tittering at her. 

“That’s illegal and you know it,” Shauna chided.

“Never said it wasn't," Melissa smiled lamely through the strands of hair still stuck to her face. “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, though.” 

Shauna stuck her hand out with a snort and Mel took it gratefully, allowing herself to be pulled upright. She steadied herself with her hands on Shauna’s shoulders before remembering herself and, blushingly, removing them to let her arms hang limply at her sides. 

Shauna was there, Mel thought giddily. 

Shauna was there and Jackie had a bounty on Mel’s head for anytime she talked to Shauna. Jackie was swaggering around like a cockblocking sheriff from the Wild West, having deputized the rest of her family members (plus Mel’s) to do her dirty work for her. 

Mel’s eyes widened. With a gasp, she grabbed Shauna’s wrist, and dragged her to the edge of the forest where she promptly wedged their bodies behind a thick-trunked silver maple. 

“You can’t be here,” she hissed once she was sure there was no way a pesky brother could spot them from one of the foggy upstairs windows or the boat shed down the hill.

“You said I could come over if I wanted to,” Shauna reminded her with an exasperatingly sly raised eyebrow. “Change your mind?”

Mel’s eyes widened and she began to backtrack faster than a car going the wrong direction down a oneway. “No!” One hand surged forward, as if to grasp Shauna’s or tuck a piece of dark hair behind her small ear or some other jailable offense. “No no, I just…the meeting earlier…” Her hand fell heavy at her side as she shrunk away shyly. “You agreed to the terms and conditions and I just thought-”

“I said whatever, that’s not an agreement. It means either or or nothing at all, not yes.”

Shauna’s English major was coming in handy. It had just explained to Mel that no, Shauna wasn’t going to be following the rules and regulations put in place by her own best friend. Mel had the sudden urge to kiss a diploma that Shauna didn’t even have yet. 

“Even after what Jackie said?” Mel persisted. 

“You scared to break the rules?” Shauna was looking down at Mel’s limp hand with curiosity as if wondering what its original path had been. 

The topic of fear had come up often in Melissa's conversations with Shauna, the word typically equated with Shauna's best friend. Jackie and her ever-watching eyes and freakishly straight teeth were something out of a nightmare, that was true, but Mel could be brave every so often. So brave that it turned her foolish.

“Do you want me to break the rules?” Melissa murmured, every ounce of common sense gone with the wind. 

“I lost my ball over here,” Shauna responded before Melissa could dig herself into a cozy, shallow grave. She pointed numbly at something over Mel’s shoulder. “That’s why I’m here.” 

Mel stared back at her, allowing her brain to catch up. Slowly, she looked over her shoulder and her eyes landed on the ball that had only just hit her ankle moments ago. 

Lost soccer ball, huh? So Shauna was using the same excuse Mel herself had tried the day before. 

“Lost your ball,” Melissa repeated out loud, a marveled smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. 

Shauna dug her hands further into her front pockets and shrugged, her low-hanging denim waistband revealing a strip of fabric Melissa was probably not supposed to see. Mel had to purse her lips to stop her greedy teeth from biting part of her tongue off. 

“You know, none of the events at the Labor Day Games involve a soccer ball,” Melissa continued, playing it as gently as she could so as not to send Shauna skidding back into the woods. 

“I play at Kenyon,” Shauna reminded her, but there was a glint in her eyes. 

Mel didn’t need reminding, Mel had googled the Kenyon women’s soccer team stats after Shauna name-dropped the school then proceeded to draw her (miraculously sans doodle hearts) in a delirious state. 

“Will you show me your moves?” Mel muttered against her better judgment. Not that she had much of that anyway. Her common sense came and went as quickly as Gen’s road rage behind her pink fluffy steering wheel cover. 

“Are you gonna go get the ball, then?” Shauna teased, nodding at the ball that was in a really good spot for Mel to get tackled by any one of the rule followers if she ventured out. Assuming that they were lurking, which they probably were. 

It was a good point. Mel would not walk out into the open with a tackle me for laughs! sign taped to her back but she could be brave in a different way. Maybe she would walk towards Shauna with a tackle me for laughs sign…yeah!

She shuffled further away from the danger and closer to Shauna with so much gusto that she overaimed and her knees bumped against Shauna’s. 

