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There’s Levi (oldest brother / engaged to June / likes trees), and June (engaged to Levi / ask me anything about old-timey outlaws), who I met yesterday at dinner, and I talk to them for a while about the checkered history of firearms in national parks. It turns out that June has a deep and broad knowledge of everyone who’s been murdered in a national park, and we talk for a while.
I meet Rusty (Daniel and Charlie’s daughter / knows skateboarding tricks), who very quickly tells me that technically, Charlie is her stepmom but since Charlie is her legal guardian, she and Violet decided to simplify the name tag. She also asks me if I know anything about an Olympic sport called skeleton.
I do not. She tells me. It’s like the luge, but you go head first.
I hold Thomas (Daniel and Charlie’s son / hates socks). I meet Clara (mom / astronomer / baker of pies), and we talk for a long time about grad school, about academia, and then finally about why we can send people to the moon but not make high heels that don’t suck.
We have dinner, then pie, and by the time that I’m practically quizzing Daniel (middle brother / married to Charlie / Rusty and Thomas’s dad / co-owns the brewery) about yeast behavior at various temperatures during the fermentation process, I’ve completely forgotten that I was ever nervous to meet them in the first place.* * *After dessert I use the bathroom upstairs, and when I come out, Caleb is on the landing, alone.
“I’m allowed to be in there,” I tell him, and he just laughs.
“I didn’t come to bust you for using the wrong bathroom, I came to see how you were doing,” he says, keeping his voice low, glancing at the stairs. “Like I said, I know they can be a lot.”
At the bottom of the stairs, someone — Silas? — is asking loudly about some kind of event permit, Thomas is starting to fuss, and I can hear Daniel very patiently explaining that something or other is dangerous. I don’t know what’s dangerous, but I’m pretty sure I know who he’s talking to.
Caleb casts a suspicious glance at the downstairs, then nods his head and pulls me into one of the bedrooms.
“Was this one yours?” I ask, looking around. Right now it’s just a guest room: bed, dresser, curtains, all perfectly nice but nothing that suggests who slept here.
“They were all mine at some point,” he says. “I think we changed who slept where every six months or so. There were a lot of shifting alliances.”
“Sounds tricky,” I say, still glancing around.
“It wasn’t really,” Caleb says, laughing. “If nothing else, we’re all pretty straightforward so it was pretty much a matter of me telling Daniel that I was annoyed with him and I’d like to sleep in Levi’s room now, please, or Levi getting tired of sleeping with a middle-schooler and swapping me for Eli, or… you get the idea.”
“I don’t. I’m the only girl, I always had my own room,” I say.
“Aren’t you fancy?”
“Yes.”
“You doing okay?” he asks, pushing a strand of hair from my face.
“With your family?”
He nods.
“I am,” I say, a little surprised at how easily the words come. “They’re really nice. And actually interesting.”
“That’s one way to put it,” he says, and I laugh.
“I like them,” I say. “I like you, and I like them. Deal with it.”
“If you insist,” he says, bends down, and kisses me.
I very, very briefly consider the guest bed that we’re standing next to, but it’s clearly the worst idea in the history of bad ideas.
“Thanks for calling Seth from my bed and tracking me down,” he says when the kiss is over. “I was a little out of sorts.”
The corner of his name tag sticks to me slightly, and I pull it from my shirt, anchor it back to him.
“You like it?” he asks, looking down.
HELLO
my name is
CALEB
• Youngest brother
• Thalia’s boyfriend
• Good at math“I guess it’s only fair,” I point out. “Though I’m not really sure who it’s for.”
“It’s for Violet and June, who made these and thought it was funny,” he says, smiling.
“They were right.”
“I kind of like having a label that says I’m your boyfriend,” he says, running his finger across the handwritten name tag one more time.
“It does look good on you,” I tease. “Should we head back out there? I should head back to Marysburg soon, I’ve got class in the morning.”
“Probably,” he says, but as I turn he catches my hand.
“Hey, Thalia.”
I just raise one eyebrow.
“Love you,” he says.
I twist his hand around in mine, bring his knuckles to my lips.
“Love you too,” I say. “And for the record, I love them. Flaws and all.”
“I wouldn’t say that until you know their flaws,” he murmurs.
“I know yours and I love you anyway,” I point out, and he leans in again, rests his forehead against mine.
