When I laugh, she looks over at me.
‘That all you can say? Really?’
She rolls her head in a slow circle and blows out a heavy breath. ‘I’m sorry, it was a crazy night and I kind of thought …’ Hesitating, she resets her face, like she’s changed her mind about what she was going to say. ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’
‘Wow, I didn’t think people actually said that.’
At last, I see the slightest hint of a smile on her face and it feels like I found a needle in a haystack. Less great is how upset she is about the leather jacket–wearing douche not waiting to walk her home. What kind of guy says he’ll stick around then ghosts? But I keep that opinion to myself for now. I don’t want to fight with her, and she doesn’t need reminding of the fact he disappeared, she needs distracting.
‘So, twenty huh? The big two-oh?’
‘It’s just a birthday,’ she replies as we pass under an archway of oak trees, a spot that always makes me feel like I’m in a movie. ‘It’s no big deal.’
‘Are you kidding me? It’s a huge deal! You’re in your twenties now, that’s a thing.’
‘No, sixteen is a thing, eighteen is a thing. Twenty-one is more of a thing than twenty but I have no idea who decided on that.’
Okay, she’s still arguing with me but at least she’s smiling.
‘One of those weird things from a million years ago, I guess.’
Cracking my knuckles, I look up at the leaves still clinging to the trees overhead. ‘My mom had me when she was twenty. I’ll be twenty-one in a few weeks and I can’t even imagine having a kid.’
Mia tilts her head to one side to look at me as we walk. ‘My mom was young when she had my brother. My dad, too. A little older than her but not by much. It’s crazy to think about it, right? I consider myself pretty competent but imagine waking up one day and someone says, here’s a kid, now keep it alive for eighteen years or so and call us if it gets a fever over one hundred degrees.’
‘You have to call a doctor if a kid has a fever over one hundred?’
‘I worry for your future kids.’
She kicks at a pebble in her path with the toe of those huge black boots she always wears. She’d never make a soccer player.
‘My dad is a lot older than my mom,’ I tell her. ‘He was already thirty-five when they had me, almost forty when they had my little brother, Chris. I wonder if it would be different if they were closer in age.’
‘Wonder if what would be different?’
Searching the sky for an answer, I shrug.
‘I don’t know. Everything?’
We walk on without words for a while, but it’s not uncomfortable. There are just enough old-fashioned light posts dotted along the path to show our way home but not so many it ruins the peaceful beauty of the university. Every few steps, Mia’s face is cast in golden light before it returns to the shadows, only to take my breath away when I see it again a few seconds later. What is happening to me? When did she go from cute to beautiful?
‘You have an older brother?’ I break the silence, desperatefor a distraction from the sudden and almost irresistible urge to kiss her.
‘I do. And a younger one. Kane is two years older, graduated back in May. He played football at Wofford. Hudson is still in middle school. Moves up to high school next year.’
‘Mia in the middle.’
I smile and she smiles back.
‘My gramps used to say a rose between two thorns, but I don’t know about that.’
She reaches into the sleeve of her shirt to tug on a silver bracelet. ‘You get along with your parents?’
‘Nope.’
It was an unexpected question but I’m even more surprised at myself for answering truthfully.
‘My dad is an intense guy,’ I tell her when she gives me an expectant look. Not the kind of thing you can say without offering a follow-up. ‘His way or the highway, you know? He’s always been more old-school conservative and he hates soccer.’
