He doesn’t answer.
“Aww, you two—are you?You are.” Phoebe squeals softly, then claps her hand over her mouth. “I totally thought you were, but now Iknowyou are, and you are just thecutest. You’re, like, totes swag.”
Tavi growls at her.
I do too.
We hit the church, and I point to the back. “Go on,” I tell Phoebe. “We’ll catch up. I’m taking Tavi home.”
“No, you’re not,” Tavi says.
Phoebe makes her own impatient noise. “Tavi, go home. We’ve got this.”
“I don’t need help.”
The two sisters stare at each other.
Starting to wish I were back with Teague.
“You need help,” I tell Tavi. “Just—c’mon. We’ve got this. But not if you don’tmove.”
She opens her mouth, and that’s it.
We’re not going to solve a thing by standing out here, so I take one of her crutches, shove it at Phoebe, and then toss Tavi over my shoulder, catching the second crutch before it can fall and wake the neighbors any more than we already have. “Downstairs,” I tell Phoebe.
But when we reach the basement, it’s already occupied.
Floyd leaps to his feet like he doesn’t own the place. “Evenin’, Dylan. Phoebe. Erm, Tavi, I’m guessing. That looks like Tavi’s pants, even if I don’t often see ’em from—erm—this angle.”
He’s an older white man with stooped shoulders who still likes cleaning up messes, which is one thing I never understood about him.
Also, I made a large number of messes for him back in my day, when he was the high school janitor and I was a pain in the ass. And he never held it against me.
Ever.
Not even when an old prank of mine caused the high school to flood and cancel school early one year long after I’d graduated.
Old coot actuallylaughedabout it while I helped him clean everything up.
For free.
Naturally.
“What are you doing?” I ask him.
“Nothing.” He casually shifts to block my view of the open white box of truffles.
“Floyd.”
“What’s going on?” Tavi asks.
“They looked good, and I didn’t know why those two fancy ladies were arguing over who’d pay me more for my church, and now I find out there’s chocolate fairies down here, and it all makes sense,” he says.
Tavi gasps.
I grip the backs of her legs tighter.
When did she put on shorts?
