“You kissed him because you thought he was me, and he thought you were a hallucination. It’s definitely funny.” He walks to the table, opens one of the Styrofoam boxes, and nods in appreciation at the burrito. “My favorite.”
“I also got you a Dr. Pepper because I figured you’d be up late working.” Summer joins him by the food, nudging his drink forward.
“Don’t worry about Caleb.” He sits down in front of the food. “It used to happen all the time. We’re identical. Nobody could tell us apart.”
Her brows lift in skepticism. “You used to kiss each other’s girlfriends?”
“I don’t think we ever did that.” His gaze drifts to me. “But we did swap places. I remember the last time. You wouldn’t have passed Mrs. Jenkins’s class or graduated if I hadn’t taken that test for you.”
“Chemistry, right?” I think back to a little over ten years ago.
“Wait.” Summer takes a seat next to Justin. “You took a chemistry test for him?”
“It was really for our mom,” I say. “She would’ve been devastated if I didn’t graduate high school.”
“And no one knew?”
“I’m sure Mrs. Jenkins knew when she saw Caleb’s test score.” Justin smiles at me, and in a small way, it feels like old times, like adulthood hasn’t completely destroyed our relationship. He pokes his burrito with a fork. “This looks delicious. Thanks for picking it up, Sum Sum. I’m starving.”
Sum Sum?
That’s the worst nickname I’ve ever heard.
I give it two more months—the relationship, not the nickname.
“Why were you so late coming home?”
He does a dramatic eye roll. “Work is a long story, but once I did leave the office, I ended up getting in a car accident on the way home.”
“What happened?” Summer’s hand goes to his arm in concern. “Did someone hit you?”
“It was my fault. I was looking at my phone and didn’t see the car in front of me stop. Luckily, we were going slow, so nobody got hurt.”
“Why were you looking at your phone?”
“I was reading an email about our projected sales on Black Friday. It’s going to be huge.” Justin glances at me with a proud smile. I do my best to match his excitement because I’m trying to be a better brother, even though nothing aboutprojected salesgets me excited, especially when I have a splitting headache.
“You’ve worked so hard, and it’s going to be amazing.” My eyes follow Summer’s hand as she rubs it over his shoulder in an affectionate way. “I’m so proud of you.”
The two of them continue the sales conversation while I cast my eyes over her and her sweet expression as she hangs on every last word Justin says. She’s all wrong for him with her short blonde hair, bright-colored clothes, red lipstick, and that huge smile that fills up her entire face. She’s the epitome of sunshine, and Justin is… What is Justin?
He’s like a cirrus cloud, transparent, delicate, and detached.
Love the guy, but relationships aren’t his strong point.
A woman who wears that shade of lipstick and greets her man the way she greeted me needs something more exciting than a cirrus-cloud man. She needs a storm cloud to keep her on her toes and match her energy. I’m not sure at what point in my life I became a meteorologist and started using cloud metaphors, but here we are.
“I told my family you had to work, but they were still bugged.”
The tone of their conversation turns serious, sparking my interest.
“You guys were picking out a Christmas tree, yet you’re acting like I missed the birth of my first-born child.”
Summer stabs at her burrito, decimating the tortilla with each strike. “I’m just so tired of defending you to my family.”
Apparently, there’s trouble in paradise.
This personal topic is above my pay grade, so I turn my head away and close my eyes, as if that’s enough to give them privacy. I would get up and leave, but that seems dramatic, and walking is still kind of hard.
