Karen is back with the crackers. “Eat,” she says, placing them in my hand.
Holder stands up and says goodbye to Karen, then turns back to me. “Take care of yourself. I’ll see you in the morning?”
I nod and watch him as he turns to leave. I can’t tear my eyes away from the front door after it shuts behind him. I’m losing it. I’ve completely lost any form of self-control. So this is what Six loves? This is lust?
I hate it. I absolutely, positively hate this beautiful, magical feeling.
“He was so nice,” Karen says. “And handsome.” She turns to face me. “You don’t know him?”
I shrug. “I know of him,” I say. And that’s all I say. If she only knew what kind of hopeless boy she just assigned as my “running partner,” she’d have a conniption. The less she knows about Dean Holder, the better it’ll be for both of us.
“What the hell happened to your face?” Jack drops my chin and walks past me to the refrigerator.
Jack has been a fixture in Karen’s life for about a year and a half now. He has dinner with us a few nights a week, and since tonight is Six’s going away dinner, he’s gracing us with his presence. As much as he likes to give Six a hard time, I know he’ll miss her, too.
“I kicked the road’s ass today,” I reply.
He laughs. “So that’s what happened to the road.”
Six grabs a slice of bread and opens a jar of Nutella. I grab my plate and fill it with Karen’s latest vegan concoction. Karen’s cooking is an acquired taste, one that Six still hasn’t acquired after four years. Jack, on the other hand, is Karen’s twin incarnate, so he doesn’t mind the cooking. Tonight’s menu consists of something I can’t even pronounce, but it’s completely animal-product free, like it always is. Karen doesn’t force me to eat vegan, so unless I’m home, I usually eat what I want.
Everything Six eats is only eaten to compliment her main course of Nutella. Tonight, she’s having a cheese and Nutella sandwich. I don’t know if I could ever acquire a taste for that.
“So, when are you moving in?” I ask Jack. He and Karen have been discussing the next step, but they can never seem to get past the hump of her strict anti-technology rule. Well, Jack can’t get past it. It’s not a hump that will ever be scaled by Karen.
“Whenever your mom caves and gets ESPN,” Jack says.
They don’t argue about it. I think their arrangement is fine with both of them, so neither of them is in a hurry to sacrifice their opposing views on modern technology.
“Sky passed out in the road today,” Karen says, changing the subject. “Some adorable man-boy carried her inside.”
I laugh. “Guy, Mom. Please just say guy.”
Six glares at me from across the table and it occurs to me that I haven’t filled her in on my afternoon run. I also haven’t filled her in on my first day of school. It’s been an active day today. I wonder who I’m going to fill in after she leaves tomorrow? Just the thought of her being on the other side of the world in two days fills me with dread. I hope Breckin can fill her shoes. Well, he would probably love to fill her shoes. Literally. But I’m hoping he does so in the figurative sense.
“You okay?” Jack asks. “It must have been a pretty good fall to get that shiner.”
I reach up to my eye and grimace. I’d completely forgotten about the black eye. “That’s not from fainting. Six elbowed me. Twice.”
I expect one of them to at least ask Six why she attacked me, but they don’t. This just goes to show how much they love her. They wouldn’t even care if she beat me up, they’d tell me I probably deserved it.
“Doesn’t that annoy you, having a number for a name?” Jack asks her. “I never understood that. It’s like when a parent names their child after one of the days of the week.” He pauses with his fork mid-air and looks at Karen. “When we have a baby, we aren’t doing that to them. Anything you can find on a calendar is off limits.”
Karen stares at him with a stone cold expression. If I had to guess by her reaction, this is the first time Jack has mentioned babies. If I had to guess based on the look on her face, babies aren’t something she’s anticipating in her future. Ever.
Jack refocuses his attention back to Six. “Isn’t your real name like Seven or Thirteen or something like that? I don’t get why you picked Six. It’s possibly the worst number you could pick.”