Love & Luck(12)

I took a deep, satisfied inhale. The waffles needed to be delicious. They were my ticket into the early-morning hangout Ian had expressly banned me from. No one yells Addiegetoutofhere to someone holding a plate of hot waffles. Not even when they’re trying to impress their new friends.

“You have batter in your hair.”

And there they were. The first words Cubby Jones ever said to me. Admittedly, not the most romantic introduction, but I was only twelve. I didn’t have a name for the way my attention funneled to Cubby every time he walked into a room. Not yet.

While I swiped at my bangs with a dish towel, Cubby stepped closer, sniffing the waffle air. The second he was within five feet of me, I pinpointed what was different about him. “Your eyes!” I crowed, abandoning my dish towel. Cubby’s eyes were two different colors.

His smile slipped off his face. “It’s called heterochromia. It’s just a genetic thing; it’s not weird.”

“I didn’t say it’s weird,” I said. “Let me look.” I grabbed his arm and yanked him in close. “Blue and gray?” I whispered.

“Purple,” Cubby corrected.

I nodded my head. “Yep. I like that one the best. If you were in a sci-fi movie, that eye would be the source of all your powers.”

Both of his eyes widened, and then he smiled, a slow, surprised drizzle that started at his mouth and went right up to his mismatched eyes. That was the moment I realized there were two different ways to look at boys. There was the regular way—the way I’d done my whole life—and then there was this way. A way that made kitchens tilt ever so slightly and waffles go forgotten in Mickey Mouse irons.



The sparkler send-off for the newlywed couple was a joke. Not only did my legally tipsy oldest brother attempt—and succeed at—catching one of the rosebushes on fire, but cameraman number two kept missing his shot of the bride and groom. This meant repeating the whole process over and over again until we ran out of sparklers and even the most camera-hungry wedding guests began to bray mutinously.

“Buses arrive tomorrow morning at six thirty sharp,” Aunt Mel yelled over her shoulder as Uncle Number Three carried her back into the hotel. The train of her dress dragged behind her, sweeping up bits of confetti and dried sparklers. The send-off had been just for show. They were staying at Ross Manor tonight with everyone else.

“Finally free to go,” my mom said quietly, running a tired hand through her hair. Her mascara was smudged, and it made her eyes look blurry.

The rest of us followed behind her, slogging silently up the billiard-green staircase to our floor, then filed one by one into our closet of a room. Despite the fact that there were five of us, including two college football players who were roughly toddler-size versions of King Kong, Aunt Mel had assigned us what had to be the smallest room in the hotel.

Fuzzy floral wallpaper decorated the walls, and my brothers’ cots occupied most of the space, so all that was left over was a tiny corridor running along the base of the beds. And of course my brothers had filled that up with their never-ending supply of junk—candy wrappers, tangled-up phone cables, and more sneakers than should really exist in the world. I had a term for it: brother spaghetti.

I managed to claim the bathroom first and locked the door behind me, turning the tub on at full blast. I had no intention of actually taking a bath. I just needed to drown out the sound of everyone crashing around the room. Traveling with my family made my head hurt.

I yanked off the real estate dress, replacing it with an oversize T-shirt and a pair of black pajama shorts, then brushed my teeth as slowly as possible.

“Gotta pee, sis!” Walt shouted, banging on the door. “Gotta pee, gotta pee, gotta pee pee peeeeee.”

I yanked the door open to make it stop. “Cute song. You should trademark that.”

He shoved past me. “Thought you’d like it.”

I picked my way through the room, avoiding half a dozen sneaker land mines before climbing onto the bed and cocooning deep into my blankets. I couldn’t wait to sleep. Forget. It had been my main coping skill over the past ten days—ever since Ian had burst into my room to tell me how badly I’d screwed up his life. His life. Like he was the one who would have to spend the whole upcoming year avoiding Cubby and everyone who knew Cubby. My stomach twisted as tightly as the sheets.

“So what’s the strategy exactly? Wear my T-shirt until I forget it’s mine?” Ian’s voice pierced through my blankets, and I slowly uncovered my head. Was he talking to me?

My mom was stuffing her suitcase like it was a Thanks-giving turkey, and Archie lay with his face planted on his cot, still wearing his suit. Ian propped himself up on a mountain of pillows, one earbud in, his face pointed in my general direction.

“You gave it to me,” I said, aiming my voice for what a sitcom writer would mark as RETORT, SASSY. It was an exceptionally comfortable T-shirt with a black collar and sleeves and SMELLS LIKE THE ONLY NIRVANA SONG YOU KNOW written across the chest in block letters.

“By ‘gave it to you,’ do you mean you raided my T-shirt drawer and stole the softest one?”

Nailed it. “You can have it back,” I said. Ian is talking to me. Talking. To me. A flicker of hope sprang into my chest.

“Do you even get the reference?” he asked, punching his top pillow into shape. His hair was in a horrible attempt at a man bun, with bumpy sides and a large chunk hanging out the back. He clearly hadn’t watched the How to Man-Bun Like a Boss tutorial I’d forwarded him.