Biggest Flirts (Superlatives #1)(55)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Kaye and Harper left when Violet arrived in Dad’s truck with enough groceries for a feast. An hour later, she and Dad and I sat down to our first family dinner since we’d moved in, because we had cleared off the table.

“Lucita,” he mumbled between bites. “So good.”

“Thanks.” I wondered why he was into this meal now when he’d never wanted what I’d cooked before. Maybe the table made the difference. Or Violet. Or the fact that the meal was not offered with an air of desperate sacrifice.

“Violet,” he said. “Delicious. And—” He put his hand over hers on the table. In Spanish he told her that he was very glad she’d come home. He said he’d always thought she would return eventually. He’d wanted her to figure that out for herself. Love was a complicated thing, but that boy she had picked out would not be his choice for her. Then there was a series of epithets that involved Ricky’s private parts.

“I know, Dad.” Violet took a bite. “This house doesn’t seem like home, though, with Sophia and Izzy missing. I haven’t seen Izzy and the kids in months. Maybe I could cook again one day this week, and we could have them over, now that the house isn’t a death trap for the children and we’ve found all the chairs. I could drive up to get Sophia and the baby one weekend.” She gazed around the den/dining room/kitchen. “It would be kind of small in here for all of us, though.”

“The white house is for sale again,” I said casually.

Dad’s eyebrows shot up. Suddenly he looked more awake than I’d seen him in years. “Really?” The eager look settled into wistfulness. “I loved that house. I think about it a lot.”

“Me too,” Violet said.

“Me too,” I said.

“I looked forward to tackling that fountain,” he said. “Remember, in the atrium, with the mermaids?”

“I’ll bet it would be cheaper than it was before,” I said. “It’s been on the market a few times. Why don’t we buy it back?”

He laughed. “I wish. I work too much, lucita.”

“Yeah, you do,” I said. “Why? Izzy is stable now. Sophia is stable-ish.”

“Ish,” Violet echoed with a laugh.

“Violet will get there,” I said.

Violet snorted.

“And you don’t have to worry about me,” I told him. “I’ll get college paid for.”

“College!” he exclaimed. “I always said you would be the first one to go to college, but you’ve been hemming and hawing.”

“I decided I’m going,” I said.

“When did you decide this?”

“Today. I’m getting online and registering to take the SAT in a minute.” I had no doubt I could score high enough on the SAT to get a full ride to college, provided I could get really stressed out with responsibilities before test time. The way things with band and work and Will had been going, that shouldn’t be too hard.

“In the meantime, I would help you with the house,” I said.

“I would too,” Violet chimed in.

“I’ll only be here for a year before I leave for college,” I said, “but we could get a lot done.”

Dad put down his fork and nodded, staring into space. “I was about to sign up for another month of weekends at work. I didn’t know how to break it to you, lucita, but I was going to miss all your band performances at the ball games. It’s funny how you work so much that you don’t even have time to think about how much you’re working, or what you’re working for.”

“Yeah,” said Violet. “Sometimes when you’re in the thick of something, you lose perspective.”

I put my fist to my mouth and squeezed a sob back in. Talk about being in the thick of things. I’d been so caught up in my own childish way of dealing with my fears that I’d driven off my favorite pirate, maybe forever. But before that possibility settled into fact, I had to try to get him back.

I stood to take my plate to the sink. On my way, I stopped and kissed my dad on the cheek. “Please consider it. We’d rather have you home.”

***

I’d never been inside Will’s house, but he’d pointed it out to me on our tour of town last Wednesday. I rode my bike into his neighborhood, a newer development where the trees were small, the houses all looked the same, and there weren’t any unique architectural details for Will to draw. I felt a little sick as I laid my bike carefully on the lawn and walked up to the door. I put out a finger to ring the doorbell and noticed my hand was trembling.

Will’s mom was as tall as me, with Will’s worry line between her brows. She wore a tank top and shorts. Those clothes would have made sense if she was walking at the beach or working in the yard, but I was surprised she wasn’t freezing when she had the air-conditioning in the house set below zero. It seeped out, surrounding me and making me shiver as she said in her own clipped Minnesota accent, “Oh, hello. Will’s talked about you a lot. I’m afraid he’s asleep right now, though. He said he was feeling sick.”

“Sick?” I repeated. “Is he okay?”

His mom nodded. “I think he’s just homesick.”

I nodded too, because that seemed to be the thing to do. “Homesick.”

“There’s no cure for that but time,” she said sadly. “But thanks for coming by, Tammy. I’ll tell him you were here.” She backed me out of her house and onto her porch. She shut the door, sealing out my voice, before I could tell her my name wasn’t Tammy.

I stood there for a moment in the quiet night, listening to the breeze rattle the palm fronds. It was an evening for staying inside, where it was cool, and wishing you were back in Minnesota, away from me.

I walked down the sidewalk and picked up my bike. What else could I do? Yes, Will and I had argued, and we’d been genuinely mad at each other, with reason. But in the back of my mind, I suppose I’d assumed that we could fix it. We hadn’t flirted like we used to since the trouble began—it all started with that stupid title—but I’d thought we would get back there.

And now I knew we wouldn’t. I was such a poor replacement for his friends that I made him sick.

I got back on my bike and rode. The Sunday night was bustling with traffic. Folks were driving inland after a day at our beaches, one last weekend before Labor Day. Families had eaten one last meal out on the main drag and were packing into their cars to go home and prepare for work and school. I was riding the wrong way, heading downtown. I steered into the alley and propped my bike against the railing of the Crab Lab.