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I stopped playing my video game and glanced down at Gracie, curled up next to me reading. She always had her nose in a book, and I loved to tease her about it. She’d stick her tongue out at me and haughtily inform me that she’d kill me in a book someday.
“Nah,” I’d reply. “You’ll have forgiven me by then.”
She usually smiled, bumped my shoulder with hers, and agreed.
Her eyes drifted up to mine. She had some kind of weird Spidey sense that told her when I was looking at her. It was strange but kinda cool.
“Your dad said we have to go to bed.”
We were at a large cabin in upstate New York. My parents, Gracie’s parents, my aunt and uncle, and our other “honorary” aunt and uncle had all purchased the place together. It was big enough for all the adults and kids to get together.
I couldn’t remember a summer when we hadn’t spent a week up here. I looked forward to it all year because it meant spending all my time with Gracie without one of us being forced to go home at the end of the day.
“Okay,” she sighed, putting a sparkly yellow bookmark between the pages of her book.
“I still don’t get why you don’t use an e-reader.”
Gracie scrunched up her nose and shook her head. “Where’s the fun in that? I like turning pages.”
Shrugging, I leaned forward to tuck my game in my backpack before standing up. “Still don’t get it.”
“You’re such a boy,” she sighed.
“You’re such a girl,” I shot back.
Rolling her eyes, she marched over to the stairs and headed up to the attic. After grabbing my bag, I followed after her. The top floor of the cabin spanned the entirety of the house as one big room. It held twenty or so twin size mattresses, set up in rows with makeshift “aisles” between.
“Yo, Hudson,” Teagan called out from the other side of the room. I considered him to be one of my “cousins.” We weren’t all related, but we might as well have been. Except Gracie...for some reason, she never seemed like a cousin to me. He waved at me to join him over in the back corner with my brother Everett and a couple of other boy cousins near our age. My eyes strayed to the other side of the aisle, landing on Gracie, who sat on a bed talking to London...yet another “cousin.” Except London was a girl.
The corners of Gracie’s mouth tipped up, and I knew her Spidey sense felt my eyes on her again. I wanted to hang out with her, but she looked busy, and Teagan shouted my name once more.
Our parents always sent us to bed at night, but we were allowed to stay awake as long as we were upstairs and quiet in case anyone wanted to sleep. I played a board game with the boys for a while, but my gaze strayed to Gracie from time to time. She went to sleep around an hour before we finished, so we didn’t say good night to each other. It bothered me.
I sighed as I settled under the covers of my bed and wished I’d chosen one closer to my Gracie. Eventually, I fell asleep, but I woke up in the middle of the night when a warm hand slid into mine. My head turned to the side, and I blinked sleepily until I saw Gracie in the bed next to me. She’d scooted in close enough to be able to take my hand.
“I had a bad dream,” she whispered.
I squeezed her warm hand. “I’ll keep you safe, Gracie,” I promised solemnly. And I meant it.
We always took beds next to each other after that, and either no one snitched, so our parents never found out, or they simply didn’t bother trying to separate us anymore. Not that it would have mattered if they had. No one could keep me from protecting my Gracie.
* * *
12 years old
“Mom, this sucks. I want to go home,” I grumped as I flopped onto a lounger on the beach.
She sighed and glanced at my dad, who narrowed his eyes at me in warning. His glare said “Don’t upset your mother or else.” I knew better than to ignore it, so I turned my eyes back to the clear ocean water and brooded in silence.
“We talked about this, Hudson. Your mother and I bought this house because we wanted to enjoy it as a family.”
I didn’t have a clue why my mom and dad wanted a vacation house in the south of France. But Grace had been all dreamy over the idea, and I would have been more than happy to come here if she’d come along.
“It’s not like Grace is there,” he said with a knowing smile. “Jonah and his family are in Greece for his sister’s wedding.”
