Naturally the waitress comes with our food in the middle of all this, so we have to pretend like we’re adults while thanking her profusely. Madeline doesn’t look impressed.
Once she’s gone—the kitchen had no other hot sauces, which Bastien accepts with grace—I give them the whole dumb story of my dumb fight with Mom while eating pancakes.
“You should’ve jumped out the window, just to prove a point,” is Thalia’s final verdict.
“I didn’t want to fuck up the azaleas,” I say, dragging pancake through syrup. “And I’d probably have ended up somehow impaling myself on a branch. Then our entire family would have to come outside and see what happened and ask a lot of questions about why Javier jumped out of a ground-floor window. It wasn’t worth it.”
“Would’ve been an incredible story, though,” Bastien points out.
“You’re welcome to jump next time you and Mom get into it.”
“I’m a perfect son who wouldneverfight with our mother. I don’t know what you’re talking about.Ow, what the hell?” he says, because both Thalia and I immediately pelt him with napkins. Madeline even blows a straw wrapper at him, then looks absolutely thrilled to be abusing a sibling. She’s so adorable that I can’t help but smile.
“Fine, god, I won’t offer you any brotherly comfort,” he says once he’s done fending off projectiles.
“I don’t want your brotherly comfort.”
Bastien leans forward over the table, toward Madeline. “I’m sorry that this happened to you,” he says with as much sincerity as he seems capable of mustering. “And I’m sorry thatthisguy is the one you fell for, because he puts empty milk cartons back into the fridge and sometimes wears the same socks for two days in a row.”
Madeline looks over at me thoughtfully. “Ew.”
“I don’t put them back empty on purpose, it just…happens,” I say. I do not address the sock allegations.
“I don’t care why you do it. It’s annoying,” Bastien says, and Thalia elbows him.
“Javi. Look at me,” she says, all sisterly and intense. She’s holding a piece of bacon, and she points it at me. “Mom’s wrong. Even if you two do have some horrific breakup—sorry—you’ll get through it okay. She acts like you’re made of glass, which is clearly not true. And if she and Gerald break up because you two break up, that’s not your problem. That’s on them. They’re the adults here.”
The youngest person in this conversation is twenty-three, but I don’t point that out. Under the table, Madeline reaches down and squeezes my thigh, so I take her hand and lace our fingers together.
“Thanks,” I say, rubbing my thumb along the back of Madeline’s hand. “I just hate fighting with her. Plus, she’s the best parent I’ve got, so ifshedisowns me…”
“Javi,” Bastien says around a mouthful of egg, then swallows. “She’s not gonna disown you for dating a nice girl.”
Madeline snorts.
“Or her,” Bastien amends.
“I just didn’t want it to go this way,” I admit. “We were going to tell them after they got back from their honeymoon, over dinner or something. It was going to be very mature.”
“And instead, you caused a panic and then got caught in bed together,” says Thalia. “Maybe it’s the thought that counts?”
“I don’t think it is,” says Madeline, then flexes her fingers in mine. “Can I have my hand back?”
I hold it a little tighter, because I can. “What for?”
“So I can eat?”
“You’ve got a hand.”
“That’s not enough! My French toast is getting cold. Romance can wait.”
“Get a room,” Thalia says, but I release Madeline.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
MADELINE
“Call me when you get in?”I ask, my hands shoved into the pockets of my winter coat.
