“Sleep. You don’t need any beauty sleep. You’re beautiful enough already.”
“Now see, if you’d just said something like that yesterday, we wouldn’t have had to argue.”
“Yeah, yeah. Nag.”
“I think they’re gone.” I listened to the quiet blanketing the outside.
“Nope. I see their little red bodies.”
“What are they doing?”
“Just standing in the middle of the yard, looking in your kitchen window. Wait… who’s at your house?” he asked slowly.
“Chay—”
He hung up on me.
Damn it!
I dialed him back and was booted straight to voice mail. He was denying my calls—and he said I was childish?
“Wait for the beep.” His digitized voice rang through the line.
“Chay, it isn’t what it looks like. Geez, that sounds so trite, but it’s true. I didn’t know he was coming over. I don’t even know why he’s here. I haven’t gone downstairs.” I sighed. “Call me back. Please.”
I waited ten minutes for the phone to ring. I wanted to scream when it didn’t. If I hadn’t been hiding from Xavier and my father, I may have.
“Milayna,” my dad called.
Oh, no. If Chay is still looking, he’s gonna see me downstairs in the same room with Xavier. That ought to make his day.
“What?”
“Can you come downstairs, please?”
“Um.” I licked my lips and stared at the phone in my hand. “Coming.” I blew a strand of hair out of my eyes and walked slowly down the stairs. “Yeah, Dad?”
“I have someone I’d like you to meet. Milayna, this is—”
“Xavier. Yeah, we know each other,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“Milayna! That’s no way to speak to a guest,” my mother scolded.
“Sorry. What are you doing here, Xavier?” I asked in a little nicer tone. Not much, but some.
“We need to talk.” My dad pulled out a kitchen chair. It scraped against the wood floor, and I cringed. He motioned for me to sit.
I dropped into the chair and folded my arms across my chest. Whatever they had to say, I didn’t want to hear.
I want to go back upstairs and call Chay. Better yet, I want to run into the backyard, jump the fence, and keep running until I get to his house so I can look him in the eye and tell him I didn’t know Xavier was coming over.
My dad steepled his fingers and rested his chin on his thumbs. “Xavier is part of the family,” he said.
“What, like a stepbrother? A cousin? I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”
“Not that family.” My dad raised a bushy eyebrow at me. He really should’ve thought about getting those things waxed.
“A demi-angel.” I nodded. It made sense now. Demis were drawn to one another. That was why Xavier sat with the group every day at lunch.
“Well, you’re half right,” Xavier said with a smile. “I’m an angel.”
I laughed. When my parents and Xavier stared at me, it made me laugh harder. “Yeah, okay,” I said between fits of laughter.
“It’s true. Xavier is an angel who’s decided to live life out on earth,” my dad said patiently.
“So you two are like, what, homies from back in the day?” I looked between the two and started laughing again.
“Something like that,” Xavier said, his lips twitching with the hint of a smile.
I laughed so hard my stomach started to hurt. Pulling my knees up to my chest, I looped my arms around them. I laid my cheek on my knees and looked out the window, taking large gulps of air to control my laughter.
As soon as I turned and looked at Xavier and my dad, I started to laugh again. I laughed so hard I snorted. I slapped my hand over my mouth.
“Why didn’t you tell me before now? You’ve been hanging around enough. You’ve had plenty of opportunities.”
“I asked Xavier not to introduce himself to you until we were able to sit down and discuss things.” My dad gave Xavier a pointed look.
“The school is the reason we were thrust together. I didn’t ask the principal to have Milayna show me around. Besides, once we’d met, I didn’t see the need to stay away.” Xavier looked at me.
“Didn’t see the need to tell the truth either,” I grumbled, earning a stern look from my not-so-angelic father. “I still don’t know what this has to do with me. So you’re an angel, big deal. So is my dad, Chay’s dad, Jen’s mother, Muriel’s dad, and Drew’s mother. Oh, and I almost forgot. My grandma is an angel, too. So it’s not like this is something new to me. Angels are everywhere in my world. What’s so special about one more?”
“Because I came to earth for you.”
***