“Okay,” I whisper back, just before his lips brush mine. For a few perfect minutes, I don’t think about anything except him.
Then a persistent voice reaches my ears. “Mateo!” Ms. Reyes calls. For about the third time, from the sound of her.
I sit up instantly, smoothing my hair and looking anxiously toward the door. Ms. Reyes has that effect on me. Even though she’s told me a half dozen times that she forgives me for Spare Me, and she’s more than happy in her new job, I haven’t shaken my guilt.
“What?” Mateo yells back. His hands are still on my hips, ready to pull me back as soon as he deals with his mother.
“Your father is here.”
“He is?” This time, Mateo loosens his grip. “Why?”
“I’m coming up,” Ms. Reyes says, because she’s awesome like that. Always plenty of warning. By the time she appears in Mateo’s doorway, he’s leaning back against his headboard on a smoothed-out comforter, and I’m sitting at the edge of his desk chair.
“Hi, Ivy,” Ms. Reyes says kindly.
“Hello. We were doing homework,” I say, despite the fact that a） it’s Saturday and b） nobody asked.
Mateo sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. “Why is Dad here?”
“He wants to take you out to lunch,” Ms. Reyes says.
Mateo stiffens, a muscle jumping in his cheek. He’s slowly warming up to his father being around more often, but he still gets annoyed any time he perceives Mr. Wojcik as pushing for more than Mateo is prepared to give. “Tell him he should take Autumn,” he says. “Ivy and I have plans.”
“Autumn is at the shelter,” Ms. Reyes says. Autumn volunteers at the homeless shelter almost full-time these days, and she’s looking into getting a degree in social work now that it seems likely that she’ll end up with a lengthy probation period instead of jail time. “And I’m sure your father won’t mind if Ivy comes along.”
“Why should Ivy have to suffer, though?” Mateo grumbles, looking so grouchy that I want to fling myself onto his lap and kiss the expression away. Although I generally feel that way no matter how he looks.
“I don’t mind,” I volunteer. It’s true; I like Mr. Wojcik. He’s friendly, if a little try-hard and goofy, and I have zero crushing guilt in his presence.
“Thank you, Ivy,” Ms. Reyes says, giving me a smile before turning back to her son. “It seems important to him, baby, so I think you should go.”
And that does it. Mateo can’t say no to his mother any more than I can.
“All right, fine,” he sighs. We follow Ms. Reyes downstairs, where Mr. Wojcik is waiting by the front door, his ever-present scally cap in hand. He’s handsome in a different way from Mateo, with dark auburn hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and bright green eyes. I expect them to crinkle in welcome when he sees me, like usual, but instead he looks mildly alarmed. Which only gets worse when Mateo announces, “Ivy’s coming.”
“Oh.” Mr. Wojcik twists his cap in his hands. “Oh, I didn’t…well. This changes, um. Huh. I’m sorry, Ivy, I didn’t realize you were here. So, hello.”
“Hi?” I say uncertainly. That was a little hard to follow.
“Maybe we should do this another…” Mr. Wojcik trails off, then gives himself a little shake, like he’s gathering his courage for something. “No, you know what? This is good. Why not, right? Has to happen eventually. This is fine. Glad to have you along, Ivy.”
“Okay?” I say in the same unsure tone. Mateo rolls his eyes while grabbing both of our coats out of the hall closet. He seems to think Mr. Wojcik’s odd stammering is just his dad being annoying, per usual, but it feels different to me.
“Try giving him some notice next time, okay, Darren?” Ms. Reyes murmurs in an aside to her ex-husband as we head out the door.
It’s a crisp, sunny day in late November, the last of the fall leaves still clinging to their branches. Almost two months have passed since Boney died, and things are—sort of normal? Better, mostly, than they were those first few days afterward. Boney was laid to rest, and his funeral was so packed that people had to stand on the sidewalk. I said my last goodbye to him at his graveside, alone, with a final, silent apology. And a promise that I’d never be as petty with anyone else as I was about him the day he died.
I scroll through Instagram once I’ve buckled myself into the back seat, smiling at a picture of Cal and Ishaan Mittal mugging with some Marvel superhero at a comic festival at the Hynes Convention Center. “I love that Cal and Ishaan are, like, best friends now,” I say, holding my phone out to Mateo so he can look. For a while, I thought Ishaan was only being nice to Cal to get him on the show, but it turns out they like a lot of the same stuff.