The Will (The Magdalene Series) (Volume 1)(113)

She did this quickly and just as quickly greeted, “Hey, Dad. I’m alive.”

“I see,” he replied, smiling down at his daughter.

That caused another belly dip.

I didn’t get to fully appreciate this one as, without delay, Amber rushed to me, grabbed my hand and started tugging, announcing loudly and with great liveliness, “Josie! I’m so glad you’re here! I sooooooo have to talk to you.”

She must have very much soooooo had to talk to me for she dragged me out of the kitchen, to the stairs and up them. It was clear boy Taylor agreed with her urgent need for communication for he put his hands on my back just above my bottom and gratuitously shoved me up the stairs Amber was yanking me up.

We hit the door to her room. One that I’d noted earlier had a white board on it with little pink and blue flowers drawn in at the edges. But contradictory to the cheerful flowers, the words “Enter and Die!” were printed on it in hot pink in the middle and under that, smaller but in all capital letters, “THAT MEANS YOU RUNT!”

It should be noted that under that, in much smaller letters and in black marker was written in a different hand, “Don’t call me runt!!!!!!!!!”

This amused me when I saw it earlier and it amused me seeing it again. However, at that moment my amusement was intermingled with confusion as to what was currently happening as Amber threw open her door and yanked me in.

I had not seen any of the children’s rooms but Ethan’s (entirely decked out in some sporting team’s paraphernalia, even the sheets) as Conner and Amber’s doors were closed.

Now I saw how Amber could exist in this intensely masculine abode.

There was not one inch of her pink and blue room that didn’t scream “Teenaged Girl!” from stylish but bright bedclothes to pages cut out of style magazine tacked to the walls to band posters to jumbles of clothes and shoes on the floor and accessories and cosmetics on every surface.

I had little time to take all this in for Amber was standing before me. The Taylors having moved to form a loose huddle around us, the door having been closed, Amber was visibly deep breathing while pressing the air down in front of her with her hands in a way I found alarming, repeatedly, chanting, “Okay, okay, okay.”

She sucked in a huge breath.

Then I winced when she smiled an enormous smile and screeched, “You’ll never guess what happened!”

Although I feared my eardrums were bleeding, her excitement was infectious so I smiled back and asked, “What happened, my lovely?”

“Alexi Prokorov said hey to me!” she cried.

I blinked. “Who?”

“Only the…coolest guy…in the entire school!” boy Taylor informed me.

“He is,” girl Taylor confirmed. “He’s the absolute bomb.”

I looked from girl Taylor back to Amber as she again began chanting, “Okay, okay, okay. Soooo…we were at the diner last night and he walked right up to me and said hey!”

“I’d done her face up in romantic palette number two,” boy Taylor leaned into me to share.

This was a good choice.

I didn’t get a chance to say that, girl Taylor was talking, imparting the unusual news that, “Alexi doesn’t date girls from Magdalene High.”

“He never has,” boy Taylor put in. “He usually goes out with the hottest of the hot from other schools.”

“He has a motorcycle,” Amber added and when she did, my heart skipped a beat.

Uh-oh.

“And he plays guitar,” she went on.

Oh dear.

“And he’s in a band,” she continued.

Oh no.

Her face changed, it went soft and wistful as she whispered, “He’s dreamy.”

“This is huge,” boy Taylor announced. “Huger than huge. The one guy who beats out Noah is Alexi. I mean, girls from Magdalene don’t even set their sights on him because they know they have no shot.” He smiled big. “This is awesome.”

“He writes his own songs,” girl Taylor added. “I saw his band play in the underage club that’s used to be an old garage down by the cove. It was amazing.”

“Look,” boy Taylor demanded and I looked his way to see he had his phone screen facing me. “I got this pic as he was leaving the diner. It isn’t very good but it tells the tale.”

I stared at his phone thinking the photo on it did, indeed, tell the tale.

The picture was of an exceptionally good-looking young man. He was rather fit and although he was sitting astride a motorcycle, captured on the phone arrested in lifting up a shiny black motorcycle helmet in front of him, it also appeared he was quite tall. He had very messy but attractive dark blond hair. He had excellent bone structure. He was wearing faded jeans, the knee torn and ragged, black motorcycle boots, a black t-shirt and a black leather jacket.

I stared at the photo thinking the young man in it was every high school girl’s dream.

I also stared at it thinking that if this young man came over to take Amber out on a date, Jake was going to lose his mind.

“Um…” I mumbled, fear constricting my lungs as I tore my eyes away from the photo and looked at a beaming Amber.

I got no further as she declared, “And Noah’s called me. Twice.”

“She didn’t pick up,” girl Taylor shared.