“Dash,” Bobby said.
Do you know what’s funny?Keme actually seemedgratefulfor a chance to shift from the awkwardness of having people do something nice for him and into, well, picking on me.He tried to swat my glasses off my face, and when I dodged back, laughing, he lunged and caught my hood, and the next thing I knew, I was being swung around by my hoodie.
“Okay,” Bobby said, separating us.“Enough.I need him alive, Keme.”
Keme did try to kick me one more time, but it was a loving kick.(The love was implied.)
We stood there for a few minutes—for some reason,Iwas the one trying to catch my breath.Keme didn’t look like he’d exerted himself at all.(Have I mentioned he’s a mini-Hulk?) But it was nice, standing there, in the warmth of another perfect afternoon, Bobby’s arm around my shoulders, with the people I love.
“Well,” Keme said in the voice of a boy who wants to get back to his nap.“Thanks.”
Indira laughed and covered her mouth.Fox grinned and ducked their head.Millie was bouncing on her toes, and the sparkler went into action again.
Face surprisingly serious, Bobby reached into his pocket and took out the keys to his Pilot.
And then he held them out to Keme.
Keme stared at them like he didn’t quite believe what was happening.Then he swallowed.
“Dash is right,” Bobby said.“You need a vehicle for your new parking spot.”
There aren’t a lot of times I’ve seen Keme’s guard drop entirely, but for a moment, the raw happiness on his face was so intense that it made me ache.He crashed into Bobby, wrapping him in a huge hug.And then, for some reason, the hug got transferred to me.
Collateral damage, I guess.
5
Streamers hung everywhere in the billiard room.Balloons crowded the ceiling.A banner said, CONGRATULATIONS, KEME!with little graduation caps at either end.(I just remembered they’re called mortarboards.) We’d turned the fireplace into a temporary stage, complete with a podium that I had ingeniously made out of a Costco pack of toilet paper.(Keme was not impressed.) We’d moved the chesterfield back and lined up the chairs from the servants’ dining room, and “Pomp and Circumstance” was playing on Bobby’s Bluetooth speaker, and Fox had taken the Xbox—power cord and all—and hidden it.
“OH MY GOD!”Millie exclaimed from the doorway.“IT’S PERFECT!”
“Is Keme ready?”I asked.
With an enthusiastic nod, Millie said, “HE’S SO EXCITED!”
“No, I’m not” floated in from the hall.
“Bobby?”I asked.
“Ready,” he said, holding up his phone.
“Fox?”
They’d somehow managed to put together an old-fashioned aviator’s ensemble, and now they flung one end of their scarf dramatically over their shoulder.In their other hand, they held a recorder—the musical instrument kind, like you learn how to play in elementary school.“I was born for this moment.”
“Millie?”
“THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!”
I worked my jaw, trying to check my eardrums.And then I said, “Indira?”
Nothing.
A quick scan of the room showed me that we were down a person.
“Anybody know where Indira is?”
Bobby was tapping something out on his phone again.Fox, lips pursed, was practicing silently on the recorder—they’d insisted on performing the national anthem.Millie had disappeared into the hallway, but I heard the phrase “SO CUTE” loud enough to bring down a belfry.(That’s an expression, right?)
