From the author of Cass has a rule about dating summer girls--just say no. Every year, her idyllic beach town is flooded with summer girls, the obnoxious daughters of the rich, who stay in their families’ summer homes, sail their yachts, and generally make things unbearable for townies like Cass. Birdie is the ultimate summer girl. She’s the daughter of a wealthy real estate developer dad and a social media influencer mom, and this summer Birdie happens to be in big trouble for accidentally crashing her boyfriend’s very expensive car. Birdie’s punishment is to spend the summer with her father at the beach--but it won’t be a vacation. He’s enlisted the help of Cass, whose dad works for him, to keep Birdie on the straight and narrow, including getting her a job at the public beach where Cass lifeguards. At first the two despise each other. Birdie doesn’t want a babysitter, and Cass doesn’t want to be one. But as the season heats up, Birdie surprises Cass time and again, and before long both girls can’t help but wonder: Are some rules made to be broken?

Autorentext

Jennifer Dugan

Klappentext

From the author of Some Girls Do comes a summery sapphic romance about two girls from the same vacation town, whose worlds couldn’t be farther apart.

Cass has a rule about dating summer girls—just say no. Every year, her idyllic beach town is flooded with the obnoxious daughters of the rich who stay in their families’ summer homes, sail their yachts, and generally make things unbearable for townies like Cass.

Birdie is the ultimate summer girl. She’s the daughter of a wealthy real estate developer dad and a social media influencer mom, and this summer Birdie happens to be in big trouble for accidentally crashing her boyfriend’s very expensive car.

Birdie’s punishment is to spend the summer with her father at the beach—but it won’t be a vacation. He’s enlisted the help of Cass, whose dad works for him, to keep Birdie on the straight and narrow, including getting her a job at the public beach where Cass lifeguards.

At first the two despise each other. Birdie doesn’t want a babysitter, and Cass doesn’t want to be one. But as the season heats up, Birdie surprises Cass time and again, and before long both girls can’t help but wonder: Are some rules made to be broken?

Leseprobe
1

Birdie

My mother always says there are only three things you need to be successful in life: charisma, which she claims I’ve inherited from her in spades; money, which she also takes credit for, even though she married into it; and an interesting point of view, which—surprising exactly no one—she also feels I should thank her for.

I guess technically “extremely online child of former mom blogger turned lifestyle influencer” is an interesting point of view. Or it would be, if I was allowed to say how I really feel about it all (which is not good) and wasn’t expected to instead toe the party line on both her streams and my own.

I’m supposed to be grateful for it all, definitely not at all bothered that the whole world watched me potty training. And especially not bothered by the T-shirts my mom made when, while out at a restaurant during the potty-training process, I stuck my head under the divider to ask an unsuspecting stranger in the stall next to me, “Are you pooping?” (My therapist has reassured me that was a developmentally appropriate question, but I would still prefer there not be merch commemorating it.)

It’s ironic that that is what I’m most known for, despite the fact that my mom’s mantra for me has always been: “You need to look as expensive as you are.” (Read: No, you cannot go outside and play like a regular kid. You are pristine. You are elegance. You are perfect.)

Looking expensive and perfect is kind of my mom’s thing, after all. Her lifestyle branding would probably make that other ultra-rich, ultra-blond actress turned lifestyle influencer weep—that is, if they didn’t occasionally collaborate—despite making most “regular” moms laugh at her. Sometimes the hate mail outpaces the followers.

It doesn’t matter to my mom either way, as long as they keep watching. After all, content is god in the Gordon house, and my mother is the high priestess.

Right now, I’ve been asked—read: ordered—by my mom’s team to do a “behind-the-scenes” run-up to my dad’s annual investor party. My mother calls it a gala, but it’s not—it’s just a stuffy, boring party for my dad’s investors and my mom’s friends.

I tried to fight her on it—laughable, really, because my streams get the most views as of late. While she’s been trying to give me a good edit (as good as she can anyway), it’s been obvious things have been going a little bit off the rails. I’m pretty sure my uptick in viewership is because both her fans and mine are waiting for me to fuck up in some kind of real,
uneditable way.

My most recent shenanigans? Screwing up my college apps on purpose and missing two days of filming while I live streamed sneaking off to Cabo with my best friend, Ada, for a weekend. (We tried to say Ada just wanted to connect to her Mexican roots, but neither of our families bought it.) And then, of course, there was also last month when I shattered a window trying to sneak in drunk from a party. (It looked open! It wasn’t my fault!)

While we’re not important enough for any of the actual tabloids to care about us, we have a habit of going semi-viral often enough to keep the other bloggers talking. Whether they’re portraying me as another spoiled rich white girl who doesn’t know how good she has it, or as a worse, somehow more embarrassing Kardashian knockoff, or—my least favorite—a tragic example of what happens to the kids who grew up being mined for content by their parents, social media has opinions about us.

Opinions we can capitalize on.

Thus, the phone camera Ada is currently pointing at my face. She insisted that the temporary phone holder I stuck to the dashboard of my boyfriend’s very expensive car—which I have never driven before—was not capturing my best angles.

Ada’s not a content creator or anything—she actually thinks it’s all ridiculous. We’re polar opposites, but our inheritances keep us running in the same circles, at least for now, and I’d be lost without her. While my post–high school plans are more nebulous and influencer-y—I want to launch a line of luxury purses when I gain access to my trust on my eighteenth birthday this summer—she’s heading off to an Ivy for biomedical engineering this fall. Despite that, I’ve still managed to mold her into the ideal Instagram husband—though we’re 100 percent platonic. (She’s painfully straight.)

I wasn’t originally planning to film this drive, but after three texts from my mother politely (read: obnoxiously) reminding me that I promised to, I relented. Despite the fact that I’m driving Mitchell Riley’s McLaren up a dangerously winding mountain road to get to the ridiculous luxury villa that my dad always hosts this gathering at.

Mitchell had begged me to grab it for him since he was running behind, and like any good girlfriend, I agreed. I chose to ignore his reasoning—that he didn’t want to be “stuck at the party” any longer than he had to be, after getting caught up at the pre-gala golf match with our dads. They’re all getting ready there together at the villa, and I&rsquo…