“It’s a new winter festival she’s organizing. Hockey-themed activities, local vendors, a hot chocolate competition ...” Her eyebrows bounce. “Guess who they want to enter it?”
“Please don’t say you volunteered me.”
She beams. “I most certainly did. Word has gotten around about your skills.”
I groan. “This is what I get for making one decent cup of cocoa.”
“You made more than one and it’s more than decent. It’s better than mine, and I run a bakery.”
“You make the best marshmallows, though.”
“True. In that case, you could say that we make a good team. Maybe they could be our secret weapon.”
We do make a good team. In the kitchen, with Kai, and in stolen moments alone. Maybe my father is wrong. This won’t crash and burn. Perhaps everything is going to be okay.
Nina’s gaze flashes like she remembers something she’s been meaning to tell me. “Also, it was the strangest thing, while I was in town earlier, meeting with Leah, I thought I saw a girl who looked familiar.”
“Familiar how?”
Nina squints as if peering at a blurry photograph. “She looked kind of like Kai. Same dark hair, same green eyes. Same mischievous expression.” Nina shrugs. “But when I went to get a better look, she was gone. Probably just my imagination.”
A chill snakes down my spine. “How old do you think she was?”
“About Kai’s age, maybe a little younger. Hard to say. But really. It’s probably just stress and changes going to my head. I’d take a day off, but?—”
I interrupt. “Strange. I thought I saw someone just like that yesterday, outside the arena.” I run my hand down my face. “Thought I was overtired.” Had a case of brain freeze.
We stare at each other for a moment, both processing the implications.
“You don’t think ...?” Nina starts.
“That Desi had another kid she forgot to mention?”
Nina laughs like we both could use a day off.
But I say, “With my sister, anything is possible.”
She bites her lip. “We should ask Kai.”
Or just forget the whole thing because it does sound a little “bonkers.”
When he gets off the ice, Nina casually mentions in a joking way that we both saw someone who could very well be his twin.
The kid’s body language immediately shifts. He becomes guarded, defensive in a way I haven’t seen since his first night at my apartment. “Nope,” Kai says quickly. “Why would I have a twin?”
Nina, thinking on her feet, speaks gently, “We just want to check to see if there’s another kid around who might need help.”
“I said I don’t know anything!” Kai snaps, then immediately looks guilty for raising his voice. “Can I just keep skating?”
Nina and I exchange glances. He is definitely hiding something. But what? Although my sister could’ve had another child, wouldn’t I have known about it?
Later that afternoon, after we’ve dropped Kai at his friend Tyler’s house for a sleepover, Nina and I head back to the Busy Bee to prep for the bake sale table she’ll run at the festival.
“Do you mind grabbing the label maker from my office?” she asks, practically elbow-deep in bread dough.
I poke around, looking for the label maker. While nearly everything in Nina’s life is meticulously organized, the same cannot be said for her office. It could be that it’s the size of a closet and that’s being generous. My gaze lands on an official-looking document printed withFINAL NOTICEacross the top. There are red letters with amounts owed—a sizeable debt.
I barely have time to register that it’s for the lease of this building when she crashes into me as I turn around at the sound of her approach.
