Page 70 of Take Me Home

“Oh my God,” one of the girls said, her hand pressing over the acronym on her T-shirt. “Hazel?”

Hazel’s phone fell with a clunk onto the table as the voice and face clicked together. Her braces were off now, that adorably crooked front tooth pulled into alignment, and her hair, once kept in sectioned twists with plastic barrettes on the ends, curled tightly in a mature pixie cut. “Amaya?”

Amaya squeezed between the tables and threw her arms around Hazel. The embrace was tight and long, and when Amaya pulled back to explain to the other student, “Hazel was my Big when I was a Little,” pressure pricked at Hazel’s eyes.

“You’re a Big now?” she asked, her voice tight.

“President, too.” Amaya tapped an enamel pin on her shirt.

“That’s amazing.”

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Amaya said. “My mama just left. She’ll flip when I tell her.”

“She’s home?” Hazel asked.

“Three years now.”

“That’s amazing,” Hazel repeated, prevented from saying more by the lump rising in her throat. Her smile was so huge her cheeks hurt. Pride overwhelmed her at the young, confident woman before her, though pride maybe implied a personal contribution to her development, and all Hazel had ever done wascrawl under a picnic table with the timid little girl and draw pictures in the dirt with her.

She pulled out her wallet. “Let me get an ornament.”

—

Boosted by seeing Amaya and hearing all about her college plans, Hazel tried harder to put in a real effort, smiling and playing all the carnival games with her dad and his family. It wasn’t terrible. But by the time Ash turned up, she had a stomachache from eating too much caramel corn, a headache, and a questionable fruitcake from the cakewalk, the one game she’d won. Ash scuffed toward her, hands in his jacket pockets, head bent.

He’d left the rest of his family by the ticket booth, his father in a wheelchair, his nieces tugging Maggie in two different directions. Hazel gestured to him to stop. She wanted to say hello to his family. But he shook his head, kept walking, and his family peeled off in the opposite direction.

“Hey.” He eyed her cake dubiously. He didn’t take his hands out of his pockets, didn’t lift his gaze to hers. Though she’d rallied and made the most of the morning without him, his subdued greeting reminded her that he’d stood her up for two hours. And he didn’t look particularly excited to be here now.

“Hey,” she said back.

“That looks gross.”

“I won it.”

“You sure you won?” His grin faltered, and the quip fell flat.

An awkward silence stretched between them. She’d expected him to immediately explain, to apologize for something that, admittedly, wasn’t that huge of a transgression. She trusted he had a good reason for being late. But he didn’t explain. He just stood there. The irritation she’d quelled earlier reared its head.

“We could have gone with your family.”

Her father, Val, and her kids were two carnival booths down, attempting to topple snowman cans with softballs. Ash moved to close the gap. “Nah, I need a break from them for a bit.”

“Why? Your dad’s in a wheelchair. Did something—”

“It’s a lot of walking. Chair’s easier. Come on.” He nudged her toward her father.

Dark circles marred the skin under his eyes. His shoulders were tense. She’d seen him tired at the café when, at the start of an evening shift, he’d move his laptop to the other side of the counter and keep working during lulls. But even at his most stressed, when he pulled his attention from his work to bug her, refill her coffee, take her sandwich plate, a playful spark usually glinted in his eyes. She’d chalked it up to him taking pleasure in annoying her. The spark wasn’t there now.

She grabbed his arm. “Are you okay?”

He laughed, but it sounded hollow. “You’re stalling.”

She hadn’t been. Not this time.

The tendril of concern that had begun to stretch toward him doubled back on itself. By the time they reached the snowman game, her defensive hackles were back up. Had she seriously asked ifhewas okay? If anyone had a right to be closed off, it washer.

She grabbed his arm again just before they joined her father.