When I say nothing, Kale sighs and stretches out on my bed. My feet are by his head and his are by mine. “You could fix it, you know.”
He doesn’t argue, and he doesn’t agree. Instead, he considers what I said for a moment, and then he presses his gross-ass sock against my cheek. I knock it away, and he counterattacks by rubbing both sets of funky toes all over my face. I yell and scramble to push him away, he laughs and accidentally kicks me in the eye, and all hell breaks loose. Kale and I attack each other with toes and heels and ankles—until he gets a bloody nose and I get a throbbing knot on the back of my head from falling off the bed. We’re both laughing hysterically as we nurse our wounds when Bryce walks in, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and scowling at us.
“What the fuck is wrong with you two?”
With his head tilted back and his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, Kale mutters, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
And then, I laugh so hard, I can’t breathe. I laugh until I snort, which only makes me laugh harder. I laugh until this morning almost seems to not matter, and this evening almost seems far enough away.
Almost.
“Are those two up?” my mom yells from the bottom of the stairs.
“They’re bleeding all over Kit’s comforter!” Bryce shouts back, and I sneer at him when he rats us out.
“WOULD EVERYONE SHUT THE HELL UP,” Mason hollers from behind his closed bedroom door. A split second passes before he quickly amends, “NOT YOU, MOM,” but my mom is already trumping up the stairs, and I’m already laughing myself breathless again.
There are the familiar sounds of her feet pattering down the hall, Mason’s door squeaking open, and my brother grunting while my mom smacks the crap out of him. The whole thing is punctuated by Kale’s socked feet thudding past Mason’s room to get to the bathroom, because he’s laughing too hard to keep the blood from spurting from his nose. Bryce continues rubbing the sleep from his eyes like all of this is normal—because it is, and the tears that wet the corners of my eyes are only partly from laughing so hard.
It feels good to be home . . . safe—bloody noses and all.
“Kit,” my mom says after she nudges Bryce out of my doorway. She crosses the distance to my bed and wraps me in her arms. “You’re in so much trouble, young lady.” She rubs her hand up and down my spine before pulling away and capturing my chin in her hand. She turns my face from side to side to side. “What have you been eating? Have you lost weight? You look like you’ve lost weight . . . ”
“Kale kicked me in the face,” I snitch, and she huffs at me.
“Come downstairs so I can feed you something.” She pats Bryce on the shoulder before she leaves my room, and from the hallway, she scolds Kale. “Don’t kick your sister in the face.”
“She broke my nose!” Kale shouts after her as her footsteps clack against the stairs.
“You probably deserved it!”
“KALE, YELL ONE MORE TIME AND YOUR NOSE IS GOING TO GET BUSTED FOR REAL,” Mason bellows from his room, and this time, Kale and I both shut up. But when Bryce winks at me and disappears, I know nothing good is about to happen.
Bryce becomes a drummer as feverish as Mike as he pounds bloody murder against Mason’s freshly closed door, and he gets a nasty case of karma when he slips on the hardwood while trying to escape down the stairs. Mason is on him two seconds later, and by the time Kale and I descend the stairs to get to the breakfast my mom is setting on the table, Bryce is nothing but a groaning, battered heap on the floor. We gingerly step over him and take the seats we’ve had since we were old enough not to use high chairs.
The morning is filled with my mom’s own personal brand of interrogation, which I’m guessing is where my brothers learned it. Why’d I lie about the band I was in? Because I knew my brothers would overreact. Why didn’t I tell anyone about the tour? Because I knew my brothers would overreact. Why didn’t I tell her about the tour? . . . Because I’m a bad daughter, I’m sorry.
Did I meet anyone special while I was away? Are any of the boys in the band cute? Do I like any of them?
No. No. Not in a million years.
I lie by the skin of my teeth, and if she can tell, she doesn’t say anything. My brothers provide commentary after every question and answer, and eventually, my dad puts his daily paper down and tells everyone to let me eat in peace.
“Did you at least have fun, Kitten?” he asks, and I force a smile at him that eventually becomes genuine.