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Forty-Eight
Noah had to admit this was one of the weirdest days he could remember. His mom’s toilet had never exploded like this.
But the sink had once.
His mom had stormed around the apartment, screaming at Noah to clean it up, to keep Nova out of the way, and if one of them had caused it, she was going to make them in trouble for a year. It was an old pipe—not their fault at all. But the building’s superintendent had been a real jerk about fixing it. Which had made his mom even madder.
They’d both yelled at Noah that day.
He had been afraid Nick was going to do the same thing today.
He’d been so nervous his stomach had clenched a million different times. Until Nick had just told him to grab the dirty towels he hadn’t run through the washer yet, too. And had thanked him—then grinned at him. “Not exactly how I was picturing installing an indoor pool. Unless…you think her Barbies would enjoy this kind of pool party?”
Nick was always making weird jokes about life like that sometimes.
Then Nick had started singing about Noah and the flood like a dork, changing the rains in the song to be about toilet geysers or something. Nick…didn’t have that great of a voice—he probably shouldn’t be singing at all, really.
But everyone was laughing like dorks, even Robin, while she mopped around the baseboards with some bleachy kind of stuff.
Robin was a bit of a clean freak, Noah thought. Not that he blamed her today—that was toilet water everywhere.
They’d just…all worked together to clean it up, making stupid jokes the whole time.
Well, not Nova. She’d looked ready to cry, where she’d stood with her arms around her stomach like she was sick or something. Nick put Becky next to Nova. “Keep Becky out of the water, ok, Novie?”
Nova just nodded. She liked playing “big sister” with Becky most of the time, Noah thought.
Today, Nova just held Becky’s hand. The little girls stood watching while everybody else helped clean it up. Until Becky stomped in some of the water again and got it all over Wesley’s dress shoes. Wesley jumped back again and slid a little, almost going down.
Noah caught him at the last minute.
It was total chaos, but Noah hadn’t laughed that hard in a really long time.
He would have to check on Nova—he thought she might remember that day with their mom. It hadn’t been that long ago. Nova probably really did remember.
Noah looked at Robin—just as she reached out and grabbed Nick. And kissed him. Gross. When she pulled back, Nick looked like a total doofus.
Noah’s lips twitched. You’d think at almost like fifty, Nick had been kissed by a girl before. There was a blond girl in Noah’s math class at school who he wouldn’t mind letting kiss him.
Just not with tongues and stuff. That was seriously gross. But she had green eyes, and she smiled really pretty.
Robin was really pretty, too. Even though she was old and a mom and stuff. Especially when she smiled and laughed and hugged them.
And she wasn’t making Nova afraid. She never had.
Not like their mom had all the time.
Sometimes…sometimes he wondered why his mom couldn’t have been more like Robin or like Nova’s new aunt Glenna. Or Robin’s friend Rory. They were nice and liked Noah and Nova both.
Sometimes it didn’t seem fair at all.
“Ok, I think we’ve got most of the wet up,” Robin finally said. “I’ll take the kids to Glenna and be back. We’ll figure out what happened—and what we need to do next.”
“I love you, woman. You are a goddess—always right here when I need you most. And…I’ll buy you new shoes first chance I get. I’ll buy you a dozen pairs of shoes for all you’ve done.”
“Don’t tempt me. A woman can never have too many shoes.” She touched him on the cheek and then smiled. It was a weird kind of smile, like it was just her and Nick together or something.
Nick got an even dopier look on his face after.
But…watching the two of them kind of made Noah feel good inside, too.
