AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 10
“Holy. Mother. Of. Freaking. God!”
Mila’s voice rose in both pitch and volume during the course of that sentence, until by the time she reached the last long ‘o’ sound in “God,” it was nothing more than a dog whistle shriek.
Adrenaline flooded his body as the protective instincts that had become finely honed during the last five years of big brothering slash parenting fired to life. It was probably nothing. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it was going to be nothing; Mila was a dramatic girl. But… There was always the possibility… What about that hundredth time?
“What’s wrong?” His voice came out in a clipped and brittle rush.
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”
“That’s what I asked.”
“Ohmigod, I’ll tell you what’s wrong. You went out with Alison Bartholomew and you didn’t even tell me!”
Troy smiled. “I told you I was going on a date.”
“Not with Alison freaking Bartholomew!”
He decided to mess with her a little bit. “I don’t get it, Mills. Do you know her or something?”
“Do I know her? Do I know her?”
“That’s what I asked.”
“Of course I freaking know her. Everyone freaking knows her.”
“Wow. Everybody, huh?”
“Yes. Duh. How do you think I found out that’s who you were out with? Olive’s cousin saw you and texted Olive, and then she forwarded the picture to Alex, and he texted me and like fifty other people! You’re famous, old man!”
Troy had to laugh at that. He’d been a pro ballplayer, and all he’d ever gotten from Mila when he talked about his glory days was a roll of the eyes.
However, now that he was a featured player in the text chain that “Olive’s cousin” had started, one that reached fifty whole kids in the small Oregon town where she lived, he was finally famous in Mila’s eyes.
“So, I guess you might be interested to know that Alison said we could stop by sometime and get a tour of the house, then?”
Her hand flew to her mouth, but it did little to muffle the shrill squeal that burst from her vocal chords. He was glad they didn’t have any delicate crystal vases in the vicinity.
“Are you freaking kidding me right now? Don’t mess with me. Seriously, you have to know how unbelievably cruel it would be to mess with me. You’re not messing with me are you? Please say you’re not messing with me.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle at her earnest demeanor shining through the blatant begging. She was at a crossroads, torn between the desire to be cool and not let her feelings show at all and the overwhelming compulsion to showcase her highly intense emotions all over the place. Not an unusual spot for a teenage girl, sure, but fascinating to watch.
With these two competing impulses playing a kind of psychological tug of war, the solution never seemed to be a measured balance between the two extremes. Rather, it always ended up being long stretches of seeming indifference punctuated by giant emotional explosions when the pressure of keeping things bogged down became too much.
Life with a teenager,Troy mused. It was many things, but not boring. Never boring.
“I’m not messing with you. I would never do that—”
She cut him off with a disbelieving side-eyed glance and matching snort.
“I’d never do that when it’s actually important to you, which this clearly is,” he amended.
“It is important,” she said. “Alison is the best. I can’t believe you’ve really met her. I can’t believe you went on a freaking date with her! Most of all, I can’t believe you actually met her before me. You know how much I love her.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed, although the truth was that much like the mysterious “Olive” whose cousin had seen them in the restaurant, the names of Mila’s many friends blended together in his mind into one giant BriannaKelseyMadisonAshlynn soup in his brain, and the names of the pop culture figures she chattered about tended to do the same thing.
But he knew that the important thing was that she felt validated, and she knew he valued the things that were important to her. Which was actually true—he did value them, it was just that he couldn’t keep all the names straight.
