“I knew you would.” I practically groaned at my knee-jerk flirtation. Maybe Brian’s helicopter mom was right, and I had some kind of commitment disorder. Once boys bit, I fled. I asked the waiter manning the register, “How’s the brioche French toast?” After he described the rich thick slice of fluffy bread dipped in vanilla-infused eggs, I groaned. “That sounds incredible.”
The man’s expression communicated all too clearly: So do you. If I so much as batted my eyes, he’d slip his phone number to me on the receipt. I lowered my gaze, glad that I could break the moment by insisting on paying for breakfast over Quattro’s objections. “Fine,” I said, “you can pick up my coffee.”
“So guys pretty much fall all over themselves around you, don’t they?” Quattro said as soon as we snagged the only open table, back in the dim corner. His eyes danced in amusement. I shrugged, lifted my coffee mug, then smirked at him over the top. He grinned at me and said, “Got it. You’re the Genghis Khan of heartbreakers.”
My eyes darted over to Reb, who was so busy drawing in her journal, she might as well have been in Peru already, which called into serious doubt not only her surveillance skills but her chaperoning ones, too. So much for Mission: Extraction.
“Not anymore.” Time to self-police and keep this conversation on the friendship track. “I’m on a no-boy diet.”
Quattro tilted his head in the direction of the waiter who was staring at me. “Yeah, so how’s that going for you?”
“Really well.”
“That’s cool. I’m on a no-girl diet myself.”
I couldn’t help myself from asking, “Yeah, so how’s that going for you?”
“How do you think?” He shot me a roguish grin that—I hate to admit—made me feel all quivery inside, as if I wanted to be the one to make him cheat.
Fortunately, our food arrived. But after our conversation meandered to safer territory—the Bumbershoot music festival every Labor Day weekend, hiking the Enchantment Lakes—why, oh why, did I have to return to his no-girl diet?
Shana, stop.
“With the move and college,” he said, “I just don’t want drama.”
That, I understood. I wiped a stray drop of coffee off my mug. “I totally get that. You’re so lucky. I’ve got an entire year before college. That’s an eternity.”
“But then watch out, Milan.”
I raised my eyebrows. “How’d you know?”
“It’s in your blog.”
In the six weeks that Dom and I dated, I don’t think he read my blog once, though he had a ton of great suggestions about how I could build my readership. I bit my lip uncertainly, so thrown off by Quattro’s revelation I was almost glad that Reb was hurrying to our table. How’d she read my signal so quickly? But then I saw her pale face, and it didn’t matter if Quattro figured out she was my backup plan.
I asked, “Reb, what’s up?”
She blurted, “My mom just called. Your mom’s been trying to reach you. Your dad’s had an accident.”
Dad, Mr. Strong and Sturdy, in an accident? Inconceivable. I slung my messenger bag onto my lap to retrieve my phone from the front pocket.
Five missed calls. Ten texts.
Worry trickled down my spine. My parents rarely texted. I skimmed the last of Mom’s messages: Come home.
Home. I called home. No answer.
Chapter Four
Later, I wouldn’t remember how I left Oddfellows, just that Quattro placed a hand on my arm outside the café and asked me to call him at his hotel so he’d know I was okay. I remember him insisting on walking back to his hotel on his own. I had nodded distractedly before jumping into Reb’s car and dialing my parents again and finally my brothers… even Max, who I’d been avoiding since Dom.
No answer, no answer, no answer.
At my front door, I hugged Reb a hasty good-bye, then slipped inside. Immediately, I noticed there was no Mom singing off tune, no Dad listening to his rock music. They were sitting beside each other at the kitchen table, their heads bowed, holding hands, and a space as wide as sorrow separating them. The halfhearted thump of Auggie’s tail when she spied me was the only sound in the house. She lifted her large head but stayed at their feet, as though she knew my parents needed her more.
It may sound weird, but my first instinct was to document this moment. I fished out my cell phone and snapped their picture. So lost in their separate worlds, my parents didn’t even notice me.
“Hey,” I said softly after I pocketed my phone, approaching them at last.
Whatever they had been discussing had left an oily heaviness in our home. My parents sat back in their seats almost guiltily. Dad’s hand lifted to shield the bandage on his right cheek. His lip was cut and swollen.
“What happened?” I demanded, alarmed at the drops of dried blood on his T-shirt.
“Oh, Shana, you’re home,” he said, sounding disappointed. Dad’s fingers now tightened around his trusty camera. He looked dazed and disoriented.