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Landon nods as he continues to look at it, and I can see he’s struggling to find the right words to say—because, to him, it’s more than just sweet.
I know the feeling. I know what it’s like to have Rae fire pure sunshine into your heart and not know what to do with the almost painful beauty of it.
She and Lolly move on to the coaster. Landon clears his throat quietly and tunes in to the new craft.
Before long, he’s smiling and saying, “Ooh!” and, “Wow!” along with his grandma. It’s a hit, too, but I can tell that he in particular loves the card the most.
I should ask Rae what she thinks about making one for him, too. Maybe our next Super Fun Saturday could involve that. She said the other night that she wants to make a card for me, but she has created lots of things for me over the years; Landon needs something special of his own.
The three of them burst into laughter about something I haven’t been paying attention to. Damn. It looks like it was a good one.
Told him this visit would go okay.
I think about mentioning it when he looks over at me with bright eyes. But I don’t. I just smile and feel happy for him.
|| 6 || Landon
As we were leaving the hospital, I had a much easier time convincing Liv to let me buy her and Rae some ice cream than I had the other day regarding dinner. Our visit with Lolly was far more successful than I dared to hope for, so maybe that put Liv in an extra-relaxed mood—all I know is I didn’t have to argue my case. I just offered, Rae squeaked an excited, “Yes!” and Liv gave an assenting smile.
She did give me a serious look a second later, though, and say, “You spending money on us isn’t going to be a regular thing. Hope you know that.”
I said, “Yes, Miss Independent, I know.”
But I didn’treallyknow. Spending money on them doesn’t feel as wasteful as spending money on Amanda did, and I’m not certain I’ll be able to refrain from spontaneously treating them to stuff.
They make it hard for me to look away. And it’s not intentional, either; by nature, Rae is cute and silly and Liv is as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.
It appears that my new friends are a couple of Landon magnets.
In fact, I thought of them a lot between when we parted ways on Saturday night and when I called Liv this evening. I had other things to focus on—work and my grandma and some volunteer information Bill’s wife gave me on Monday—but my mind kept going back to the girls. To our plan to visit Lolly, and the things Liv said about my forest tattoo, and how I’d noticed her looking at me all through dinner. How she balances conscientiousness and responsibility with having fun with Rae. And how odd it is that up until just days ago, entire years had crawled by without us so much as knowing each other’s name.
I’ve been in their lives but a moment, really.
After I watch Rae accidentally elbow Liv and cause her to smear thick chocolate ice cream across her face, I break into laughter and find myself hoping this one‘moment’ends up stretching into, like, a thousand.
Rae laughs, too. Liv gets a napkin with her free hand and tries to wipe her face off, but she’s chuckling so much that she ends up lurching the chocolatey spoonful of ice cream into her hair. Rae and I laugh even harder.
Better make it ahundredthousand moments.
Times like this with friends like these make life awesome. Friends who give you pep talks that only last fifteen seconds yet still manage to clear your chaotic head. Friends who brighten up any room they’re in with hardly any—
“Hey!” I exclaim as something cold touches my arm. I gape good-naturedly at Rae, who’s just gotten me with a small lump of her pink and blue ice cream.
She giggles out, “Now your trees have cotton candy clouds!”
Liv gasps and fumbles for extra napkins, looking more embarrassed by this than by her own mess. “Aw, Rae! We don’t need to do it on purpose!”
I say, “It’s cool,” and then lift my arm to my mouth and slurp up the ice cream. “Mmm, cotton candy was a good choice, Rae!” She nods in enthusiastic agreement, and I wink at her before I address her aunt. “Here, Liv! Try this peanut butter kind!” I glop some of my ice cream onto the back of her hand.
The look of wide-eyed surprise that comes onto her face absolutely kills me. She clearly didn’t expect to be a target for a second time.
I laugh so hard it hurts my sides.
Rae is on the same page as I am. “You got ice-creamed twice, Annie!Ihaven’t got ice-creamed at all!”
While we laugh our asses off yet again, Liv looks at us with her mouth hanging open.
Shortly, though, she gives in to a grin and says, “I can’t believe this! You guys are ganging up on me!” Raising her eyebrows, she glances between her hand and me. “What am I supposed to do with this, huh?”
