He laughed again and squeezed my hands again until I opened my eyes.Then he said, “The nachos are very grateful that you tried so hard.”
Looking into the burnished bronze of his eyes was overpowering; it felt so intimate, so intense.But I couldn’t look away.
Fortunately, my “friends” chose that moment to barrel into the kitchen.
“She’s incredible,” Fox was saying.“She’s like my big sister.”
I wrenched my hands away from Bobby—discreetly—and said, “Who?Dottie?You’re twice her age.”
Indira said, “Dashiell!”
“You’re missing the point,” Fox said.“I’d kill to have a big sister like Dottie.I’m going to ask her to adopt me.”
“Breathe,” Bobby whispered to me.
“And did you know you can cut your own hair?”Millie announced.“Dottie’s going to show me!She said you just need scissors and a bucket for the well!”
“What well?”I asked.“We have running water.For that matter, we have hair salons!”
“I’m going to give myself BANGS!”
“Oh no you’re not, young lady.Keme, help me out—Keme!”
The boy was busy on his phone.It only took one look at the screen for me to realize things were spinning out of control.“Nope.No way.Unh-uh.You are not going to spend the next six months backpacking in Vietnam.”
Keme said three words to me, and they weren’t “Happy New Year!”
“Indira, will you please talk some sense into him?”To Bobby, I said, “Remember how you promised to arrest Dottie and throw her in jail?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Well, I changed my mind.I mean, this is classic Dottie—showing up out of nowhere, expecting everyone to drop everything, making the locals restless, telling people they can cut their own hair.I love her, but I’m an adult.I’m allowed to have boundaries.”
Keme snorted.
I barreled on.“She can’t just show up here unannounced and tell people about Jake—
“I knew his name was Jake!”Fox shouted.
“—and pretend like somehow, this is normal behavior.She can stay at a motel.Or she can drive back to Portland.Or—” Genius struck.“If she’s so good at backpacking, she can just backpack her way out of here!”
Even Bobby looked a little disappointed in me.
“Dash, she’s your family,” Millie said.“She has to stay here.”
Keme’s look suggested that he had different ideas about family.
“You know what you should do?”Fox said.“You should fight her.”
“For heaven’s sake,” Indira said, with a tone she’d once used when I’d spent too much time trying to choose between mint chocolate chip and cookie dough ice cream.(The wordsShut that freezer right nowhad been the gentlest part of that memorable encounter.) “Why don’t you go ask her why she’s here?”
5
When I got to the room, the door was ajar, and I caught a glimpse of Dottie.She had started a fire (a skill she’d acquired while hacking a path through the Amazon, I assumed), and now she was curled up in a chair, watching the flames.Light and shadow danced across her face, softening its familiar lines.The energy and enthusiasm and—joy, I guess—all the traits that normally showed so prominently in her expression, had slackened.She looked like she needed someone to comb her hair, and the thought was unfamiliar, disorienting.
I tapped the wood and inched the door open.
Rousing herself, she said, “Oh.Hey, Dasher.Come in.”
