“You okay over there?” he whispers into the darkness.
“Totally. Just having a small existential crisis trying to remember if I snore.”
He chuckles. “I doubt I’ll hear you if you do. I shared a bedroom with Theo for too many years. I’ll sleep through anything.”
“Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”
“I swear I’m not. I really do sleep like the dead.”
I push up on my elbow. “Hey, can I ask you a question before you fall asleep?”
“Sure.”
“What’s with the penny?”
“For being so close to sleep two minutes ago, you sure do seem wide awake now.”
“It was the panic of realizing I forgot to post,” I say. “I’m still buzzing from the adrenaline.”
“You know it would have been fine if you’d posted tomorrow. Technically, it alreadyistomorrow.”
“Are you kidding? And risk Anna’s wrath? She has the whole timeline planned.”
“Fair,” Carter says.
“So tell me about the penny. Help me get sleepy again.”
He’s quiet for a beat, long enough that I start to wonder if it’s too personal.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I say.
“I don’t mind,” Carter says. “It’s just been a minute since I’ve talked about it.”
I wait, sensing that whatever the story is, he doesn’t need me to yank it out of him.
“The penny I’m wearing is one Theo gave me,” he finally says. “But it’s significant because of my dad.”
Without saying anything, I scootch over on the bed until I’m close enough to find Carter’s hand, then I slip my fingers into his. “This is friendly touching,” I whisper into the darkness. “Just FYI.”
He squeezes my fingers once, then holds on. “Have you ever heard the saying ‘penny for your thoughts’?”
“I don’t think so,” I say.
“It’s just something people used to say. When you look thoughtful or contemplative, someone might look at you and ask,penny for your thoughts? Instead of just saying what are you thinking? So I don’t remember this part, but I guess thestory is that I was sitting outside on the front porch, maybe five or six years old, and my dad came out and sat down beside me and asked, penny for your thoughts? And I guess I looked at him, real serious, held out my hand and said, ‘okay.’”
I chuckle. “Smart kid.”
“So he gave me a penny, and I told him what I was thinking, and it started this whole thing between us. I remember being in high school and having a rough time about something, usually something hockey related, and he’d come in and toss a penny on my bed.” Carter shifts, changing his position so his voice gets closer, but he doesn’t let go of my hand. “I don’t know why it worked, but whenever I saw that penny, it felt like permission to just say whatever I was feeling, trusting that he wouldn’t judge me for it.”
“He sounds like a really good dad,” I say, and Carter breathes out a sigh.
“Yeah. He really was.”
“Did he do the same thing with Theo?”
“He didn’t,” Carter says. “It was just our thing. I think he sensed that was important. That he single us out sometimes. I think Theo resented it. I mean, he had plenty of other things that only he did with Dad, and he never said anything to me about it. It was just something I sensed.”
“I can’t imagine how much you guys had to balance. Looking alike, playing the same sport. Did you fight a lot?”
