Emergency Contact(10)
“YAY!” Jude squealed, engulfing him. “It’s Uncle Sam!” She’d taken to calling him that on the flurry of texts signaling her arrival. She thought it was hysterical since Sam wasn’t exactly the “USA! USA!” type. Nor was he her uncle anymore. Brandi Rose and Mr. Lange’s doomed union lasted just under two years. A month before he’d owe alimony, he proposed to a twenty-five-year-old server from a Cracker Barrel in Buda. He was a class act through and through.
The pressure of Jude’s tanned arms encircling him was pleasant, a relief. It had been several months since Sam had been embraced with uncomplicated affection, and his ex-niece was like a gigantic golden retriever that loved you on sight.
“You hungry?” he asked, squirming out of the hug. “How was the flight? Are your folks here? How’s it feel to be a freshman?”
Then a beat. “Do you love questions?”
Sam awkwardly fixed his hair and took a slug of coffee to have something to do with his hands.
“Caffeine’s a helluva a drug,” she said, eyeing his cup.
He laughed.
“To your first question: I’m starving,” said Jude. “Flight was good. Parents couldn’t agree on who should bring me down, so we settled on nobody. They’re splitting up.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sam had met Jude’s mother only once—she was tanned and wore yoga clothes to dinner—and Sam had never warmed to her dad.
“It’s fine,” she said, and gave him a crooked smile. “They were miserable. By the way, they say hi.”
“No they don’t,” Sam said.
Jude laughed.
“Well, my mom does,” she admitted. “But my dad did ask about you. Whether or not you had plans to go back to school.”
Sam shrugged. “We’ll see,” he said. Sam was going back, just not to UT.
“Well.” She grabbed his forearm. “At least he won’t be visiting. He may have been born in Dallas but he still thinks Austin is for drug addicts and trust-fund hippies.”
Sam smiled dryly.
“Oh,” Jude continued. “And I don’t know how it feels to be a freshman, I love questions, and my first order of business was coming to see you to say hi.” She served up another of her trillion-watt grins and waved right in his face.
“Hiiiii!” She was such a cartoon.
“Hi back,” Sam said, and busied himself with a plate of pastries. “I made these for you.”
“Whoa, for me?”
“Donuts and cherry hand pies,” he said.
“Wait, you made these?”
He nodded.
“Jeez, I’m going to be over here all the time,” she said. “I can’t believe you bake.”
“Well, they’re fried,” he said. Sam wondered what constituted “all the time.”
“Even better.” Jude pulled out her phone. “I’m going to tell my friends to come by.”
Sam nodded.
Jude was good about that sort of thing. Sharing and sometimes oversharing. They’d been thrown together at family functions a few more times and he’d eventually grown to enjoy her consistent stream of conversation. It was a nice respite from the rancor of the grown-ups, and even after the split, Jude never allowed Sam to lose touch. And he’d tried. Jude remembered birthdays and sent silly messages at the holidays with unsolicited updates from her life. Her congeniality was unflappable. Sam meanwhile had no idea when her birthday was ever since he deleted all his social media accounts.
“Do you want a coffee or something?” he asked.
“Iced please.”
“Milk and sugar?” Another fact he didn’t know about her.
“Tons,” she said, beaming.
? ? ?
“Yaasssssssssssss!!!!!”
A tall brown-haired girl dressed as if she were attending a desert festival galloped in, trailed by someone bearing an uncanny resemblance to the tiny Asian girl from the Japanese horror movie The Grudge.
“Yasssssss!!!” shrieked Jude back, hugging the brunette as the tassels on her shirt jangled.
“Bitch, finally!” yelled the taller girl. Their long knobby limbs reminded Sam of king crabs clasped in an embrace.
The Asian girl smiled at him for a second, then changed her mind. He responded with a grimace.
Jude untangled her tanned arms and lunged for the shorter girl.
“Hiiiiiiiiii,” sang Jude into her hair, practically lifting her off the floor. “Yay, it’s Penny.”
The girl patted his niece’s back twice—pat, pat—and locked eyes with him helplessly.
“This is my best friend, Mallory,” Jude said. “And my roommate, Penny.”
“So, you’re Uncle Sam,” said Mallory, reaching for his hand. She had a firm handshake. The sort that quickly became a contest.
“I’m Mallory Sloane,” said Mallory Sloane.
“Pleasure,” he said, refusing to acknowledge her grip. She bit her lower lip in a seductive manner. Sam smiled and quickly said hi to the other one. She waved at a spot slightly left of his ear.
“So, what can I do for you ladies today?”
“Can you make me a flat white?” asked Mallory, who kept her sunglasses on inside.