“Interesting. What’s in this one?”
“Nothing groundbreaking. It’s just…I’m trying to figure out how to act around you. I like being on solid footing with the people I see every day.”
“You are on solid footing.” She takes a step toward me and looks up into my face. “I like knowing your thoughts, and I like you knowing mine. It’s different for us, but good.”
“True.” Although she doesn’t knowallmy thoughts. If she did, she’d know that I love the way the sun lightens her hair in the summer, and that her hazel eyes have a kindness to them that draws people in. She’d also know that when she gives me herlopsided smile, everything in my world tilts sideways.
“Pancakes.” I move around her and fetch the pancake mix out of the pantry. “I promised Wyatt pancakes.” I don’t have much time, so I speed through mixing the batter, prepping the frying pan, and pulling the chocolate chips out of the freezer while Callie’s distracted.
Rosalie shoos me away when she sees the time. “I’ll finish up. Don’t be a stranger, okay?”
“I won’t.” I grab an apple from the fridge and watch in the doorway while Wyatt creeps over and steals the first pancake off the platter. Rosalie threatens to swat him with her spatula. He looks zero percent scared as he takes a big bite out of the pancake he stole.
When Rosalie sees I’m watching them instead of leaving, she gives me a wink. It’s I’ve-got-this and have-a-good-day all wrapped in one. I always leave my heart when I go, but this time, it hits different. She’s taking pieces of it I didn’t think I had left to surrender.
Chapter 24 – Carpet Snow Angels
Rosalie
I know Liam said there wasn’t anything particularly special about the letter he left for me today, but my curiosity says differently. I pull it out while the kids are recovering from their pancake sugar rush with quiet reading time. And by quiet reading time, I mean that Callie has a book resting on her face while she’s making carpet snow angels, and Wyatt is pouting because we can’t find his Nintendo Switch. I didn’t look that hard for it. Summer’s almost over, and screens will always be there.
Rosalie,
I’m hoping you haven’t talked to Marisol yet and I get to be the one to tell you. It’s hard to top your stories, but I’m willing to try with this one. Bea got a celebrity to sign her cast. She found so many, actually, that she startedrunning out of room on her cast and had to tell a Disney Channel star not to write so big. She wouldn’t say which one because she didn’t want us making fun of him. In her words, “His handwriting isn’t so good.”
How did she do this, seeing as how she’s seven, home from school for the summer, can’t ride her bike, can’t drive, doesn’t have access to the internet (Andrew says it’s dangerous for them all when she does), and has a piggy bank with a grand total of eight dollars in it?
She called her nana and asked her to get them tickets to Phoenix Comic-Con. Not Marisol’s mom, Marisol’s grandma, the one who probably needs to not drive anymore and everyone is afraid of. Thankfully, because of Bea’s cast and crutches, they were happy to be driven there and chaperoned by a grumpy Andrew.
As far as costumes? They went as Yzma and Kronk from The Emperor’s New Groove. Nana was Kronk. Bea went as Yzma. You must ask for pictures. Bea’s makeup was terrifying. Andrew did not wear a costume
Bea’s adamant the cast is going up on eBay the second it’s off her leg. Every seven-year-old I know has a hoarding problem due to being sentimental about everything. Not Bea. If I hadn’t grown up with Andrew, I’d be more worried. He collected discarded pencils and pens at school and then sold them in sets to teachers. They thought he needed the money. They had no idea that he only wore the same outfit every day because he had them in sets and he liked the routine.
Which brings us to how Andrew and I became friends. He declared it. Followed me around. I tried to ditch him because I was a sixth grader with a chip on my shoulder and a case of raging self-doubt. It didn’t work.
I’m hoping for a lazy weekend. Basketball season has ended. What about you?
Yours in tiredness,
Liam
I smile and fold up the letter, knowing I don’t have time to read it through again, even though I’m dying to. Wyatt and Callie are fighting over a book neither of them wants to read, and if I don’t break them up, someone will be crying in about five seconds. It’s a toss-up who. Callie fights dirty.
“Come on, you guys.” I clap my hands. “We’re going out to water the trees.” They’ll probably have irrigation over the weekend, but the trees in the backyard could still use it.
“That’s not fun,” Callie whines.
I make some other suggestions of less fun chores, and they’re suddenly eager to drag the hose around the backyard.
I had not heard the update on Bea, and I’m glad I got it from Liam. I didn’t know he had that storyteller instinct. However, he’s not being totally accurate about the details of how he and Andrew met. Marisol once told me how much Liam meant to Andrew in middle school. Liam was his protector. He listened, not giving much in return but not cutting him off either. He gave a neurodivergent kid space to be himself in a world where he was constantly asked to blend in. But I do believe Liam was probably a jerk at first. Boys that age often are.
Chapter 25 – My Flying Drunken Guest
Liam
Rosalie’s in the kitchen cooking when I get home on Friday afternoon, and she crooks a finger at me, drawing me over to the counter by the fridge where she’s chopping onions on a cutting board. The household sound system is on, playing something that was probably once in a Disney Channel original movie. Callie’s lucky they share a love for bubblegum pop. Rosalie’s wearing a pair of cutoffs and a big T-shirt, showing off the strap of a swimsuit underneath. Her hair is slightly damp and wavy. They must have gone to the community pool again.
For someone who cries over cat food commercials, she has eyes of steel when it comes to onions. My eyes are watering just standing next to her.