Pushed forward by instinct, Shauna reached out to steady Mel. Her hands ghosted Mel’s shoulders before retreating like they had touched something hot. Said heat went straight to Melissa’s face, where it was probably splotching her to a skinned salmon color. 

“These woods are notorious for redirecting soccer balls into nonexistent bushes,” Melissa blubbered, body set to no bones status as her knees quivered dangerously. 

Shauna’s hard exterior softened slightly, starting in her brow bone and working down to her mouth where her lips relaxed into a soft smile. “Yeah?” 

Emboldened, Mel nodded, not breaking eye contact. “In fact, I think that this may have been the one I was looking for. From five years ago.”

Shauna nodded in acknowledgement, the smile growing at subtle intervals. “I see.” 

They stood still for a bit, the silence acknowledging the fact that both of them had been finding excuses to see each other. Melissa was beyond geeked, smiling like she did when she’d had too much weed or when Gen got into fights with Rachel Goldman at the lunch table.

She felt light as air, so light that she was about to float away and upgrade to being on top of the world. Even though her voice wasn’t working properly and her eyes were about two seconds from popping out of her head like water balloons from all the staring that she was doing, Mel was in paradise. Sweet, soft, quiet paradi- 

“Mellie, can I borrow your sunnies?” Gen’s voice rang out like a dinner gong breaking the pre-meal lull.  

Cheated out of yet another conversation (more like eye contact competition) with Shauna, Mel was peeved. But it was Gen so Mel couldn’t really be peeved.

It must have been two in the afternoon, then, because that was when Mel had promised Gen they would go paddleboarding. It made sense that she had come looking for Mel to head down to the dock with her. She was looking in the right place because Mel was there, right where she said she’d be, standing there with Shauna-

“Oh my god,” Mel hissed, dancing nervously in place. 

She hadn’t caught Gen up to speed on the subject of Shauna and how she made Mel feel like her brain was mashed potatoes and her chest was a ticking time bomb every time they saw each other. There hadn’t been time, what with the rigorous training session Mr. Kepner had thrown them into after the brief peace accords. 

For someone who always made Melissa’s business her own like the good best friend that she was, Gen was woefully uniformed and already knee-deep in immersing herself in the “hating the Taylor-Walsh and guest” agenda that Mr. Kepner was so adamantly pushing. Shitteth was about to hitteth the fan. 

“I can see your ass from here, Mel,” Gen tutted followed by the sound of soft feet padding down the caved-in wooden deck steps. “Why is it, like, vibrating?”

“She’s got you there,” Shauna muttered.

Wait! Did that mean Shauna was looking at her ass? Mel had to stop herself from turning to look at Shauna. She was supposed to being doing Gen-related damage control, not Shauna-related intel gathering. Dammit, her dad’s vocab was really sticking in her brain, wasn’t it?

Mel finally stuck her head from out behind the tree. “Hey, Gen-ouch!” For Gen had just delivered her classic volley with the discarded soccer ball which had found its mark on Melissa’s forehead, knocking her hat clean off her head.

Melissa hadn’t needed to be scared of a Jackie or a Levi or a Randy attacking her, it was Gen who was the rogue agent. 

“Coach did say you needed to work on your heading,” Gen offered unhelpfully as Mel slapped a hand over her forehead, which had only just stopped throbbing from its contact with the table the day prior. “I’ll go get the bag of frozen peas.”

“That is not a real concussion remedy,” Melissa objected, eyes screwed shut in pain. 

“Your skull can withstand worse than that,” Gen fired back as she approached. 

“Let me see,” a voice murmured in Melissa’s ear. Soft hands guided Melissa’s own hands away from her forehead as Shauna’s fingertips traced over the taut, stinging skin. 

Mel blushed at the contact, or maybe that was just numbness from her forehead seeping into her cheeks. 

When she opened her eyes, Shauna’s brows were knit together as she brushed away strands of Mel’s hair with quick fingers. There were sparkles dotting Shauna’s cheeks like freckles, or maybe that was the potential head injury talking.  

Gen’s gobsmacked face popped up over Shauna’s shoulder. “Uh, hi?”

“Hey, Gennie.” Mel wheezed, wondering if Gen had always been wearing flowers in her hair. “Nice volley.”  

