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"I bet. and I'm sure you two have some plotting and conspiring to do with all these boys coming over," she added.

Amber laughed and followed me up the stairs to my room.

"Your mother is such a cool lady. It's almost as if she has fun with us or through us." Amber said.

"She's my mother, my sister and my best friend all rolled into one," I told her.

She smiled.

"I wish my mother was that way," she said and then she snapped to attention and dug into her cloth bag to produce a small attractively wrapped box.

"Happy birthday. Summer. I wanted to be the first to dive you a present." she said.

"Thank you. Amber."

I peeled off the wrapping paper neatly and opened the box. It was a gold charm bracelet with sixteen candles.

"It's beautiful. Thank you, so much," I said and we hugged. "I'm going to wear it to the party," I declared and put it on. I held up my wrist and shook the charms.

"It's beautiful. Look how dazzling it is when it catches the sunlight."

"I wonder what Chase is going to give you." she said. 'I bet it'll be something very expensive, a lot more expensive than my gift, something extra special. too."

"It'll be expensive, but more than likely his mother will have bought it."

"Why? Wouldn't he want to be the one to choose it? Wouldn't he want it to be something very special, something that represents his love for you? His mother can't do that."

"I haven't known Chase that long," I said shrugging, "but I can tell those things aren't that important to him."

"But he does love you, doesn't he?" she pursued.

"I don't know if I would call it love yet. Amber."

Her comment threw me back to my early conversation with Harley.

"Why not?" she asked with a grimace, as if I was bursting some bubble.

"We've only been seeing each other a little more than a month. Don't you think love should take a little more time and be a lot more extraordinary?" I asked.

"I guess," she said.

"I mean, some of our friends fall in and out of love as easily as they put on a new pair of jeans."

She laughed, but then grew serious again.

"I think it has to be love when you just can't think of anyone else, when you feel special just being near him, when you tremble if he simply grazes your arm or your shoulder and when you're afraid you'll say something wrong or look unattractive and lose any hope of winning him. That's love, isn't it?"

I knew she was referring to how she felt around Harley. and I also knew he had nowhere near the same feelings about her. Maybe the most painful thing in the world was loving someone who would never love you. You had to compensate and tell yourself that it just wasn't meant to be, that there was such a thing as soul mates and yours was vet to be discovered,

But that was hard to do.

Very hard to do.

"Well, isn't it?" Amber pursued.

"If that's not love, it certainly sounds like it's just around the corner," I offered and started to flip through my bathing suits to decide which one I would wear.

"I wish I could own a real bikini," I said. "but neither my mother nor my father would tolerate my buying and wearing one. They'd die if they saw me wearing what Catlin Staffer wears and will probably wear today," I predicted.