“You’re not mad?”
I grab an apple from a nearby fruit bowl and lean against a counter as I crunch into it. “Have you seen Sawyer Reed?”
“No, not since yester—”
I cut her off with a headshake. “I mean have you seen himever.Like, looked at his face. His very nice face.”
Her lips twitch. “I have.”
“Imagine you spent a whole summer making out with Sawyer Reed. And you break up at the end of the summer. And you don’t talk for ten years. Nine,” I correct myself. “Then he shows up and says he’s arranged an extremely complicated plan to get you here and wants to spend the next few days with you. All day. You following me?”
She sets the bowl aside, whisk forgotten, and fans herself, and I don’t think she even realizes it.
I point to her fan hand. “Exactly. Would you be mad?”
She stops fanning. “I guess I wouldn’t be.”
I nod and take another bite of apple, point made. We drift into our first comfortable silence as she whisks again.
“Mind if I steal rations to make the Mendozas breakfast?” I ask when I’m done with the apple.
“Not at all.”
I take what I need and walk up to Ben and Natalie’s house.
“Knock knock,” I call, opening the door. Natalie’s sitting in a rocking chair, Juniper on her lap, playing with the lapels of Natalie’s fuzzy bathrobe.
“Hey,” she says, smiling at me. It’s a slightly nervous smile. “What are you doing here?”
I set my bag of goodies on the counter and plop down on the sofa across from her. “You went along with Dumb and Dumber’s plan because Sawyer told you he wanted to apologize?”
She sighs. “I know you’ve needed closure all these years. The plan was to use our fire ceremony Monday night to help you work through any memories this place was bringing up for you. Like exposure therapy for anxiety patients. Let you process, throw it all away in the fire, then see how you felt about seeing Sawyer face to face. I was going to come over last night and talk to you about it.”
She leans forward, her face serious. “But you have to believe me, I was never going to spring him on you if you weren’t open to it. And I definitely had no idea he wanted a do-over.” She covers Juniper’s ears and calls Sawyer a rude name.
“Dumesh,” Juniper repeats.
“Good job,” I tell her. “That’s delightful.”
“Dumesh, dumesh, dumesh.”
Natalie glares at me. “Junebug, let’s not say that word.”
Juniper bounces on her mom’s lap. “DUMESH DUMESH DUMESH.”
Natalie groans and reaches for a well-loved stuffie. “Mommy is the dumesh,” she says, handing Juniper the toy.
“Nat, don’t worry about it. I know you’re always looking out for me.”
“I am. One hundred percent. So…on that note, how are you feeling? Things go okay last night?”
I consider my answer. “I need to cook while I think. You in the mood for breakfast?”
“If it’s served in anything besides a sinking canoe, then yes.”
“You deserved it,” I retort, already going through her fridge.
“Fair.”
