A smile tickled the corners of my mouth as I felt something blossoming inside my chest, the almost completely forgotten feeling of hope. – – – �...� – I walked around the exhibition area, trying to keep under the radar, to not get pulled in by the sales people – which, despite being dressed slightly different from usual sellers, was in truth what the smiling people standing behind the tables were. Trying to understand what they all had to offer without stopping was a bit difficult, but after I had. "Oh, hi," she said with a cheery smile."Hi," I mumbled. My eyes started at her breasts and went up to her beautiful eyes."What are you doing?" Nothing." I'm going down to the river. Want to come?"I already experienced the great boredom of the river however I didn't go in the presence of a pretty girl."Okay." Great!"We sat on the riverbank."I'm Melissa," she said.I gave her my name."I haven't seen you here before." This is my first time." My family comes here every summer." Really?" I said. Poor. I knew I could count on Mom making sure they got on the road, even if everyone was focused on my actions. As bad as I felt though, I’d made a promise to myself to keep my family safe, and I wasn’t going to sit on the sidelines any longer.Ever since we found out a criminal organization put us in their sights, Carter had been putting together as much info as possible on them. The actual goal was to gather together the information that Jonathan had handed over to the Feds, but along the way,. If her parents are concerned, they’ll deal with it. Her mom is happy we’re going out. She wishes Debbie was my full-time girlfriend!”“I don’t believe that, Stephen!”“Mom, it’s true,” Stephanie said. “Mrs. Vaughn told Debbie she should do whatever it took to date Steve because he was, to quote her, ‘a real catch’.”I chuckled. I couldn’t help it. Of course, that set Mom off.“We’ll just see about that!” she said and abruptly turned and walked away.“Squirt, how do you think she’ll react to Mrs..