I hang up and look at Teeny. “Josh is ready to go home.”
“Yeah, let’s go find him.” She turns to walk away but then I tug at her arm, pulling to flush against me. I peck her lips, resisting the temptation to fall into another kiss.
“Can we talk? Later?”
She nods. “Yeah, of course.”
I grudgingly pull away from her and follow her lead back into the house. We find Josh quickly, right in the middle of the crowded kitchen surrounded by a round of freshly poured shot glasses.
“Eyyy! It’s Everett!” he calls in a slow, slurred voice. He tosses back the shot and slams the glass onto the kitchen counter.
“You sure he’s ready to go home?” Teeny asks, leaning into me with a hand cupped to her mouth.
“That’s what he told me.”
I look at her and laugh with a questioning shrug.
“Okay, okay,” Josh says, reaching us with a tomato red face and glazed eyes. “That was the last one. I’m ready to go.”
“You sure?” Teeny asks.
He lazily loops his arm over Teeny’s shoulders and pulls her into a loose chokehold, rubbing his knuckles into the top of her head.
“Josh!” Teeny shrieks. He laughs gleefully and lets go of her.
“Come on, Joshy. Let’s go home.”
I duck my head to let Josh’s arm drape over my shoulders and guide him outside to his car. I safely get him in, tucking him into the back seat where he flops across the seat instead of sitting upright. I take the blanket I’d thrown into the back seat and dust off the sand before covering him with it.
I get into the driver’s seat, and Teeny looks at me from the passenger seat and giggles.
“Shh! You’re going to wake the baby.”
She covers her mouth with her hand, and when she lets out a muffled laugh, Josh stirs in the back. “How am I going to sneak him back home?”
“Would your parents be mad if he stayed at my house?”
“I don’t know. Probably not,” she says, peeking over her shoulder where Josh rumbles a loud snore.
“Just let them know he came over to my house to watch movies. They can call my mom if they want.”
“You’re going to handle that?” She points her thumb behind her.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Okay.”
I drive home in silence. When we hit a red light, I glance over my shoulder to see Josh still sleeping soundly, his face squished into the cushions of the seat underneath him. I reach across the center console and reach for Teeny’s hand, linking our fingers together. I look at her, and she smiles at me when I bring her hand to my lips and kiss her knuckles.
CHAPTERNINE
Teeny
NOW
I never thoughtSadie would outgrow the fairies and princesses stage. I thought she would prance around in her frilly dresses decked out in glitter and tulle until she grew out of them and asked for new ones to replace them. I didn’t expect there to be an expiration date for when she would stop wearing those cheap tiaras and plastic shoes that clacked on the wood floor.
But, alas, the day came. She decided she no longer liked all the make-believe things and shifted her interests into purple and Taylor Swift and learning how to play the guitar and piano at the same time. She focused her time on writing poetry as if she’d suffered through a break-up when the extent of her heartbreak didn’t go beyond a dispute with her friends over who the cutest BTS member is. It crept up on me until one day she requested a trip to Home Depot for a can of amethyst purple paint to slather over the large princess castle decal I put up at the head of her bed when she was three. She’d moved onto the next stage of her life where she’d need me less and demanded more privacy.
