Page 39 of The Statistically Unlikely Reunion

Lucky for me, the girls are easily distracted. They want to build a pillow fort, because they’ve been building magnificent ones with Aurora all week.

“The fort was Aurora’s idea?”

“She’s so good at it,” the girls say, in rare unanimity. “She’s always so busy now, but sometimes she still builds with us.”

They’re overflowing with two weeks of updates they haven’t texted me about, and no one asks about my hair for the rest of the weekend. I’m kept so busy I don’t check my messages until far later, and though the Grad or Die girls have kept up a steady stream of updates that are mostly nonsense, there is one more from Lucas.

UNKNOWN: Don’t you want to ask about my theories?

12

CLOSEST HE’S COME TO A PROPER HEIR

BEFORE

Standing in front of my mother’s apartment building, I feel a wave of trepidation. “Why are we doing this again?”

“Time. The first hurdle.”

“Right.” It’s likely too late to claim I wasn’t thinking clearly when, after practice one day, Lucas asked to see my weekly schedule. I explained that most weekends—outside of Pizza Palace and our practices—I spent every minute possible with my mother and sisters. I did groceries and meal prep, homework help and story time. Usually, I also did the laundry, the vacuuming, and the bathrooms (because my mother had informed me already that she didn’t enjoy cleaning the bathrooms, as if anyone actually liked scrubbing toilets).

When I told Lucas, he offered to help.

“Think of it as a parallel computing problem. Every chore will take half as much time, because there’s two of us.”

At the time, it sounded logical.

Practical, even, especially given Brody was away on some dorm-wide Lloyd ski trip, meaning we wouldn’t be able to practice as a team.

But now that we’re standing here? I’m realizing this is a terrible idea.

Catastrophically awful.

Because if my abrasive bluntness and not-fun-ness hasn’t scared Lucas away, surely my mother will. And even though I told myself I don’t have time for the life complication that is dating my teammate, the reality is, it was nice to feel seen and wanted.

Unfazed by my silence and stone-statue stillness, Lucas is already walking ahead of me. I grab his hand, the first time I’ve voluntarily touched him, perhaps ever. He pauses briefly, looking down at me with a question in his eyes.

“My family can be . . . a lot.”

He tilts his head, processing, loading his next words. “Makes sense. You’re also a lot.”

I’m so anxious I don’t even laugh.

“Are they really that bad?”

I close my eyes and answer honestly. “Probably worse.”

I take a deep breath, going into full babble mode. “I maybe, probably, definitely should have given you a brief rundown of like our family situation and⁠—”

Lucas puts a light finger against my lips. “Breathe.”

I try. I really do.

“You can tell me nothing or everything. Whatever you like.” He takes my hand and places it on his chest, where I can feel the calm beat of his heart, steadying.

I blink rapidly, trying not to think about the fact that my lips are still tingling from the brief touch, that Lucas’s innate calmness in the face of my meltdown is kind of hot. It still takes a moment for me to collect myself. “Short version: My father regularly cheated on my mother, who was fine with it. Staying married to a wealthy adulterer was infinitely better than being single or divorced. She blames me for not being a boy⁠—”

“How would that have helped?” Lucas is genuinely confused, as if I just told him I’m a flat-earther who believes in reptilian humanoid shapeshifters.