“Speaking of movies. Is it okay if I see a movie next Saturday with a friend?” Landon questioned.
“You mean the boy you’re always talking to at school?” Kodi inquired with a teasing smirk.
“Oooh! Landon has a boyfriend!” Mikal stated, which caused the twins to chant it as well.
“He isn’t my boyfriend,” Landon countered, and Jalen could hear the annoyance in her voice at their three youngest sisters’ teasing.
“What’s the movie rating?” Jalen asked. She didn’t mind Landon watching R-rated movies, but she tried not to let her watch them without her present.
“It’s PG-13,” Landon responded.
“I have to work next Saturday night, but I don’t mind you going,” Jalen told her.
Landon smiled brightly at her. “Thanks, Jae.”
“But, Kodi has to go with you.”
“What? Why?” Landon asked, exasperated.
“Because you’re going to the movies with some boy I haven’t met on a night that I have to work. Besides, unless he can drive, you’ll need Kodi to take you.”
“She can take me; she doesn’t have to stay though.”
Jalen raised an eyebrow at her sister. “She goes, or you don’t.”
“Kodi could have her own plans that night,” Landon tried.
“I don’t,” Kodi responded with a smirk. “Besides, I’d love to chaperone your date.”
“Kodi,” Jalen warned. “Don’t embarrass her purposely.”
“Give me some credit. I won’t embarrass her. I’ll do my sisterly duty and make sure he behaves,” Kodi informed Jalen before turning towards Landon. “I’ll sit a couple of rows behind you, and I won’t do anything to embarrass you.”
Landon scrunched up her nose. “Promise?” she questioned, sticking out her pinky.
Kodi took it. “Promise.”
They continued to eat, with the twins dominating most of the conversation. Once they were done, Nathan, Omari, and Mikal ran off to play while Landon and Kodi helped Jalen clean the picnic table. They were just finishing up when the phone rang.
Jalen watched as Landon looked at it and smiled before walking off to answer it. While the only two that had phones were herself and Kodi, Jalen had opted to add a line to her phone plan and use it as a house phone. Which at the moment tended to just be Landon’s phone since Mikal seldom called anyone, and the twins were more interested in their tea parties and stuffed animals.
“So, when’s the next time you’re going to see that guy? Rohan, right?” Kodi asked when it was just the two of them.
“I don’t know,” Jalen responded honestly.
It had been a week since their date. They’d continued to talk and text one another, but it seemed to be a bit more now than it had been before. She made extra time to talk to him instead of in the dead of night or at the crack of dawn.
“You said you had fun on your last date. So, why not have another one?”
“We’re going too; I just have to find the time?”
“You seem to like him if the time you spend on the phone with him and texting him is any indication.”
Jalen thought about it for a moment. “I do. He’s fun to talk to, has a good sense of humor, and seems genuinely interested in our lives.”
Kodi raised a brow at her. “Our lives?”
“Yep. He asks about the five of you every time I talk to him.”
