Page 69 of One Last Time

In a meeting. What’s up?

Shit. If Dad hadn’t picked him up…

No, I didn’t need to panic yet. I ignored my dad’s text and jammed the keys into the ignition. I stalled the car twice before managing to pull out of the parking lot. Maybe Brad had just gotten a ride home with a buddy. Maybe one of the parents picking their kids up from camp had seen him waiting around and taken him back home.

My fear only grew the closer I got to the house, though, because Brad never disappeared like this. And sure, maybe he was old enough to look after himself by now, but he was still just a kid. He was my little brother. He was my responsibility. I was supposed to take care of him. And if he’d gone missing…

I parked the car haphazardly, throwing myself out of it and at our front door. It gave way, not even locked, and my blood froze before—

“Oh, thank God!” I panted, snatching Brad up into a hug from his seat at the kitchen counter, where he was shoveling hot nachos into his mouth. He smelled sweaty and like grass and I buried my nose in his hair. “Thank God! I couldn’t find you anywhere. Did one of the moms give you a ride home? You know you’re supposed to wait for me, or call me if something like that happens. Do you have any idea how scared I was?”

“I’m right here,” he said, shrugging me off with a huff and looking at me with total confusion. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I— I was supposed to pick you up! What do you mean, what am I doing here?”

“Oh!”

I spun around to see a total stranger standing in the doorway. The woman wore a black sleeveless blouse and blue pencil skirt and sparkly blue stud earrings. Her shoulder-length dark hair bounced into curls at the ends, not a flyaway in sight. She looked like she’d come straight out of an office somewhere.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out who this stranger was.

“Elle!” she exclaimed, a broad smile stretching over her face. “We weren’t expecting you!”

I scoffed. Was she serious?

“You weren’t expecting me?” I repeated. “Oh, I’m so sorry for coming here to my house. And who the hell are you?”

I knew exactly who she was, but the whole “we weren’t expecting you” thing was so goddamn rich I didn’t even try to hide my indignation.

She gave a light laugh. “Of course, silly me. I’ve just heard so much about you, I feel like I already know you! I’m Linda. I’m your dad’s—”

“Yeah, I know.”

I kind of didn’t want her to finish that sentence.

“What I don’t know,” I went on, “is what you’re doing here.”

“She picked me up from camp,” Brad said, like it was obvious—which, now that he was pointing it out, I guessed it was. But the why wasn’t so obvious.

I scowled at him. “No. I was meant to pick you up from camp.”

“You’ve just been so busy lately,” Linda said kindly, and oh my God, if she didn’t stop pottering around the kitchen like that, I was going to scream. “Your dad keeps talking about how much you’ve got on your plate right now, so I offered to help out and pick up Brad from camp a couple of days. Didn’t he tell you?”

I thought about the string of messages Dad had sent me yesterday that I’d been too preoccupied to look at and said nothing.

“Speaking of having a lot on your plate, can I fix you one?”

“What?”

“Nachos,” she explained, gesturing at Brad’s plate. “Do you want some?”

“No, Linda. I don’t want nachos.”

She shrugged and carried on cleaning up, running water at the sink.

“I can do the dishes,” I told her.

“It’s no trouble. Besides, I made the mess! I’m so sorry for the confusion about pickup today for Brad. We really didn’t mean to worry you.”