“You’re going to feel this.” He reaches across the table and digs a finger into the hollow of my collarbone. Predictably, I yelp and let out a swear or two. Eva watches our exchange, that tiny smile on her face.
“Luca, stop harassing the customers!” Emmy calls from the kitchen.
“She’s not a customer—?she’s Gray-Gray.”
“Get back here,” she says.
He snaps his body into perfect posture and salutes his mother. She laughs and disappears into the back.
“Remember, Gray,” Luca says. “Bonfire, tonight.”
“Aw, shit.”
“Grace, enough with the foul mouth,” Mom warns, looking around like she’s scared Pastor Alan is hiding in the next booth to bust me. I ignore her.
“You promised,” Luca says. “Plus, it’s Eva’s first bonfire. I told her we’d show her the way it’s done.”
“It’s a pile of logs aflame on the beach surrounded by our drunken peers—?I’m sure she can figure it out.”
“I don’t know,” Eva says. “That sounds pretty complicated.”
A laugh slips out of my mouth.
“Come on, Grace, it’s tradition,” Luca says.
“Fine, I’ll meet you there.”
He shoots me a thumbs-up and heads off toward the kitchen, but Eva lingers.
“I’m going to go check and see if there’s anything in the back I can use to spice up your eggs,” she says as she tucks her notepad into her apron.
“Hold the seaweed, please.”
“Your wish is my command.” She grins and I watch her walk back toward the kitchen.
“Why don’t you want to go to the bonfire?” Mom asks, interrupting my observations.
“I don’t not want to go.”
“Sure sounded like it.”
“I just got back. I’m tired.” It sounds like a sorry excuse before I even finish the sentence. Truth is, I love the bonfire the baseball team from our high school puts on every summer. Those guys are statistics-obsessed, smelly-sock-wearing weirdos, in my opinion, but they know how to throw a damn party. Problem is, our entire school is always in attendance, and I’d really rather avoid the brouhaha that will ensue when everyone finds out I’m freaking living with Jay.
But whatever.
I’m sure no one will care all that much. I’m sure Jay will be too busy with his friends to pay me any attention. I’m sure Mom will be fine handling the unpacking while I’m gone.
I’m sure, I’m sure, I’m sure. Maybe if I say it enough, it’ll all just happen, like Dorothy clicking her heels together and—?whoosh!—?home again, home again, jiggety-jog.
“I think you should go, baby,” Mom says, fiddling with something on her phone. “You deserve some fun. Plus, Pete and I are driving over to Portland.”
“What?” Portland is about an hour away, and she already used a ton of gas picking me up from the bus station yesterday. “Why?”
“There’s this fancy-schmancy art supply store there that I’ve been meaning to check out for a long time. Now I finally have a reason.”
“What reason is that?” I know for a fact she doesn’t have any orders on her Etsy shop. I have the password, and I check it every day to make sure she doesn’t miss anything.
“Eva,” she says.
