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She cuts through the foyer and heads to the kitchen. I hear her bubbly “Hiii, Luke!” and then the patio door slides closed behind her.
I don’t even bother taking her bag out. If she needs something from it, she can march her thonged butt in here and get it herself.
I decide I won’t let Alexia get to me. She’s mostly harmless, I think. I go back to pulling out burger supplies from the fridge, and I’ve only finished grabbing the ketchup and mustard by the time the patio door slides open again and an annoyed Alexia huffs back inside.
“Forget something?” I ask, pointing toward her bag on the table.
“No,” she snaps rudely. “Luke apparently talked to Peyton’s mom. He’s fine with me just dropping her off this afternoon. Oh, and he’ll give Peyton a ride home later. What the hell.”
She picks up her bag.
Then she looks at me, waiting for me to say something.
“I…god, yeah, that’s annoying?” I try to match her energy, but she can see right through me.
She rolls her eyes. “Whatever, have fun with the brats. I’m going to the beach.”
“Okay! Bye!” I say with a chipper tone, turning around to get back to work before she’s even started to leave.
The rest of my morning is shaping up pretty well. I whip up a garlic aioli and a dipping sauce for the French fries that I know the girls will love. I have the cheese ready to go along with the lettuce and pickles. I’m working on slicing the tomatoes when I hear Luke laughing outside.
He’s standing at the edge of the pool in his bathing suit holding a water gun almost as big as his arm. Harper and Peyton stand on the other side of the pool with aquatic armaments of their own. Luke has his aimed at the girls and vice versa. It appears to be a real stand-off.
“Admit defeat and we can all join forces. There’s no need to go to war,” Luke taunts.
The girls look at each other as if considering his offer, and then in tandem, they shout “NEVER!” and start spraying him with a deluge of water.
Luke pretends to be mortally wounded, slowly letting his gun slip from his fingers, and then he tips sideways into the pool like a defeated villain. The girls whoop and holler as Luke dramatically slips under the surface. He’s really putting his heart and soul into his performance. With baseball out of the way, he might try turning his sights on the stage.
I’m so into watching them play, when I go back to slicing my tomatoes…I accidentally include my finger.
Time slows to a halt. My eyes widen. Blood drains from my face. I look down and almost lose it.
“Ahhhhhhhhhh…” I let the word drag as I flutter around the kitchen, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do.
I absolutely hate blood. Hate it. When we were growing up, one time Gio flew over the handlebars on his bike and wound up with a gnarly cut on his forehead. I saw it, passed out, hit my head on the sidewalk, and out of the two of us, I was the one who wound up having to get a CT scan at the hospital.
I recognize that I cleaned up David’s blood in this very kitchen and managed to handle that well, but this is MY blood. MY BLOOD. OKAY?!
I’m still flailing around in circles. My common sense left the kitchen the moment my eyes saw the first drop of blood on my finger. I’m just repeating “Oh god, oh god, oh god” under my breath like the big man himself might actually appear and patch me up.
The pain hasn’t even set in. I don’t know how bad the cut is because I’m too scared to look.
I’ve been trained for this. I know proper kitchen protocols. There are step-by-step instructions we’re meant to follow if we injure ourselves on the job, so tell me why I’m standing in front of the freezer, fanning myself with the swinging door.
“What’s going on?”
I whirl around.
Luke’s just on the outside of the open porch door with a towel slung low around his hips. Water drips down onto the wood at his feet. It also slides across his broad chest and wide shoulders, but now’s not the time to get lightheaded, so I peel my eyes away fast.
“Nothing!”
I tuck my injured hand behind my back like a child concealing a stolen cookie from the cookie jar.
He’s immediately suspicious. Those dark eyebrows lower over his eyes. “Whyyyy are you acting weird?”
I sputter out a loud laugh. “I’m not!” I step away from the freezer and let the door slam shut behind me. “Now, did you need something?”
I’m gesticulating a lot with my right hand—the uninjured one—as a way to throw him off my scent.
