Love & Luck(9)

“And shave off his mustache,” I added.

“Society should have made him shave off his mustache. It looked like he had a wet rat stuck to his face.”

I laughed, my first real laugh in ten days, and it came out creaky, like a door that hadn’t been opened in a long time.

Archie flashed me a smile. “Nice to hear that. It’s been a while. You’ve been kind of . . . depressed.”

My mood tumbled back down again. He was right. Every time I somehow forgot what junior year was going to be like, Cubby suddenly appeared, landing on my shoulders and sinking my mood a solid three feet. Like now. How could I have been so stupid?

“You and Ian do an adequate job of groveling?” Archie asked.

I nodded, grateful for the subject change. “I did. Ian mostly just stood there scowling defiantly.”

He groaned. “So in other words, being Ian.”

“Exactly.” It was just like on the cliffs with the tourists. Me scrambling for an explanation while Ian played dead. At least this time he was upright.

“Speaking of, where is Ian?” Archie asked.

I lifted my chin. “Eight o’clock. Sitting in that throne-looking chair.” Ian had come up with the same survival strategy I had: find an out-of-the-way piece of antique furniture to camp out on and pretend you’re anywhere other than where you were. Except he’d been texting all night, his face stretched in an expression I could only describe as gleeful.

“Is he smiling?” Archie said incredulously. “After everything that happened today? That kid is such a weirdo.”

I bit my lip, fighting off my automatic instinct to defend Ian. That’s the way our family had always lined up: Ian/Addie versus Walter/Archie. We occasionally formed alliances, but our core allegiances stayed the same. Had I ruined that forever? “He’s been grinning at his phone ever since we left the cliffs. Whoever he’s texting, it must be good.”

“Probably a girl,” Archie said.

“Doubt it.” Every girl in the world was in love with Ian, but he rarely surfaced long enough to notice them, which left me to fend off all the wannabes who thought that getting close to his little sister was the certain way to his heart. Ha.

Archie plucked at my sleeve. “Seriously, though, sis. This dress. You look like Miss Seattle Real Estate.”

This time the glare came without effort. “Come on, Archie. You saw what happened to my dress at the cliffs. I didn’t exactly have a lot of options. I had to wear one of Mom’s.”

“Didn’t she have anything less . . . realtory?”

“Um, you’ve met our mom, haven’t you?” I said.

“Briefly. She’s the one who’s always yelling at us, right? Short hair? Occasionally seen on billboards?”

I shuddered. “We’ve got to talk her out of those this year.”

“Good luck with that. Those billboards are paying my tuition.”

“Football is paying your tuition. And Walt’s,” I pointed out. “And Ian is probably going to be the first college student in history to get paid to play. I’m the only one who’s going to need those billboards to help pay for college.”

That wasn’t self-pity talking; it was truth. My brothers had used up all the natural athlete genes, leaving me to do my best with enthusiastic athlete. I was good, but not the star. Bad news when your brothers had shrines dedicated to them in the athletics hall.

Archie’s face softened. “Hey, don’t give up on playing in college so soon. I saw huge improvements in your game last year. You definitely have a shot.”

I shrugged. I was in way too wallowy of a mood for a pep talk. “Unless I blow it with Ian.”

“You won’t. You’ll just be with Lina, and Ian will be . . . I don’t know. Being Ian.”

Being Ian. It was like its own extreme Olympic sport. Music, football, school—all at a higher intensity than everyone else. “Do you have any idea why Ian wants to come to Italy with me? Because I don’t think he even likes Lina. She lived with us for six months, and he barely even talked to her. Is he just trying to torture me?”

He shrugged. “Little Lina? I’m sure he likes her. She’s funny and kind of quirky. Plus, she has all that crazy hair. How long has she been gone again?”

I wanted to say the actual number of days, but I knew that would sound neurotic. “Since the beginning of June.”

“And she’s staying in Italy permanently?”

My shoulders rounded in on themselves. “Permanent” sounded like a life sentence. “She’s staying for the school year. Her dad, Howard, is a serious traveler, so they go all over the place. In October he’s taking her and her boyfriend to Paris.”

Lina’s boyfriend. Yet another thing that had changed. Over the past year, Lina had gone through a lot of changes, starting when her mom, Hadley, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. A familiar ache ignited in my throat—the one that always flamed up when I thought about Hadley. She had been special, no doubt about it—creative, adventurous, chaotic, and just the right amount of hovering to make you feel cared about but not smothered.

Sometimes I felt like I’d experienced Hadley’s loss twice—once for myself and once for Lina. I’d been desperate to drag Lina out of the grief she was floundering in—to the point that I’d made myself sick with worry.