“A blind dog, huh,” I say. “Think you could teach him braille?”
Ivy rolls her eyes. “He doesn’t need braille. What he needs is a seeing-eye person.”
I bump her with my elbow. “Sounds like fun.”
Ivy doesn’t admit that it will be, but I can tell she’s looking forward to it. She has also recently become too cool for looking forward to things.
We climb the stairs to my condo, with its terrace view overlooking the garden. We are in the door less than three seconds when Ivy announces, “Lukas got in trouble at school for karate chopping a girl.”
I turn to him. I haven’t heard about this, so I’m guessing it couldn’t betoomuch trouble. “Seriously? You know you’re not allowed to use karate outside of class.”
Luke looks offended. “She jumped on me and waskissingme! My lips were in danger!”
I smile. I bet they were. “She shouldn’t have done that, but you didn’t have to karate chop her.”
Luke pouts. “I know. Later when I used my words, I told her never ever to kiss me again, no matter how handsome she thinks I am.”
“I bet she loved that,” I say.
“She cried,” Ivy adds.
Luke opens his mouth to argue, but I beat him to it. “But she shouldn’t have kissed you without your permission. No matter how handsome she thinks you are.”
“Besides,” Luke says, grinning gleefully at Ivy. “Ivy has a booooooyfriend.”
I raise my eyebrows.This is the first I’ve heard of this. Ivy flops down on my leather couch and slings her feet over the arm. “I donot.”
“Yes, you doooooooo,” Luke shouts. “She got her phone taken away for talking to him too much.”
Ivy folds her arms and glares daggers at Luke, who cheerfully runs off to the Lego room clutching his case, which he uses to bring his current favorites back and forth between Kim’s place and mine. I’d feel bad for the kid that he needs to do this, but he’s getting two Lego rooms out of the deal, so I think he’s doing all right.
“Is that true?” I ask Ivy.
“Yes,” she says grudgingly. “Can you talk to Mom and get it back?”
I’m willing to bet if Kim took Ivy’s phone away, there’s a good reason. “Maybe.Tell me about this boy.”
She sighs. “His name is Chris, and he likes to surf.”
“Okay. And how’d you meet him?”
Ivy gives me a dark look that tells me she knows I’m not going to like the answer. “Online.”
“So you don’t have any way of knowing who this kid really is, right?”
Ivy sinks down on the couch.
Oh, great.There’s clearly more to this story. “Ives?”
“I met him at the mall,” she says sullenly.
Shit. “Does your mom know about that?”
“No,” she says. “I told her I was going with friends. And I did! My friends were there the whole time and so were his. I wasn’t alone with him. I’m not stupid.”
I know she’s not. Clearly, because she’s been executing all of this without her mother or me knowing. “How old is this boy?”
She gives me another side-eye, and my stomach drops. “Fifteen,” she says.
