Page 5

Mrs. Bellthrope rounded the corner and froze with her hands on her cheeks. “Jeremy!”

“Hey.” I waved.

She tiptoed over the pavers in her slippers and threw her arms around me. “I had no idea you’d be here. What are you doing in the yard?” She let me go and looked back and forth between me and Anna. “This is where you went, Anna? I thought you had diarrhea.”

Anna looked mortified. “Mom!”

Terri waved her daughter off. “He’s a doctor now, he doesn’t care about diarrhea.” She came back to me, beaming. “I can’t believe you’re here! Come inside, it’s freezing.”

I put a thumb over my shoulder. “Oh, I was just—”

“Coming inside,” Anna said, making aggressive eye contact with me. “He was just coming inside. It was a surprise.”

Everyone looked at me.

Anna was staring lasers through me. Broadcasting silently in that wordless communication that we’d been so good at once, projecting right into my brain that I needed to go along with it.

“Right,” I said slowly, turning to smile at her parents. “I was just coming inside. But we can’t stay long,” I said. “She’s the surprise at my house in a little bit.”

Anna looked at me wide-eyed.

“I can’t believe you two kept this a secret,” Terri said. “I didn’t even know you were back in town. I’m so happy to see you!”

Mark waved us toward the house. “Come in, it’s freezing. Let’s get some drinks. I want to hear all about California and med school!” He started for the house and stopped after a few steps. “Does anyone else smell pancakes?”

Anna coughed.

“Probably just someone cooking nearby,” I said.

He nodded. “Probably right. Let’s go.”

Mark went first and Terri followed. Anna grabbed my arm and held me back. “What do you mean I’m going to your house?” she said under her breath.

I looked at her, amused. “I’m going to your house. That wasn’t exactly part of my plans today.”

She glanced in the direction her parents went. “How else was I supposed to explain why we were hiding behind the air conditioner?”

“I don’t know. None of this is my tangled web of lies. All I know is now I’m late for my family Christmas party and the least you can do is help me with that. I lost ten minutes bringing you your food, and now I have to go inside?”

She crossed her arms. “Oh, stop being dramatic. It’ll be five minutes tops.”

My face called bullshit. “Five minutes? With your parents? I’ll be lucky if I’m out before midnight,” I whispered. “Or I could just go now—”

“No! You owe me this, Jeremy.”

It’s true. I did.

“I will gladly participate, if you do my house next,” I said. “The food will be better over there anyway. It’ll be edible.”

She scoffed, but she still didn’t agree. We fell into a standoff.

I had an ulterior motive in making her come with me. I wanted to talk to her. I’d been wanting to talk to her for years. I wasn’t a superstitious person, but fate had intervened tonight and I might never get the chance again.

“Fine,” she said finally. “I will go to your house. But only because it’ll get me out of eating Jodie’s turkey—and I’m not staying long.”

“All right.”

She looked annoyed. “Don’t eat anything in there unless you want to play dysentery Russian roulette.”