I let out a quiet sigh and nod. I think she’s more nervous about me than she is her date. I gotta be honest: I’m feeling a little queasy myself.
Mom smiles and looks over my shoulder. “Kiera, it’s nice to see you back around.”
Inside, Dad is cooking up a storm, working on a new recipe he found online that he’s been perfecting on his solo nights—ginger-lime chicken with coconut sticky rice.
As the three of us sit around the table, Kiera shovels a spoonful of rice in her mouth and says, “Mr. DiMarco, I never knew rice could be this sweet and salty at the same time.”
Dad’s mouth spreads into a slow satisfied grin. “Well, I’m honored to have shown you the light, Kiera.”
After dinner, Kiera and I sit by the window in my bedroom with the lights off, waiting for Mom’s date to pick her up.
“Do we actually have to sit here in the dark?” Kiera asks. “It doesn’t matter if she sees us.”
“Oh, it totally matters,” I tell her. “She can’t know that I care.”
“That makes absolutely zero sense.”
A red truck pulls up outside of Mom’s house, and a guy with dark hair parted neatly down the side hops out. He wears crisp-looking jeans and a button-down shirt.
“Oh, he’s good,” says Kiera. “He’s got flowers.”
Bunched in his fist is a huge bouquet of bright sunflowers. I gotta admit, they look pretty cheery.
Behind us, my bedroom door swings open and Dad flips the light on. “Dad! Privacy, please!”
“Privacy?” he scoffs. “You’re snooping on your mother and you’re lecturing me on privacy?”
“Aren’t you just a little teensy bit curious?” I ask him.
He steps out of the door frame and motions for Kiera and me to follow him out into the hall. “How ’bout you two work out here in the living room for a while?”
I hold my fingers up in a pinch. “Just a little bit curious?”
Dad rolls his eyes. “Back away from the window.”
I throw my hands up and stomp out into the living room with Kiera close behind. “What’s the point of us all living on the same street if I can’t snoop on you two?”
Kiera and I spend the rest of the night in the living room, working on our projects. Kiera’s super organized and has color-coded note cards and glitter glue framing each picture on her poster board of Jungkook and his K-pop band, BTS.
“Quite the operation you’ve got going on, Kiera,” says Dad.
“I take my K-pop bands and schoolwork equally serious,” she says in a stern voice.
“Who’d you choose for your project, Sweet Pea?” He thumbs through the pictures Mom helped me print out. “Aretha, huh? She’s a classic. A little before your time. I’m surprised you’ve heard of her.”
I feel a little self-conscious, like maybe I should have picked someone else that I know a little more about. “Like you said, she’s a classic.”
We work on our projects for a little while longer, and I try to show KieraAmerica’s Most Haunted, but she’s not as into it as Oscar and I are, so we settle on the latest episode of some reality show about little girls in beauty pageants.
After a few hours, Mom’s still not home, but it’s time for Kiera to go. The three of us pile up in Dad’s truck and drive to the edge of town, where the newest houses in Valentine are. Even though it’s just Kiera and her parents, they live in a five-bedroom with a pool that Dad always called a McMansion.
As Kiera’s hopping out of the truck, her dad opens the front door, and I can feel my dad tense beside me.
It’s so weird to see Dad be nervous about anything or anyone.
Mr. Bryant coughs into his fist as Kiera runs throughthe doorway and past him. He stands there for a moment before saying, “Thanks, Andre, for uh, dropping her off.”
Dad nods. “Not a problem.”
