“You can leave your bike in here,” he said. “What time...”
Before he could finish, the door from the garage to the house burst open, and a small blur darted for Chip.
He laughed and scooped up a little toddler—they couldn’t have been more than two years old—with light brown skin and dark, curly hair.
Chip was white. At least, I thought he was white, with his pale skin and soft brown hair. So I kind of wondered who the kid was.
Not that I could ask that kind of question out loud.
“Hi,” I said as the kid looked over Chip’s shoulder at me. I gave a little wave. “I’m Darius.”
The kid’s eyes got big.
Chip laughed again and angled himself so both he and his passenger could see me.
“Say hi, Evie,” Chip said. His grin was so big it wasn’t even a grin anymore: He was totally beaming.
“Hi,” Evie whispered.
Chip planted a loud smooch on Evie’s cheek, which got a giggle. “This is my niece.”
“Oh. Cool.”
Chip led me into the house as Evie talked his ear off. I couldn’tmake out a word she said: She was talking too fast, and in that funny way toddlers have, where they know what they want to say but can’t quite form the words all the way. Chip was smiling so big his eyes were squinting up.
I really liked seeing him smile like that.
He never smiled like that at school.
“You doing okay? Need another ice pack?”
“I think I’m good.”
Chip shifted Evie a little bit to free up one hand, and pulled a cheese stick out of the fridge. He peeled it open and handed it to Evie.
“Where’s your mommy?” he asked.
“Upstairs.” Evie squirmed a bit. Chip kissed her one more time and set her down. She ran out of the kitchen, doing that funny run little kids do, where they lift their knees up really high and stomp their tiny feet as they go.
Chip grabbed a red Gatorade out of the fridge and handed me a purple one.
“I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“Really? She graduated last year. Ana.”
“Oh,” I said. “From Chapel Hill?”
Chip nodded, like I should have remembered. “I’ve got an older brother too. But he graduated before we started.”
My ears burned.
I had a whole bunch of questions, but I didn’t know how to ask them.
In fact, I was pretty sure it would be rude to ask them.
So I said, “How old is she?”
“Ana?”
