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The looming empty nest made me both sad and proud. It was also part of the reason I’d decided I could start dating again. I was losing one of my last excuses. Like I’d told Deacon and Adam, though, exploring the wholedatingthing was daunting. Almost terrifying.
The instant I let myself think of them, the images from the basement rushed back. As did the—ahem—unique furniture we’d found.
As I pulled into my driveway, I shrugged off the memories. We lived in a restored farmhouse that had been built around the beginning of the last century. There was an old barn on the back of the lot, and a newer one closer to the house. The new one was where I did my sculpting, and the old one was off-limits.
I’d given the rundown place a glance when we moved in, more than ten years ago, to find an old tractor under a tarp, and a lot of spiders.
I headed inside through the kitchen door and found Paige sitting at the table, her eyes still puffy and red.
Bryan was holding out an ice-cream sandwich at arm’s length. “It’s chocolate and sugar. It’ll make you feel better.”
“I don’t want to feel better.” Paige’s voice was rough. A piece of poster board sat on the table in front of her, with words written in a flowing script, and candy bars stuck in strategic places to provide missing words. The giant card was hergo to the dance with meinvitation. She was halfway through a Snicker’s bar, crumpled Sugar Daddy and Uno wrappers discarded next to her elbow.
I took the seat across from her at the table. How was I supposed to tell her this wasn’t the end of the world? That she’d find another date, and probably several more, before she finally foundthe one. That wasn’t reassuring to someone who’d been turned down by their crush.
I covered her hand. “I’m sorry, hon.”
“If you keep eating chocolate, you’ll get sick and puke,” Bryan said.
She glared at him. “Youjustoffered me sugar and chocolate. Besides, maybe I want to puke. The entire cafeteria saw. I’m so freaking humiliated.”
“You should puke on his shoes. That’d serve him right.” Bryan was in top form this afternoon.
I’d correct him, but the two of them had always had an almost symbiotic bond, and odds were high he was saying exactly what Paige needed to hear, to feel better. “Put the ice-cream sandwich in the freezer or eat it. Your sister already told youno.”
Bryan shrugged and unwrapped the treat. He shoved the entire thing in his mouth at once.
Boys. I mentally rolled my eyes.
“You’re so gross.” Paige’s words were a sharp contrast to her smile.
“Sure you don’t want one?” Bryan asked through a mouth full of chocolate cookie and vanilla ice cream.
Paige made a gagging noise. “Ugh. Sogross.”
“Not as gross as Jason the Idiotic. Please let me go beat him up?”
I wasn’t sure they needed me for this, but I did have to do at least a little parenting. “Aggravated assault is a felony, and you’re old enough to be tried as an adult. Is he worth the jail time?”
My twins saidnoin unison.
“What do you want to do instead?” I gave them this choice any time they had a problem. “Comfort or solutions?”
Paige slouched in her seat. “I don’t know.”
Which meant she wasn’t receptive to solutions. “Movies and pizza?”
“Can we watch the kind of movies where they fall in love and then one of them dies?” she asked.
Bryan wrinkled his nose. “Dark.”
“When your heart gets broken, you can pick the movie. Go order pizza.” I trusted him to get the details right. There were only two pizza places in our small town—a big chain and a local place. We loved the small pizzeria, but they didn’t have things like online ordering.
A short while later, we were settled in the living room, first movie up, and pizza on the coffee table between the three of us. Two movies later, Paige was smiling and acting like herself again. She decided she didn’t need a date for a stupid dance, and she was going with a friend, to make a statement.
I sent them off to finish their homework before bed, and set to work tidying up the house. Putting dishes in the dishwasher. Sweeping the kitchen floor. As I pushed a chair into its spot under the table, memories of a very different kind of seat flashed in my mind.
The kind we’d discovered in Deacon’s hidden basement.
