“You’re the worst,” Audrey speaks up from behind me. She hooks a thumb toward Cline and shakes her head. “I should have made a t-shirt for you instead. You made your mom throw mashed potatoes at the wall, Elliot.”
Mom thrusts a kitchen rag into my hand and then composes herself. “Clean that up. Set the table. I’m going to change my clothes, and then you can introduce me to your friends. Also, I agree. You are the worst.” She hugs me again, turns around, and leaves the room.
Cline wanders over to the stove and starts touching pans. “I think you made her piss herself.”
“Shut up.” I start to laugh and then stop. What if I did?
“Earlier statement retracted. Cline still holds the title for The Worst.” Audrey heads over to the cabinets.
I have just finished cleaning up the wall when I look over and see that Audrey has set the table for the four of us. She sees me looking and shrugs.
“I’m hungry and you’re slow. I don’t want to wait any longer because that smells amazing. I figured I’d help. No big deal.” she says.
My mom reappears in different clothes, making some excuse about not wanting to smell like oil or grease, but now I’m worried I did make her pee herself, and that only means that Cline is a shithead, because scaring each other is a thing with me and my mom. She woke me up for the first day of high school dressed like Freddy Krueger with one of the knife fingers pressed to my throat, telling me if I didn’t get up she was going to turn me into a motorcycle.
Cline sucks.
Audrey and my mom have clicked and are talking up a storm while I stuff my face with as much good food as possible. Cline is watching the exchange with narrowed eyes, and I’m starting to get the feeling that maybe he’s the problem in all of this. Not her.
My mom’s a pretty open book. She’ll talk to any and every one, and her body language is always welcoming. Audrey is responding to it, leaning in like she’s stuck in her tractor beam. There’s a fleeting thought in my head that it must be nice for her to talk to a motherly figure. No wonder she feels so comfortable.
“How is your game coming along?” My mom’s attention is on me, and I chew what is in my mouth quickly to answer her.
“It’s still in the early stages, but once I have everything I need, it should be pretty easy from there.”
“That’s why I’m here. Elliot needed another character for the game, so I said he could use me.” Audrey smiles and it’s genuine.
“What’s it about again?” Mom asks before taking another bite of food.
Audrey opens her mouth to speak, but I cut her off to talk over her because I haven’t told my mom anything about the real project. I have no idea how she’ll respond to using my dad’s old journals and letters. I don’t know how it will affect her. So I say, “It’s a fantasy game like Game of Thrones meets Candy Crush, and Audrey’s character rides around on a unicorn and kills people with rainbow-colored unicorn poop cookies.”
There’s a barely muffled, “Jesus,” from where Cline has his face buried in his hands.
My mom hardly bats an eyelash. “Turn it into an app, and I bet you’ll make a million bucks.”
Lying in my old bed feels familiar and odd at the same time. It’s been this way every time I’ve come home for the last three years. Sometimes I wonder if my mom would like the extra space for a treadmill or an office, but then I’d have to sleep on the couch, and it would feel like this wasn’t my home anymore, so I let her keep everything the way it is. Sometimes we need a little bit of constant in our ever-changing lives.
My bedroom door creaks open, and I turn over to see Audrey slip through the crack and close the door again as quietly as possible. “Sorry,” she whispers. “Did I wake you?”
I sit up and reach for the light, but she waves her hand to stop me. “I wasn’t asleep. You okay?”
She’s hovering at the edge of my bed in these little shorts and a tank top, her hair pulled up into that mess on her head again. “Don’t be weird, but can I get in with you? Is it against house rules to have a girl in your room?”
“Isn’t your whole ‘thing’ —your whole existence—about breaking the rules?” I ask and pull back the covers to invite her in.
She slips between the sheets and rests her cheek on my pillow, so I turn and mirror her position, looking at her face in the muted moonlight of my pre-teen bedroom. This girl is really pretty, but she’s full of so many secrets. Her eyes search mine for a moment before she inhales deeply.
“I’m working on that. I promise.”
“Okay.”
Her body heat quickly warms up the space between us, and the bed becomes toasty under the covers. I fold the comforter down a few inches, and she smiles up at me as she adjusts her hands under the pillow.
“How many girls have you let sleep in this bed with you?”
Eyes wide, I lean back and feign insult. “None. I would never.”
“Liar.”
“Fine,” I concede in a whisper. “I’ve had exactly ninety-nine, so I was really hoping you’d come in here tonight so I could round out my number.”