“Yeah, Ethan. You worry too much,” Lara teases. “Go fill in Barbie and leave us be.”
“If anything even happens,” Mom continues,“your aunt, Yesenia, will help me.”
I decide not to point out that Aunt Yesenia lives in Texas, with over a thousand miles separating us. She’ll just hand-wave me off. They both will.
Refraining from heaving out a massive sigh, I head to the kitchen to double-check and make sure the stove’s off before I exit the house.
“Why is therea candle in my bag?”
“That’swhat you’re calling me about?” Aaron’s laughter rings in my ear. “You didn’t want to text methank youfor packing the clothes you’d need for a vacation?”
“I got pulled over for additional screening because of you,”I growl. “I might miss my flight?—”
“You? Miss your flight? You show up to everything early,” he snickers. “You even busted out of your mother’s womb a month early.”
My mouth twists into a grimace. “Why”—I jog around an elderly man shuffling across the terminal at a speed akin to molasses—“did you put a candle in my bag?”
“Well, I didn’t think they’d let you take bug spray on the plane,” he explains. “Figured you’d thank me tonight when you’re not a buffet for the mosquitoes. After you remember what it’s like to have genuine fun. Maybe the Ethan I remember will be the one I pick up on Sunday.”
A frustrated sigh escapes me. “Next time, donotsneak things into my bag.” I dart around a family and pick up speed. “Not without a heads up?—”
“If I give you a heads up, it’s no longersneaking. It’s justprovidingorgifting?—”
“Aren’t you supposed to be working right now?” I ask flatly.
“It’s pretty quiet with all the higher-ups heading to the conference,” he says. “Think I might take a nap. Play a little hooky. Change your profile picture to your senior grad photo?—”
“You will do no such thing,” I say through clenched teeth.
“You didn’t like the one I set for you,” he points out. “What did you say about the picture? That you looked like?—”
“A giraffe in a hostage situation,” I supply, because the image he uploaded for my work email and IMs is the most awkward photo he’s ever taken of me. “I have to go. Donotchange my profile picture.”
“Change your profile picture, you say?” he asks. “But with a throwback to your emo days and your scene hair instead?”
“Don’t you dare,” I say, and then I hang up on him as I get my boarding pass scanned before I enter the jetbridge. It’s the first of three flights I’m flying today because there’s no direct flight from Oregon to South Carolina, and this one’s the shortest of thetrio. The plane’s crowded when I board, and as I look around for my seat, my attention snags on the two rowdy boys screaming and hitting each other.
God. No.
Dear God,no.
Knowing my luck, I brace for the worst while I check the seat numbers as I go. To no one’s surprise, I’m the sucker stuck with them—down to the assigned window seat covered in crumbs.
It’s only a two-hour flight to Vegas, I remind myself.Just one hundred and twenty minutes to go. I dealt with Lara during her teen angst phase. I can deal with this.
Once my duffel bag is stowed away in the overhead bin and my work laptop is in my hand so I can work on my team’s mission statement, I carefully squeeze through the row only to bite back a grumble when the boy in the middle seat kicks me in the shin.
I look over to the woman in the aisle seat, surrounded by more screaming children, all under the age of seven, by the look of it. Even Lara wasn’t this bad when she was their age, but my sister, for the most part, adored the crap out of me to ever act out.
Taking my seat by the window, I’m quick to connect my laptop to the inflight Wi-Fi, and then I side-eye the kid next to me when he starts kicking the tray table before him.
And Mom wants me to give her dozens of these.
Truthfully, I know my mom’s just feeling empty nest syndrome with Lara moving out for her last year of college. It’s just her in the house I grew up in—with the dog Lara surprised her with four years ago, but still. She’s all by herself, and I can’t help but feel bad about it.
“Hey.” I look up from my laptop to see a man twisting around to glare at me. “Control your fucking kid.”
“He’s not my responsibility,” I say, and the woman beside him turns around to level me with a disbelieving scoff.