Gen looked back and forth between Melissa and Shauna, who had begrudgingly let go of Melissa and slapped the pink hat back on Mel’s head. Gen’s eyes settled back on Melissa and she squinted suspiciously, no doubt taking in Mel’s heaving chest and her blushing skin and her telltale twitch of embarrassment that haunted the right corner of her mouth. All signs of a crush, which Mel had not yet told Gen about. 

“This is Shauna,” Mel winced, attempting to do damage control before Gen could put the pieces of the puzzle together. “She’s Jackie’s friend and, well, you two met earlier. Kinda.”  

Unfortunately, Gen could sniff out Melissa’s bullshit like a bloodhound hellbent on never giving her friend a moment of peace. “So this is what you’ve been doing instead of rubbing suntan lotion onto my back? Cavorting with the enemy?“

Mel knew exactly what agenda she was following and groaned through the pain. “Gen-” 

“You could have just told me, Melissa. I would have gotten Levi to do it, then. Your hands are so much softer than his, though,” Gen simpered, turning around to wiggle the muscles rippling under her purple bikini straps.  

It was like the mischievous spirit of Mariana Sofia Ibarra had inhabited Gen’s body which was a scary reality indeed. Mel writhed with embarrassment. “Oh my g-”

“Didn’t you hear me ring the bell? You know, the one I use to summon you?” Okay so Gen was really laying it on thick. “What about our secret whistle.”

No such thing existed. Mel slapped her forehead only to wince at the pain.

Shauna stared at Gen and then stared at Melissa. Her eyes pingponged back and forth between the two of them. Melissa immediately picked up on the conclusion that was weighing down Shauna’s brow no thanks to Gen’s serial need to make Melissa’s quest for love as complicated as possible.

“This is my best friend, Gen,” Melissa squawked, reaching around Shauna and patting Gen on top of the head like a puppy. “My chummy chum friendly friend, Gen.”  

Gen took her chance like a kid in a candy store equipped with daddy’s credit card. She scrunched her nose menacingly. “That’s not what you said last night when you were begging me on the phone to come to the cabin cause you couldn’t bear being apart from me-”

“She jests,” Melissa croaked, beads of nervous sweat pricking at her hairline. “Funny, funny Gen.” Gen got another pat on the head. 

“I’ve never joked once in my life, Melissa.” Gen expertly dodged the hand. 

“My sister from another mist-” 

“Ew.” Gen wrinkled her nose a second time. 

“We met,” Shauna butted in over the sound of Gen’s fake retching. “Earlier today, at whatever the hell that meeting was.”

Met was probably a generous word for it, Gen had glared at Shauna’s team and Shauna had rolled her eyes at Gen’s team. That was it, that was the entire interaction. 

“Yep, this here is my counterpart.” Gen sized Shauna up, slow and thorough. “Nice to officially meet you, enemy. You’re going down.”

“Gen,” Mel groaned as Shauna’s brows shot up, clearly unimpressed. 

“That’s how we’re supposed to talk to them,” Gen hissed right back. “Your family has hated theirs for years now.” 

“Shauna’s fine, though,” Mel whispered frantically. “It’s the others you’re supposed to hate.”

“She’s the enemy, Melissa!” Gen retorted before blinking in surprise. “Okay, what the fuck, this place is already making me crazy.” 

“It’s part of its charm,” Melissa said weakly.  

“For the record, I’m resisting the brainwashing,” Shauna piped up. “Enemy this, competition that, I’m just here to spend a week at a cabin.” 

Once again, Jackie’s summer residence could hardly be considered a cabin. 

“A nonbeliever, then?” Gen crossed her arms and sized Shauna up curiously. “Fair enough, all of this is such bullshit. Does Jackie gab your ear off about how much she hates Swiss Family Kepner over here?” 

Shauna’s shoulders eased slightly. “Like, every day. Gets pretty annoying, doesn’t it?” 

“It’s the worst,” Gen smiled ruefully. “They should find a new hobby. I’ve always thought that Melissa here could channel some passion into the harmonica or something.”

“Yeah?” Shauna smirked at Melissa, who was pretty damn close to at her wits end. “I always thought Jax would enjoy ax throwing. No time to think about a blonde family of six that she hates when she’s got an ax in her hand.”

