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She was halfway down the mountain before she finally understood why. She was still wearing his coat.
* * *
“Hey,”Mira said, wrapping her arms around her waist, hugging herself in Cole’s coat.
“Hey,” Ian replied, still awake and playing video games.
She sat down next to him on the couch. “How was Mimi?”
“Good. She went to bed early.”
“She had to have been exhausted from staying up so late the last couple of nights. I hate it when she doesn’t sleep.”
Ian nodded, pushing buttons frantically while his game’s lights flashed across his face. “Whose coat is that?” he asked, taking a split-second break from the action to notice her outfit.
“Oh, this?” She curled her fingers around the cuffs. “It’s…his.”
“His?”
“Um, Cole’s.”
A suspicious brow quirked. “Cole Sanderson’s?”
“Yeah. I’ll have to mail it back to him.”Or keep it forever until they bury me in it.
He dropped his controller into his lap.“Cole Sanderson let you have his coat?”
Lifting the lapel to her nose, she inhaled the sun and the sea. “It was cold out. And then I think we both forgot I was wearing it.”
Ian’s eyes rolled. “Wow. How are you so old and you don’t know the ‘leaving an item of clothing behind’ move?”
“Hey, I’m not that old,” she said, bumping her shoulder into his. “How are you so young and know any moves at all?”
“I guess I’m not that young.” He almost smiled, very nearly, a smile’s second cousin, twice removed. “He’ll be back for that coat. Maybe not tomorrow, but someday. Dude’s got game.”
“No, it’s not like that. Here, I’ll prove it.” When she pulled her phone out of Cole’s coat pocket to text him, Ian snorted.
Mira: I’m still wearing your coat. Sorry! I’ll mail it to you if you give me your address.
The three dots bursting immediately onto the screen made her lungs forget their purpose in life.
Cole: Yeah, I know. It was a move, Mira. See you in the morning.
Clutching her phone to her chest, she admitted, “Okay, fine. He definitely has game.”
“You’re going to, like, sleep in it, aren’t you?”
She didn’t dignify that with an answer, even though it wasdefinitely. After kissing Ian’s curls, she got to her feet. “Don’t stay up too late. Sleep is important to the—”
“Growing teenage brain,” he droned.
“You okay?” she asked him again, because she always asked him, because he didn’t tell her anything anymore, because he was alone on a Saturday night playing video games in the dark.
“I’m fine.”
There were these situations as a parent that weren’t written about in a handbook. There wasn’t some website she could click on to help her decipher what a fourteen-year-old kid’s “I’m fine” meant. It was possible he was fine. It was also possible he was drowning in stress and expectations. It was possible that his quiet, stoic nature was actually depression. Lots of things were possible, but all she knew for certain was what he told her. Which wasn’t much.
“Okay,” she said, wondering if she was fucking him up by not trying harder to break through his silence, at the same time wondering if she was overreacting to it. “Love you, buddy.”
