I gave a half-smile, hoping we had moved past our previous hostile relationship, where he had made it his life mission to make me miserable.
Amusement flashed through his eyes without moving any part of his mouth into even a slight resemblance of a smile. He simply flicked both brows up in acknowledgment and turned his back to me.
Guess not, I mouthed to myself.
“Get the plates,Milton,” I heard Danny playfully command from the kitchen.
There was a loud smack, followed by an eruption of deep laughter.
“What the hell, Tic?” Danny screeched.
“You know damn well what that was for.” Liam’s voice carried down the hall. It was smooth and raspy at the same time but deeper than I remembered.
“You didn’t hit Avery when she said it!” Danny defended himself, his voice setting into a higher pitch.
“She’s not making fun of me when she says it.” Milton’s tone was firm.
I smiled and closed the bedroom door behind me, turning the loud voices down the hall into deep, inaudible murmurs.
The faint buzzing of my phone rang from somewhere in the room, and I frantically searched through my scattered belongings. I dug it out of my wadded-up comforter a moment too late, sending my mother to voice mail.
I smiled.Oops.
She must’ve had a successful surgery. That was the only reason she ever called me after dinnertime. To gloat. The most annoying thing about it was that she had every right to. She’d saved someone’s life—or at least, prolonged it. But after twenty-four years of hearing it all, it became a bit mundane, listening to the same damn story with the same damn ending.
She never told me about the patients she’d lost. For the longest time, I hadn’t thought she had any. Like she was a superhuman surgeon, perfect in every way. As I’d gotten older, I’d learned that wasn’t true. Most couldn’t detect the difference in her cool disposition on the days she failed in the operating room, but I could.
Danny was convinced he only saw her on the bad days.
More often than not, I’d use studying as an excuse to screen her calls. It was believable and, most of the time, true. Unfortunately, she saved all of her stories to tell me at our weekly Sunday breakfasts, and I had to not only sound interested, but look it too. I was grateful to have something to monopolize our conversation tomorrow morning though. I was terrible at lying. She’d know something was wrong if she brought up Zayn.
My phone buzzed again, and I answered with annoyance. “Yeah, hello?”
“Excuse me, young lady. Don’t you take that tone with me.”
My irritation vanished. “Nina? Hi.”
“You thought I was your mom again. Didn’t you?”
I winced. “Sorry.”
“You need to start looking at your screen before you answer. I expect a very enthusiastic, very excited Avery to answer when you see my name pop up on your phone.”
I giggled. “I just missed a call from her.”
“Anotherherostory?”
“Probably.”
“You’ll have to tell me about it tomorrow,” Nina said, trying not to sound too interested.
She actually loved my mom’s surgery stories. The handful of times she had come to breakfast with me, she and my mom would talk for hours about heart transplants and ruptured aortas. It was like I hadn’t even been there.
I sank onto the end of the futon. “Why don’t you start going in my place on Sundays? We could dye your hair. I’m sure she wouldn’t even notice.”
“I don’t look good as a brunette. You know that.”
“Okay, you dyed itblack. Once. My hair isn’t remotely that dark.”
