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I laugh. “Still. You could . . . go skiing? Wear cuff links? Be positivelyaghast? Whatever it is that you rich people with vacation homes do.”
He gives me a dirty look, but he does come over, and my sisters are as happy to see him as they’d be Jungkook. I think about the interview I saw of him years ago, how stern and guarded he seemed, and I can barely recognize the open- smiled boy who gives Darcy a PetSmart gift card, lets Sabrina show him two hours of roller derby videos, raises one eyebrow at the Mayochup on our table.
“How’s Easton?” Mom asks while I clean the kitchen.
“Great,” I lie. My heart curls into itself a little. Truth is, I have no idea. She spent the holidays in Delaware with her grandparents, and I haven’t seen her or heard her voice in over four months. Based on my Instagram stalking, I suspect she’s dating someone named Kim-ly. I could ask, but it feels like admitting how apart we’ve fallen, since once upon a better time she used to text me pictures of all her meals.
“He’s good with them,” she says, looking at Nolan fixing Sabrina’s broken Polaroid in the living room. “Must be the caregiving experience at the senior center. I bet he’s great at reading romance novels to the elderly, with that voice.”
Of course, I chickened out of telling her the truth. I’m not going to the World Championship, which means that media interest in me has melted like sugar in hot water. I’m nobody. Nobodies don’t need to hurt people with uncomfortable truths.
“Yeah. He really brings turgid manhoods to life.”
Mom laughs softly. “You guys still not together?”
“Nope.”
“You sure?”
I turn to face her. “Of course.” I don’t have committed relationship experience, but I do know that it’s not a continuum. Either you’re in one, or you’re not. And if you are, youknowyou are. How could one—
“Excuse us.” Warm hands close around my waist and shift me an inch to make room in the kitchen door. “Darcy is going to teach me how to make a cup cake.”
“Mugcake,” Darcy corrects him with a patient sigh. “Mom, do we have any sugar?”
Mom’s eyes dip to Nolan’s hand, still pressed against my lowerback, then lift up to meet mine. She tells Darcy, “In the cupboard next to the fridge,” her smile knowing and very,veryannoying.
Sabrina doesn’t talk to me once, but I manage to corner her in her room just before leaving. “Everything okay?” I ask. As early as weeks ago, the picture above her nightstand was of me giving her a piggyback ride in a pumpkin patch. Now it’s a collage: her derby team, some school friends, even a Polaroid of Mom and Darcy making faces.
I’ve been deleted.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been around. But I’m earning really good money with this overnight thing.”
“Good for you,” she says distractedly, rummaging in her drawer, looking for a derby T-shirt she promised Nolan sinceit’s too big on me anyway.
“How has Mom been?”
“Fine.”
“Right. And Darcy?”
“Good. She’s actually almost bearable when you aren’t around. You must be a bad influence.”
I stifle an eye roll. “And you?”
“Fine.”
I sigh. “Sabrina, can I have your attention for sixty seconds?”
She finally looks up. Annoyed. “Mom’s fine. Darcy’s fine. I’m fine. The entire damn world is fine.”
“I’m serious. I rely on you to man the fort and tell me if I’m needed, so— ”
“Oh,nowyou care?” Her blue eyes shine with tears. For a second, I see genuine hurt in them, and my heart lurches in my chest. But it’s all gone in a blink, and her expression suddenly turns half uncaring, half hard. Maybe I imagined all the rest.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
She walks to me. I still have a couple of inches on her. Will she grow more? God, she’sfifteen. “We’re fine, Mal. We can function without you.”
