Only—
Giggling. A whole lot of giggling sounds from the dim TV room through the kitchen doorway.
My eyes adjust to the dark as I pass our round kitchen table, Dad’s printed listing of what’s coming on Finder’s Bid resting on top of it. He’s circled a handwritten grocery list that supposedly belonged to Joe Montana and unopened cassettetapes of Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. Last I checked, we didn’t own a cassette player—but then, he probably won’t take them out of their packaging.
I slip through the arched doorway to where my sister giggles in the family room.
So, help me, Lindy, if you brought a man home?—
“I never said that,” Lindy says through another bout of laughter. She’s responding to someone, but I can’t hear that someone at all.
I flick on the family room light and all of Lindy’s giggles go quiet. She peeks her blonde head up and over the side of the couch where she’s lying. Thankfully, alone. “Maggie?”
I drop my bag next to the wall and walk over to where Lindy’s squinting at me. “In the flesh.”
She’s on the phone, messaging with someone.
Oh,someone—I’ve met you before, you’re always the same, and I never ever approve.
“How was the game?” she says, phone clutched in her right hand.
I sigh. “Fine. Saint Lucca caused trouble. But that’s nothing new.”
“Hmm. Last season, it was Pretty Boy Cruz. I think I liked that nickname better.” She smirks.
“Who’s that?” I say, nodding to the phone in her grasp.
Lindy swallows and her cheek concaves where she’s nibbling. “Brent.”
“The online guy?”
Her cheek folds in farther, telling me that’s exactly who it is.
“You gave him your actual number?Belinda.” She one hundred percent deserves to be first-named.
“He’s nice.”
“He’s also abartender.” And you, baby sister, are a recovering alcoholic.
Her eyes turn to saucers, and she flicks her gaze to the ceiling for a brief half second. “A bartender who doesn’t drink.”
“Sweetie,” I groan, then reach out for my sister’s hand, squeezing her fingers and shaking her.
“Am I never allowed to date again?” She stares at me, completely serious, and I’d like to seriously answer back,No, you are not.
“Of course you are,” I say. “I didn’t say that.”
She sits up straighter, bouncing in her seat on the couch cushion. “He’s nice, Mags. You’d like him.”
I wouldn’t. I one hundred percent would not like Brent the bartender. I don’t have to meet him to know it. Because Lindy’s taste in men and my approval never go together.
“Okay. I believe you,” I lie. “Did Wyatt get dinner?”
“Yes. Mom made her goulash casserole.” Lindy cringes. And I wrinkle my nose. “He likes it,” she says.
“And his homework? He has that spring scavenger hunt due on Thursday, and tomorrow he has soccer practice, so I won’t be able to take him around?—”
“Done.” She nods, giving me the rundown. My sister is used to giving me or Mom a report on Wyatt’s day. She’s very aware that we are coparenting, and to her credit, she doesn’t get threatened by it. “Dad and I took him to the park. He drew a picture of a blue bird, found a dandelion, a twig shaped like a Y, and splashed some water from a puddle on his page and labeled it rain.”
