Page 6 of Pumped

Eden gives me a helpless shrug.

Rude.

It’s awkward as we settle around the large kitchen table. The only person who seems oblivious to the tension in the room is Ivy, who’s still chattering away about dinosaurs. Owen’s listening intently, spouting fact after fact like he’s some sort of dinosaur expert. Who knows that much about ancient dead things anyway?

“Do you think there’s a dinosaur unicorn?” Ivy asks, hopefulness written all across her face. Unicorns are her favorite animal of all time—yes, I know they’re not real animals, lay off me—and her entire bedroom is decorated like a unicorn took a shit in it. Pink everywhere, with rainbows and sparkles and every kind of unicorn you could possibly imagine.

Owen pretends to think. “Hmm, I don’t know. Scientists haven’t found any creatures that resemble a unicorn, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. Perhaps they just haven’t found it yet.”

Ivy bounces in her seat. “Did you hear, Uncle Ev? There might be unicorn dinosaurs!”

Owen shoots me a smirk, almost daring me to contradict him. I let myself glare at him for a second before turning to Ivy.

“Really? That’s awesome! How big do you think they’d be?”

Ivy laughs. “They’re horse-sized, silly!”

Owen drapes his arm across the back of Ivy’s chair, smug satisfaction radiating off him like an obnoxious cologne.

“Right. Of course. Horse-sized. My bad. But do they have wings?” I ask.

Ivy scrunches up her face as she thinks. “I think they should have wings. It’d be cooler if they could fly. And safer too, right? In case the larger dinosaurs want to eat them? They can just fly away.”

I wince at the idea of extinct dinosaurs eating imaginary unicorns. That’s just a little too circle of life for me.

“That’s right,” Owen says. “They could have evolved to have wings for survival.”

Fuck this. I’m bored with the dinosaur talk. I shoot Eden a pleading look to please save us from Owen’s nerdery.

“Jeremy and I are going to the opera in a couple weeks,” Eden jumps in.

Great. Opera. So much more exciting. I stab at the hash browns and shove them into my mouth. Then wash them down with the rest of my mimosa.

“At the Met?” Owen asks, perking up. Which, of course he would. Snob.

Jeremy nods. “My company got tickets toCarmen.”

“I heard that got great reviews,” Owen adds. “Let me know if it’s good. I’ll have to go see it.”

“Do you guys need a babysitter for Ivy?” I ask. I’ve done it before when Eden and Jeremy go on their monthly date nights. I know Owen has too.

But given today, I wouldn’t be surprised if Eden and Jeremy askedbothof us to babysit. At the same time. Without telling us ahead of time. They’d get some perverse pleasure out of our misery, I’m sure.

“No, we’ve already got a babysitter scheduled,” Eden says. “You guys are off the hook.” She gives us both a pointed look that makes me squirm in my seat a little. Then she catches Jeremy’s gaze and they smile at each other.

The look in her eyes starts out mischievous, like the two of them are sharing some unspoken joke. Then it softens to something warm and tender. Jeremy’s wearing a matching expression.

They really are great together. A perfect match. I’ve never seen them arguing or fighting. Not over big messy things, or even small silly things. Not when the basement of their brownstone flooded the year before or when Ivy got a bad flu last winter. They just dealt with it all as if it were nothing. They make marriage and raising a kid look so damn easy. Like anyone could do it.

A little ache lodges itself in the middle of my chest. It’s not that I want their life—I definitely don’t. Marriage and kids? No, thank you. But there’s something magical about the way they are together that fascinates me.

Eden never complains about Jeremy staying out too late or working too hard or not pulling his weight at home. She never complains about being tired or frustrated or angry. Whenever I ask, she gets this dreamy look on her face like she’s living in a fairy tale and she’s found her happily ever after.

That must be nice. Being that happy. I wonder how that feels.

A weight, heavy and hot, bores into me, and I glance up to find Owen glowering at me. His brows are furrowed and his lips are pressed into a firm, straight line. Jesus Christ. What is it now? Am I breathing too loud for him? Am I not sitting up straight enough?

I slouch down in my chair, take a deep—and noisy—breath, and glower right back. Sometimes it’s hard to believe Owen and Jeremy are related. Like, I get along great with Jeremy and with their parents. I have from the first time I met them. But except for that one night in Vegas, Owen’s always had it out for me. In fact, I think he hates me more now than he did back then. I just don’t know what I did to get put on his shit list.

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