My response comes like a reflex.
I slap him across the face.
Then I surge to my feet, my palm stinging.
Rafe rubs his cheek, and I remember him from a fevered dream, turning into a werewolf. Thankfully, when he removes his hand and looks up at me, his eyes aren’t red. They’re as blue as ever, sparkling with that infuriating amusement. He cocks his head slightly, examining me in that way he often does. Like I’m a puzzling riddle, and he isn’t used to being stumped.
“Ouch,” he says, his lips curling into a pout.
“Why was your car at the football game on Friday?” I ask.
He gives his eyebrows a wag. “Were you looking for me?”
“What would compel you to attend a high school football game in Foggy Hollow?”
“I think the better question is, whatwouldn’tcompel me to attend a high school football game in Foggy Hollow?” He stands with a devilish grin, hands me the clover, and leans close to my ear again. “Happy birthday, sweet Selah. I hope you get everything you wish for.”
With that, he strolls away.
When he’s gone, I look down at his gift.
It isn’t just a clover. It’s a four-leaf clover. Only it’s not green, but yellow with curling leaves.
A lucky charm on the brink of death.
Dad and I step inside the Calloway’s split-level home, immediately engulfed in the glorious scent of homemade chili and cinnamon rolls. He claps Twig on the shoulder, then follows his nose up the short flight of stairs to the main floor. Twig looks down at me with a smile. “You’ve been obsessed with Mexican food lately, right? Maybe some tamales?”
I swat his arm. “Don’t you dare.”
He laughs as we join the others in the kitchen. Compared to our former trailer home, it always felt so big. But in actuality, the Calloway kitchen is small and cozy, separated from the dining room by a bar counter lined with mismatching stools. On one side, Mrs. Calloway moves about, an impressive multitasker. On the other, their well-loved dining table, already set with a basket of cornbread, sits under the glow of a hanging light.
Dad gives Mrs. Calloway flowers.
She gushes over the grocery store bouquet, then asks Kate to put them in a vase while she stirs the chili simmering on the stove and flips the bacon sizzling on the griddle. The kitchen is a warzone of food. My birthday dinner has turned into a smorgasbord of oddity, with the same standard main dish, and a growing collection of random sides.
It started innocently enough.
On my twelfth birthday, over a meal of chili and cornbread, Twig casually mentioned I like my chili with cinnamon rolls. On my thirteenth birthday, cinnamon rolls joined the fare. That also happened to be the year I was obsessed with Red Lantern, a hole in the wall sushi bar that was never destined to succeed in a town like Foggy Hollow. But man, did I do my best to keep it afloat. Twig made another innocent comment, and lo and behold, there was a tray of sushi from Red Lantern on my fourteenth birthday. At this point, Twig had caught on, and—being an avid fan of bacon—made a more strategic comment. Last year, Kate joined the fun and insisted I couldn’t live without egg rolls.
Mrs. Calloway asks her children to set the table, but not me. The birthday girl isn’t allowed to lift a finger. So I sit on one of the stools while Kate and Twig move in and out of the kitchen and Dad and Mr. Calloway talk about cars and the weather and the grounds at the Vandenberg Estate.
I find myself gazing at their refrigerator, an explosion of quirky magnets and motherly pride. There’s Twig’s official invite to the STEM symposium at CMU, along with the science fair ribbon he won in middle school. There’s Kate’s spellingbee certificate from fifth grade, a playbill from her last show, and a team photo from cheer camp. There’s also a car repair schedule for Mr. Calloway’s shop, a rotary magnet, and a family photo from their trip to Gatlinburg last spring. Twig towers over them all. Carl, Kelly, Kate. And Spencer—the only one without a Cuh name. Unintentional, for sure. But just one more way in which he feelsother. No matter how much they love him, he can’t quite escape it.
Mrs. Calloway hands him a sushi platter from Kroger.
“Ah,” Twig says. “The finest sushi in all of West Virginia.”
“I’m not about to make it myself. You know how nervous I get about raw fish. The last thing I want is for anyone to get sick on Selah’s birthday.”
“Mom,” he says, completely deadpan. “It’s imitation crab meat.”
Mr. Calloway grabs a beer from the refrigerator. “Hey Spence, you know why crabs don’t share their food, right?”
He waits a short beat, his eyebrows raised as he holds back the punchline.
We stare at him warily.
“Because they’re all a little shellfish!”
