“Hi, Sara,” Levi says.
“We were discussing why you would text me about it,” I tell her. “I have no idea. Have I ever mentioned wanting to kiss Levi?”
“No.”
“Told you.” I shoot him a brief triumphant glance.
“You don’t need to though,” she says.
I roll my eyes. “Thank you for giving me permission to not want to kiss Levi.”
“No, I mean you don’t have to say anything. It’s written all over your face.”
Levi snorts as I gasp. “It is not.”
“Bothyour faces,” she adds.
Levi’s smirk disappears as I give a loud, accusatory, “Ha!”
“Bye, Sara.” He disconnects the call.
“See?” I say. “She makes stuff up.”
He makes a noncommittal noise exactly like my mom makes when I swear I’m getting enough sleep.
“You don’t have to believe me,” I tell him. “It doesn’t change the truth.”
“Wouldn’t think it did.” He scrolls through my phone. “I’m snooping on your audiobooks to see if your taste is still as bad as ever. This is, like, eighty percent celebrity memoirs.”
“I have a lot of parasocial relationships.”
“Okay, weirdo. We’re not listening to any of these.”
“Let me guess. Dead president biography?”
“Wow, it’s like you’ve known me my whole life,” he says. “How about a curveball and we listen to one abouttwodead presidents?”
“Sounds riveting.” My tone is dry as the windshield that has none of the snow our mothers were freaking out about. But the truth is, I liked it when he made me listen to presidential biographies when we’d drive home from DC for long weekends.
In Creekville, November and a lot of December are mud season, but we still have a fair amount of green. By the time we’ve gone an hour north, even with lots of evergreens along the roadside, it’s becoming brown and gray. But it’s okay because Levi’s pick is about Teddy Roosevelt and Taft, and even though I tease him about choosing it to rub in that he has a presidential last name, any story about Teddy Roosevelt is an interesting story.
That’s good because Levi and I both know this part of the drive well. His family has a cabin a couple of hours out of Creekville, up in a West Virginia resort area, and they’ve invited our family up for all kinds of things over the years. We’ll pass the turnoff for the cabin soon, and after that I won’t know the route as well, but it’s not complicated, based on the directions. It’s more or less one highway until we get to the outskirts of Mr. Earl’s town, which isn’t actually Morgantown. It’s an even smaller town called Bruceton Mills.
Another hour north, and the sky has grown darker than I would expect, even for late afternoon.
“Do you have enough signal to check the weather?” I ask Levi.
Before he can, an incoming call from my mom shows on the screen.
“Honey, are you in the snow yet?” she asks, her voice anxious. She’s on speaker, and I wonder how many parents are listening.
“No, Mom. We’ve still got a few hours before we have to worry about it.” I hope I’m telling the truth as I study the sky.
“You don’t,” my dad says. “The storm is moving faster than expected. I’m not sure you can beat it to Morgantown.”
“Go to the cabin,” Mrs. Taft says.
“Mom, we’ll be fine,” Levi says.