“That sounds terrifying,” Mel muttered. If anything, said hatred of said blonde family would only bless Jackie with perfect ax throwing aim.

“Sounds kinda hot,” Gen grinned. “You know, Melissa here once had a bowling phase. I almost convinced her to join the local senior center’s team.” 

“Gen!” Melissa squawked in disbelief, flopping and floundering in her own embarrassment. 

“Melissa?” Gen countered dangerously. “Do you have something to say?” 

Mel knew she was in withholding information jail and so she quit while she was ahead. “No.” 

Well, at least Gen seemed done with her little revenge plot. It also seemed like Shauna had passed whatever test Gen had thrown at her. Things could be worse, Melissa supposed. 

“Mel promised to buy me a drink tonight to thank me for making the trek,” Gen said, popping Melissa’s brief sense of inner peace like a gum bubble. “You should come.” 

Mel’s imaginary wad of gum lodged itself in her throat, causing her to wheeze in disbelief. Well, that wasn't what she was expecting.

Shauna raised an eyebrow. “Even after today’s little chat?” She directed the question at Gen but she was looking at Melissa.

“That’s phony baloney,” Gen scoffed, smoothing down her pigtails with both hands. “Differences can be put aside for a night of fun, right? Where are we going again, Mel?”

So it seemed like Gen was doing some community service hours for Melissa’s benefit after her brief smear campaign. “The Barracuda,” Mel squeaked out after Gen elbowed her. “Yeah, please come if you can.” 

“A bar?” Shauna repeated, brows furrowed in confusion. 

“They don’t really check IDs,” Melissa said hurriedly. “Small town bar, yknow? Business is tight as is, they take what they can get. I’ve even seen Randy there before.”

Randy had been thrown out of the bar the previous summer for chugging too many beer pitchers and trying to climb the pool table light fixture with his shirt off. Mel had a photo courtesy of Levi saved on her phone of Randy facedown in the mud outside of the Barracuda.

“Not really a selling point.” Shauna wrinkled her nose but didn’t shoot down the idea.

“We’d love to see you there,” Gen continued, far too syrupy and sweet not to have ulterior motives. Mel eyed her suspiciously. 

“Where is it?”

Gen’s eyes glimmered with mischief. “Yeah, where is that located, Melissa?”

Oh, so that was what Gen was playing at. So she was still salty, then.

Mel’s face reddened as she squinted at the ground. “Pound.”

“Pound?” Gen was downright angelic with her tone. 

“Yeah, a town called Pound.”

“Oh, do you mean-”

“Pound town,” Mel finally snapped, blushing furiously and Shauna’s eyebrows shot up on cue. 

“That’s right.” Gen was positively gleeful. “Anyway, that’s where Mel and I will be tonight.” A conniving arm looped its way around Mel’s torso. “Pound town.”

Mel glared down at Gen. Gen glared back up at Mel. 

Shauna mulled the offer over. “I don’t know if I can get away from Jackie.”

“Bring her,” Gen said, pinching Melissa’s side before Mel could protest.

“Gen!” Melissa whined despite her stinging skin. Gen’s motives were all over the place and Mel could simply not keep up. 

“Really?” Shauna’s head snapped in Melissa’s direction. She almost looked eager, enthusiasm instead of sarcasm lifting her brows up toward her hairline. 

Welp, Mel was too far gone to say no. Welcome to Pound Town, Jackie! Population: four. “Yeah, sure. As long as she isn’t hostile.”

“I’ll do my best,” Shauna nodded dutifully. And then she smiled, soft for the splittest of seconds. “See you tonight. Maybe around nine?”

“That’s great,” Melissa choked out after receiving a poke against her waistline from Gen. “Nine, yeah.” 

“Cool.” Shauna nodded once more before turning to go. “See you then.” 

Melissa would’ve been content to watch Shauna’s figure grow smaller and smaller until it disappeared entirely but Gen had other plans. Two unforgiving fingers pinched the shell of Mel’s ear, dragging her down to Gen-level.

Mel winced, prepared to meet her fate after leaving out crucial details of that summer’s lake house dynamic. 

“You are in so much trouble, Melissa Mildred,” Gen threatened, expression unamused. “Does this place have a doghouse? Because that’s where you’ll be sleeping tonight.”