Ugh. So I can look like the bad guy?“No.”
“Thanks, James. I hope one day you find someone and understand how your mind gets wrapped up in wanting to spend time with them.”
I slide the phone into my pocket. My lips rub together as memories of Milo flood my mind. Okay, Kai. Maybe I’ll follow your lead.
Twenty-One
Timestoodstillonthe approach to 2 p.m. It didn’t help that I had to spend most of the time with a frosty Kylie. I’m unsure where Kai’s parents will be. As far as they’re concerned, Kai’s picking me up, so they could’ve made plans to go out of town. With my fingers crossed, I dial the landline. Grandpa Nelson answers the phone with a jovial bounce in his tone.
“I’ll be there in a jiffy,” he says with no qualms about picking me up from work.
When his gray sedan arrives out front, I wave goodbye to the crew and book it outside.
“Has my grandson become forgetful since turning sixteen?” Grandpa jokes on the drive home.
“Just mixing up his priorities,” I reply as diplomatically as possible.
“Well, you won’t have to waste your afternoon with me and Grandma,” he replies, turning a corner. “Milo and his friends are playing a game in the dining room.”
“You mean in the living room?”
“No,it’s at the table. Some kind of big board game with lots of figurines taking up space.” Grandpa throws a hand in the air with an exasperated splutter. “Beats me what it is. Looks complicated.”
I smirk, tapping my fingertips together. “I’ll have to take a look.”
We arrive home and Grandpa Nelson parks in the garage by Mr. Nelson’s car. Mrs. Nelson’s SUV and Kai’s car are both absent.
“Grace and Steven are both out,” Grandpa informs, referring to Kai’s parents.
“Kai’s at a movie with Tabitha,” I tell him. “I suspect they’ll stay out all day together, just like yesterday.”
Grandpa chuckles as we make our way into the house. “He sure is smitten with that girl, isn’t he? Pretty little thing, she is, and quite a lovely personality.”
Geez, who’d you meet, Grandpa? “Yeah, sure.”
“Do you spend a lot of time with her at school?”
Just when she and her friends are calling me names before, during, and after classes. “Sometimes.”
Grandpa pats my back. “Helps when you’re friends with the person your friend is dating.”
I don’t respond because my fake niceness is stretched too thin.
Grandpa turns into the living room where Grandma waves from the couch over a novel and cup of coffee. I wave back and continue toward the rear of the house, where excited chatter grows louder.
As I approach the dining room, the shouting across the table isn’t any easier to understand. Milo’s friends argue about rules and lore as they gesture at pieces strewn across the table. I tilt my head as I stand a few feet away from the table, trying to get a handle on what exactly I’m looking at. Milo has his back to me, one friend sits adjacent at the head of the table, and the other friend sits opposite Milo.
The friend sitting opposite grows mute the minute he notices me in the room.
“Umm, hi?” I say with a hint of laughter.
Milo turns and gives me an uneasy look. “Oh, hey. What are you doing back?”
“Ah, I live here at the moment. Remember?” I tease.
He rolls his eyes. “I thought you were going to the skatepark with Kai.”
“He ditched me.” I saunter toward the table and glance over the gameboard, filled with mountainscapes, caves, rivers, and land borders. Different colored, shaped, and sized figurines take over quadrants of the board. “What’s all this?”
