She sat on his lap, absolutely entranced by the orange plastic bowl of Cheerios in front of her. Her tiny fingers grasped a few at a time, let some fall like drops of water, and then stuffed whatever remained into her mouth.
Every once in a while, Chip would lean down and kiss her head.
I worked through my equation again, but I kept glancing at Chip and his niece.
Somewhere along the way, Cyprian Cusumano had changed from Trent Bolger’s sidekick, to a guy on my soccer team, to a real friend. A friend who looked cute sitting at the table with his little niece on his lap.
I snapped my eyes back to my paper and kept working.
“Wait,” I said, after a few more minutes of scribbling. “So this whole thing just adds up to zero?”
Chip leaned over to look. His lips moved silently as he read over my work.
“Yup. That’s—”
But before he could finish, Evie smacked the rim of her bowl and sent Cheerios flying everywhere.
“Evie! Sorry about that.” He set her on the floor, and she squealed and ran into the living room, her little legs pumping up and down like her quads were burned out from a superset of heavy back squats.
“It’s okay.”
I shook the Cheerios off my laptop onto my scratch paper and got on the floor to help Chip scoop up the ones that had fallen.
“Thanks.” He glanced up at me and giggled.
“What?”
He reached into my hair and pulled out a Cheerio. I shivered as his fingers grazed my scalp.
“Oh. Thanks.”
Chip grinned that funny grin of his.
He didn’t say anything, just looked at me.
I swallowed.
My whole body was warm, like I’d been dropped into a plasma conduit.
“Um,” I said.
And then I tried to stand, but I hit the top of my head on the table.
“Ow.”
Chip busted out laughing at that.
“Sorry. Sorry. It’s not funny.”
“Yeah. Well. If I get a brain injury, maybe I can get out of taking this test.”
“Hey.” Chip furrowed his eyebrows. “You got this. Really.”
From the living room, Evie let out a squeal of joy. Or maybe mischief.
There was the sound of something plastic hitting the floor.
Chip exhaled out the side of his mouth.
