Page 403 of Wicked Brutal

“So do I.”

“Exactly. Our strawberries.”

Ten. He’s ten years old. Sometimes that still hits me at the weirdest times. Not the birthdays. Not the first days of school. Not when I have to buy another pair of shoes because his feet apparently grow overnight. It’s this. Him standing in our kitchen in a T-shirt and shorts, hair falling into his eyes because he refuses to let anyone cut it, eating strawberries he’s been explicitly told not to eat. His soccer cleats are by the back door. His backpack is dumped beside the stairs. There’s a half-finished science project spread across the dining room table, and three boys from school are coming to Piper’s party before sleeping over tonight. Four boys, apparently — he informed me yesterday that one of them found out about the sleepover and leaving him out would be “socially shitty,” then immediately handed Piper a dollar.

I look back at my daughter. “Hands.” She slowly brings one around. Empty. “The other one.” Also empty. She smiles. I narrow my eyes. “What is in the cake?”

Her eyes flick toward Tobias, who looks at the ceiling. “Don’t tell.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You were.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were gonna tell with your face.”

“My face doesn’t talk.”

“Your face talks a lot.”

“Tobias.” He looks at me. “Piper.” She looks at me. “The cake.”

She sighs. Deeply. Like I’m exhausting. “My penny.”

I stare at her. “You put a penny in your birthday cake? Why?”

Her little forehead wrinkles. “For luck.”

Apparently I’m stupid. “Okay. Why does the lucky penny need to be inside the cake?”

“So everybody gets some.”

Tobias chokes on his strawberry. I close my eyes. “That’s not how pennies work.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, baby. Somebody could choke on it.”

Her face changes instantly. “They can’t eat my penny.”

“No. They absolutely cannot.”

She whips around toward the cake. “My penny!”

I catch her around the waist before both hands go directly into the frosting. “I’ll get it.”

Tobias slides off his stool. “Back corner.”

My head turns slowly. “You knew?”

“I saw her do it.”

“And you didn’t stop her?”

He shrugs. “She said it was lucky.”

“You’re ten.”