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Sometimes I think my dad did me a service by letting me skip junior high.
“So, who do you hang out with now?”
She thinks for a minute. “You.” She gives a small smirk and sets her mixing spoon to the side.
“And at school?”
“Mom lets me ride my bike to school now. I don’t have to sit on the bus with Jamie and Alex. So, I’ve met up with Shelly all week. We meet at the corner and then ride the rest of the way together. She’s nice. I never really talked to her before.”
“That’s good. Everyone needs a friend.”
She passes me a cookie scoop. “Is that what Levi is, a friend?”
“For sure.” I nod as heat rises into my cheeks. “But—”
“But you’re hoping for more?”
“I am. Uncle Bob says that no one’s happiness can be solely dependent on another person though. And he’s right.” My happiness cannot be dependent on Levi. Just like Nikki’s isn’t dependent on this Alex guy. “So if he doesn’t want me—”
“Oh, he wants you.”
I slide my eyes from the dough in front of me to Nikki’s thin jaw and high cheekbones. “You think?” I say, like it’s a joke and I don’t care. Which is quite the opposite.
“Well, yeah. But that doesn’t mean he’ll go for a relationship.” She sighs and sets down her scoop. “The thing is, Meredith, your uncle is right. You can be happy without him.”
“That’s true. But I could also be happywithhim. And we kissed. Today. That’s progress in the relationship direction.”
“Has he texted you back yet?”
I shake my head.
“Like I said, Bob’s right, you can be happy without him.” She’s so certain. And while I’m hoping to be happywithLevi. I’m glad she knows as much. Because she deserves to be happy too.
35
Levi
“Have you replied to that girl’s text?”
I look up from the books—not even having heard the shop bell ring—to my sister, and my two nieces. One in a car seat, the other in jammies, with mussed hair and a tissue sticking out one nostril. My sister has seen better days too. She sets Lulabelle’s car seat on the floor and plants one hand on her hip.
“Which girl?” I say, the pen in my fingers slipping to the counter. The look on Coco’s face very much says that I am in trouble. That I knowwhichgirl. But then, how wouldsheknow?
“The girl you kissed today.” Her eyes narrow. She is killing me with a glare. I am a dead man walking.
“You kissed Mere-bith?” Alice says, her voice nasally and thick. One of her little hands mimics my sister’s, flying to her hip. “And this is how I find out? You are despicable.”
“Baby,” Coco says, crouching down to her little stepdaughter. “Go lay down on Uncle Levi’s big office couch. You can turn his TV on Disney, I give you permission.”
“But it’s Uncle Bear’s remote.”
“That’s okay, Alice,” I say—I don’t need her here for this conversation. I’d like to stay as glorious Uncle Bear in that girl’s eyes. Not the scoundrel who kissed Meredith and then never returned her messages—which apparently, my sister knows all about. “You get control today. Max is back there. You can snuggle with him.”
Normally, she’d skip, she’d run, she’d jump for joy, but she doesn’t do any of that. She gives a half grin and drags her plush pink blanket on the ground of the shop, trudging all the way to the backroom where my office is.
“So?” Coco says, fingers drumming at her waist. “Because you didn’t pick up my call, I’m here, two children in tow, with only four hours of sleep last night. So, let’s hear it?”
“I’ve been busy. I didn’t even see thatyoucalled.”
