Page 59 of Not On Your Life

“Don’t tell me I’m okay.” My words are meant to be snarky, like usual, but they lack their customary bite.

He leans closer until his face hovers mere inches above my own. My fingers itch to run through his messy hair and see if it’s as thick as it looks.

“What would you like me to tell you?” His deep voice sends signals of awareness through my body.

All guards on high alert, Connor is in dangerous territory. Retreat. Retreat.

My lips part. They are not retreating. They seem to be waiting. His gaze drops to my mouth, and my eyes follow suit. He has nice lips. It’s a shame they are nearly covered by his beard. I wonder what that scruff would feel like against my lips, against my neck.

“That was awesome! Do it again, Aunt Maddie!” A pair of Spider-Man shoes charge straight for my head. Connor pulls back, and I jerk upright before I get another shoe to the face.

“No!” I say to Crew while accepting Connor’s hand.

“It was so funny! My egg thought so, too.” He says, bouncing on the mat.

I freeze, sure that I must have heard him wrong. How much damage did Connor’s big feet do to my brain? “Egg?”

“Yeah,” Crew says, proudly holding the egg out in front of him. “He’s my new little buddy.”

It’s not big enough to be a chicken egg. But it’s bigger than any bird egg I’ve ever seen. Is that what he found in the park during one of the three hundred times he ran away from me? That must be the surprise for his mom.

“Crew, can I see the egg?” I say, slowly taking a step toward him. I move with the steadiness of a bomb squad. One wrong move and everything goes up in yolk.

“No.” Crew yanks his hand out of my reach. “I named him my little spidey guy.”

“That’s so cool, buddy. Where’d you get it?” Connor asks, and out of the corner of my eye I notice he, too, is trying to get closer to the egg from the opposite direction. We are both less than two feet from him and closing in.

“At the park.” Crew shakes it, and my heart stops momentarily. “I’m going to take it home for my mommy, and then we can have a pet bird.”

Oh please don’t let there be a baby bird in there. I don’t have the stomach for that.

“I love birds. Could I take a look? I might know what kind of bird it will be,” Connor tries.

“I know what kind of bird it will be,” Crew says confidently, pulling the egg close to his body. “A spidey bird.”

It was worth a shot.

“Crew, let Connor see it. It might be a snake egg. Your mom wouldn’t like a baby snake.”

His eyes widen. “I would!”

Right, I forgot who I was talking to here.

Connor takes a giant step closer. “What if I—”

“Crew?” a deep voice pierces through the gym.

The sound startles Crew, and he squeezes the hand wrapped around the egg.

Bright yellow yolk shoots out in every direction. A glob of goo slaps my neck and drips down the front of my tank top. I’m too afraid to move as the yolk slowly slides into uncomfortable places.

Conner’s entire front is plastered while Crew seems to have remained mostly unscathed.

At least there wasn’t a baby bird in there. But I almost wish there was.

“What happened?” Ward joins our party of three, all covered in egg.

And then Crew screams, and when this kid cries, it doesn’t matter if I’ve hidden us in the corner of the gym or if we were alone on top of a mountain.