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“I did, and it’s right, oh…” He pretends to point somewhere on his body and then playfully punches his sister in the arm. “How’s field hockey?”
The door in the front shuts, and his father calls out for everyone to take a seat. Without having to stand there looking awkward, Zaiah takes my shoulders and steers me toward the white leather couch opposite his sister.
“Buckle up,” he whispers. “My father’s a terrible driver.”
“I heard that, and just for the hecklers in the back, I’ll hit two curbs.”
Zaiah’s mom rolls her eyes and sits next to Izzy. They reach for their seat belts, so I do the same. Zaiah’s body is so huge that we’re practically touching. When we’re all settled, he lifts his brows at his sister again. “Well?”
“I scored the game winning goal yesterday.”
He raises his hand, and they give each other a long-distance high-five.
“Mom recorded it so you could see.”
“Hopefully, I don’t have a seizure from watching it.” He mimics someone trying to record something on their phone, only the phone rises up and down haphazardly in front of him.
“I was celebrating!” his mom admonishes with a sly smile. She turns toward me. “I hope you treat your parents with more respect than mine do.”
It’s obvious she’s joking, so I laugh along with everyone else. Hell, I wish my family was this cool. It’s just my father and me, and even if I had played a sport, I doubt he would’ve been there, phone in hand to immortalize it. “Alas, I’m not much of an athlete.”
Izzy stares at me, twisting her head. “Not enough people say alas anymore.”
“Izzy,” Zaiah rebuffs.
“No, I mean it. It’s such an old-timey word. Makes you sound smart.”
“Lenore is smart.” He bumps me with his shoulder.
“More like a nerd,” I admit.
He leans down to whisper in my ear conspiratorially, but he says it loud enough for everyone to hear. “It’s okay. Izzy’s reformed. You could be, too.”
The motorhome jolts, and I reach out my hands to brace myself. One of them lands on Zaiah’s large thigh.Jesus. His sister was right. Is he constructed of muscle?
His dad shouts, “Curb number one!”
Zaiah places his hand on top of mine. “I was kidding about the driving, by the way. He’s actually really good at it, but this thing is so dang big, the campus streets aren’t set up to accommodate it.”
Relaxing a little, I take a peek outside the windows. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“Zaiah enjoys getting off campus when we come down.” His mom peers at him as if he hung the sun and the moon. “We’ll be heading to a campsite on the lake. Hope you like to eat.”
Zaiah turns to smile at me. “My mom’s hobby is cooking and baking. My dad’s hobby is buying expensive toys.”
His mother shrugs as if he’s done an excellent job summing them up.
I glance around, still taking everything in. This isn’t anything like I thought it would be. The few times my dad came to visit, we ended up at one of the fancier restaurants in town and sat around and made the obligatory, strained small talk until we could call it a day, saying we tried when we really hadn’t.
It doesn’t help that he and I disagree about the next step in my life, which is coming sooner rather than later. Despite all my previous objections to his plan, I’m sure it’ll come as a shock to him when I don’t go running home after graduation.
Zaiah hits me with his elbow. “Lenore is a reporter for the school paper.”
His mom and sister look at me expectantly, like I missed a crucial part of the conversation. “Yeah, sorry. I’m a reporter. That’s what I want to do when I graduate in the spring.”
“No wonder you used the wordalas.”
I lift my shoulders. “Comes with the territory, I guess.”