Dennis looked at Keith with raw contempt. “Don’t talk about my sister that way.” Dennis puffed out his chest. Elly was at once flooded with pride and totally mortified.
Keith looked at Dennis with skepticism, grabbing the T-shirt bag that he had dropped on the floor. “You know, we were just fine before you arrived and scared the hell out of her and then guilted her into letting you live with her. You don’t do anything. Would it be so hard for you to wash the dishes every once in a while, or get off that damn game? Why don’t you join the real world already? Sheesh.”
A group of guys wearing Lost T-shirts started booing Keith. Elly was unexpectedly worried about Keith’s safety in this crowd.
“By the time I was your age, I was already out on my own. Get off your ass, already.”
Dennis looked like Keith had punched him in the face. Which he had done already. The two men stared at each other. Elly moved to step between them when Keith backed down. “Here, I bought you a shirt.” He threw the shirt angrily at Dennis’s face. It bounced off his nose. “I remember you said you liked Captain America.” Keith turned to Elly. “I’m leaving.”
Dennis looked confused, glancing first at Keith, and then back at Elly. She sniffed miserably, her eyes still flaming with anger. “Fine. Go ahead.”
Keith handed the keys to Dennis, who still looked at Keith with heartbreaking confusion. “I’ll call a cab. This is … not right. Not here.”
Elly defiantly lifted her chin. The crowd was dispersing, sipping giant slushies and laughing at the strange couple that had a blowout fight in the middle of a convention. Before he left, Keith turned and looked straight into Elly’s eyes for a moment, his palm brushing her chin. “Elly …,” he said pleadingly, “please don’t do this. I just need a little more time.”
Elly turned away from him. “We are done,” she whispered. Elly thanked God that she was facing away from him, otherwise, he would have seen her world falling apart, one hot tear at a time. When she turned back around, he was gone, gone in an ocean of nerds, so far from her already. She had lost him.
“Well, the good news is that I found the booth girls,” offered Dennis.
Elly sobbed into her palms. “Drive me to Kim’s house. Please.” Dennis gave a silent nod and reached in his pocket for the keys.
When they got there, alerted by Elly’s frantic texts, Kim was waiting in her massive brick doorway, Hadley cradled in her long, tan arms. As soon as he saw Elly, Hadley let out a scream of delight, wiggling his chubby little arms back and forth as he reached for her. She planted a kiss on his downy head, smelling the lavender and citrus baby soap that Kim was so fond of using. “Hi, sweetie.”
Hadley gave a happy coo to see his godmother. Kim looked over at Elly, awash in sympathy.
“This is going to be bad.” Elly let out a moan that turned into an embarrassing and very snotty sob.
Kim made a face. “Oh, honey. Here.” She hoisted Hadley into Dennis’s arms. Dennis looked terrified and appalled all at once. “Have you ever held a baby?” Dennis shook his head and tried to hand Hadley back to Kim, then Elly. Kim gave him a reassuring smile. “No, you’re fine. Don’t shake him, don’t put him in the pool, and keep most things out of his mouth. There’s food in the kitchen if you are hungry. Go.”
Dennis, holding Hadley out in front of him as though the baby were some sort of ferret, headed for the kitchen. Elly watched him walk away with a frown. “I feel like that is going to end badly for Hadley.”
Kim shrugged. “Eh, they’ll be fine. I can always have another.”
Elly tried to laugh, the hollow sound bouncing around her mouth. Kim led her out to her covered patio, a line of cracked red stone boasting the best of outdoor living: chic brown-and-green outdoor furniture, a massive grill (“The Beast”), and their pride and joy—their refreshing, deep-blue pool in the middle of the yard. Elly looked up at the wooden trellis above them, flush with pale-blue wisteria and maroon clematis snaking in and around the dark-brown beams. Did I just break up with Keith? She let out a low moan.
Kim nervously twirled her own hair. “We need wine, and lots of it.”
Elly gave the world’s most pathetic nod. An hour later, once Elly had stopped crying enough to get a few sentences out, Kim sat beside her quietly as they gently rocked on her giant wooden swing overlooking the pool. Elly remembered the last time someone had been crying on this swing—when Kim was afraid that she was a bad mother to a very new Hadley and had sobbed openly into Elly’s lap. Elly had told her how wrong she was, how she was an amazing mother, and how lucky Hadley was to have her. Perhaps this was a common theme on this porch.
“Elly, I’ll be honest, I am totally bewildered by this. You and Keith are made for each other. You’re perfect, absolutely perfect together.”
Elly shook her head, a tear dripping off the end of her nose. “Apparently not.”