“Just meet us at the house,” Charlie said as she started walking again.
“Wait!” I yelled. I jogged over to the truck as Draco laughed and opened the door to let me in. “Just take my bag,” I said, dropping it onto his lap.
Draco let out a startled oomph. “Jesus, what do you have in here?”
“Books,” I said happily as I jogged toward Charlie at least twenty pounds lighter. “Thank you!”
“You’re so lazy,” Charlie said, laughing as she shook her head.
Five minutes later, the four of us were stomping into my house like a herd of elephants.
“I’m home,” I called, walking through the living room to check the kitchen.
“Where’s Rose?” Charlie asked, dropping her stuff inside the front door.
“No idea,” I muttered with a shrug. “But she’s not here. If Brody was napping, there would’ve been a sock on the door.”
“She puts a sock on the door?” Draco asked with a laugh.
“That’s the signal to be quiet,” I said dryly. “She said she’s preparing me for college.”
“Bet your dad loved that,” Curt said, setting my backpack down gently on the couch.
“He laughed,” I replied. “Then he said if he ever finds a sock on my dorm room door, I better be ready for a bloodbath.”
“Sounds about right,” Curt agreed with a grimace.
We all dropped onto various seats in the living room and got comfortable.
“Hey, we’re watching Carrie the night before prom,” Charlie announced. “And then Sunday we’re riding.”
“Are those the terms for her to agree to going?” Draco asked me.
“Some of them,” I replied, rolling my eyes.
“Sounds good to me,” Curt said, stretching his arms above his head.
I deliberately kept my eyes on his face instead of the sliver of skin I knew would be showing at his waist.
“You wanna use the track or go out in the woods?” Curt asked Charlie.
“Probably the track, don’t you think?” she asked, kicking off her shoes and stretching out on the couch so that her feet rested in my lap. “It’ll probably rain next week, so we won’t be eating fistfuls of dust.”
“Plus, if Kara gets hurt, we’ll be closer to the hospital,” Draco joked.
He laughed as I threw a throw pillow at his head. “It isn’t always me that gets hurt.”
“Yes, it is,” three of my best friends replied in unison.
“And Reb can come to the track,” Curtis said easily.
“If she even wants to,” I replied. “I swear, she worries more than my parents when we’re riding. I have no idea why she likes to watch us.”
“Because she likes riding with me and Curt,” Draco said, grinning.
“I thought she was going to shit herself last time,” Charlie replied. “Don’t go so fast.”
“She loved it!”
“She told you she loved it,” Charlie said, shaking her head. “You didn’t see her face. She was fucking terrified.”
“Oh, shit,” Draco mumbled. “Whoops.”
“Maybe Will can bring her bike out so she can ride,” Curtis said.
It was a good idea. Reb loved to ride and she loved to watch us ride—but her parents, my uncle Will and Aunt Molly, didn’t allow her to ride on her own when they weren’t there. I understood it—it got pretty sketchy sometimes and honestly, I didn’t want to be responsible for making sure she didn’t get hurt.
“Let’s ride for a couple hours before they get there,” Charlie said, her eyes closed. “That way, Will isn’t up our asses the whole time.”
“Good call,” Draco agreed.
“So, when are you guys buying the tickets for prom?” I asked after it had been quiet for a minute. “Do you want to go halves, or—”
“I’m not paying for half!” Charlie griped, poking me in the stomach with her toes. “Why would you even offer, you lunatic? We’re doing them a damn favor.”
“I’m impressed you made it this long without bringing up the dance,” Curtis said at the same time. He was grinning.
“We’ll buy the tickets,” Draco said, looking at me like I’d lost my mind.
“What? It’s not like it’s a date!”
“We’re still paying,” he replied firmly.
“Fine,” I huffed.
“And we’re paying for dinner, too,” Curt said, crossing his arms over his chest.
Charlie groaned, but I lit up. “We’re going to dinner?” I asked, trying and failing to seem nonchalant about the whole thing.
“Of course we’re going to dinner,” Draco said dubiously. “It’s prom.”
“We’re going to dinner,” I said to Charlie, squeezing her feet in my hands.
“Yippee,” she said unenthusiastically.
“Stop it,” I ordered, pulling hard on one of her toes until she yelped and yanked her feet from my lap.
“Fine, it’ll be fun,” she said in exasperation as she sat up. “But we do need to figure out one important detail.”
“What’s that?” Draco asked in amusement.
Charlie’s lips twitched. “Which one of you is taking your aunt to prom, and which one of you is taking the stacked underclassman with hair down to her waist?”
My eyes bulged out of my head when both boys yelled, “Dibs!”
As the three of them laughed, I stared at them.
“Wait, dibs for who?” I said in confusion, making them laugh even harder. “Dibs for who? Me or Charlie?”
Chapter 3
Farrah
Present
“You know, I try not to overstep,” I said as I poured chocolate pudding into a pie tin.
“Uh, huh,” my best friend Callie muttered mockingly across the kitchen.
“But I really wish I’d gone with them today,” I finished, ignoring her.
“You did the right thing staying home,” she told me, pulling a pie out of the industrial oven and putting a different one in. “They need some space.”
“If I wasn’t going over to Cam’s tonight, I probably would have gone.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” she said, rubbing my back lightly as she moved around me. “You might be a huge pain in the neck, but you know when to take a step back.”
I nodded.
“I mean, your radar is a little off, so you don’t always take a step back when other people would—”
“Shut it,” I shot back, making her chuckle.
“How’s Charlie doing? She excited?” Callie asked, a little out of breath as she kneaded dough on the island beside me.
“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. Honestly, it was kind of hard to read my youngest daughter. She was a mix of me and her dad and both of her sisters put together. She was wild like Cecilia and tenderhearted like Lily—even if she refused to show it, like me—and she was street smart, just like her dad. A mix of contradictions, that one.
“I can’t believe it’s been almost four years,” Callie said. “It feels like just yesterday.”