Touché, Christopher, I thought but couldn’t help but be a little amused. “This doesn’t match my outfit at all,” I stage-grumbled as I slipped on the bulky vest and zipped it up before adjusting its straps. The twins couldn’t stop laughing.
“Connor has one too,” Bryce said. “It’s pink and has ruffles.”
I snorted. “He’s hilarious, our father!”
At least he wasn’t reading Connor the riot act for putting my safety at risk.
But did I maybe want him to?
* * *
Before dinner hit the grill, we all said goodbye to Luke and Charlie, who were catching a late-afternoon boat back to the mainland. Agent Morrissey needed to work this week, but they would be back next weekend for Topper and Peggy’s big anniversary dinner.
The house quieted not long after dessert. “I’ll be back in a bit,” Connor told me while I settled in with everyone for a movie. “I really owe Liam a FaceTime…”
Nick randomly suggested the originalMulanand was astounded that Maisie and Bryce had never seen it. I, on the other hand, still had the soundtrack memorized, so after the first twenty minutes, I slipped away to grab my iPad.
I wanted to look at the photos I’d taken for Annie’s book, maybe even experiment with some Shutterfly book templates. “Oh,” I said when I turned the reading room’s doorknob to unexpectedly find Erica sitting on the daybed. Her eyes snapped up from the big book on her lap. “Hi…”
“Hi.” Erica got straight to the point. “I’m hiding from my sister.”
“Okay.” I wanted to ask,You couldn’t hide in your own room?
“I’m sorry,” she added. “I know this is your space, but our room is obvious and she knows all my other spots.” She tucked a pencil behind her ear. “She won’t think to look here.”
“Mmm,” was all I said, then I nodded at her reading material. A light green album with a creamy white pages. “Is that the scrapbook?”
“Yes, I’m supposed to be hard at work on it.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Supposed to be?”
Erica sighed. “Well, with squeezing in work and Beth hounding me to hurry up on this, it’s been difficult to really dig in.” She tapped her pencil. “I’m sketching out some ideas, though.”
My stepmother was a meticulous planner; in all the years she’d been compiling scrapbooks, she’d never been one to glue down a photo without considering the rest of the page.
“What brings you here?” she asked.
“I sleep here,” I deadpanned.
She rolled her eyes, but I could tell she was amused. “I thought you would be spending time with Connor.”
“He’s FaceTiming with his brother,” I said. “We’ll”—I hesitated, then used her words—“spend time together later.”
There was a beat of silence. Was “spending time together” some type of euphemism? It came off so parental, but “hanging out together” didn’t sound right either. Connor and I weren’t going to talk about next-to-nothing before hooking up.
“I can leave if you would like,” Erica offered before I could reflect too much. She closed the scrapbook. “Hide-and-seek aside, this is your personal space—”
“No, that’s alright.” I shook my head. “I just need my iPad togo through some photos I took today.” I took a few steps over to where it sat charging on the little room’s end table, figuring I’d trek across the house to Summer Camp’s porch.
Then I changed my mind and asked Erica if she could scoot over a bit on the daybed. “Oh, sure.” I caught the surprise in her voice. “Of course.”
“Thanks,” I said, and for the next half hour, we worked side by side in silence. She didn’t peek at the humble beginnings of my Shutterfly project, and I didn’t ask about the grand vision for her assigned scrapbook pages.
But still, it was nice.
Nineteen
The next couple days passed in the blink of an eye. Sunday’s scorching temperatures had burned off, and a light breeze blew through the air as Connor and I took an early-morning jog on Monday. I teased him for his incessant yawning, but I suspected it was all for show. He’d brought his lacrosse stick and only dropped the ball he cradled once.
