Page 31 of Best Friends for Never

“Still the same?”

“Every Tuesday for as long as I can remember.”

For as long as I can remember too. Tuesdays used to be my favorite day because it meant dinner at the Pruitts’ for Tater Tot Tuesdays. We’d make the most ridiculous things, and I’d love every minute. Even Gran tagged along for a few dinners, always bringing dessert with her. Then we’d sit in the backyard, swap stories, and sip hot chocolate until we were sixteen, when Astrid started letting us have the occasional “adult beverage.”

Those summer nights were some of my favorites, one of the good memories about this place.

“Well?” she asks again. “Are you coming or what?”

I chuckle. “I’ll be here, Astrid.”

She shimmies in her chair. “Make sure you bring the wine coolers.”

Chapter Six

Parker

“I’m here, I’m here!” I call out to my mother as I barrel through her front door without knocking. Not that she minds.

For the second time in as many days, I’m running late.

I’m usually that person who’s borderline obnoxiously early, but not this week, apparently. This is the week—one of the most important of my life—that I decided to throw all those years of being on time by the wayside and become a perpetually late arriver.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for that damn couch, I just might have been on time.

Axel returned shortly after Noel left and grilled me for thirty minutes about what had happened. I think after the twentieth time I told him that all that had happened was that Noel had helped with the wall, he finally believed me.

It’s a good thing, too, because the absolute last thing I wanted to get into was how Noel’s parting words left me reeling.

I tried to ignore them all day, pushing them to the back of my mind, but all my efforts were fruitless. When I’d repainted the same spot for the third time, Axel officially sent me home for the day with a promise to finish painting the walls himself, since this time he ordered the right color. He swore he’d have everything cleaned up tomorrow soI could spend Thursday mounting the display stands, moving furniture back in, and rearranging the place to my heart’s content for the grand reopening after the theater ceremony on Friday, if I agreed to take a nap.

I was so tired I said yes. All it took was three minutes on my couch, and I was out for five hours, which is why I’m running in the door fifteen minutes late for Tater Tot Tuesday.

“We’re in the kitchen!” my mother calls back over the sound of Carole King from the record player in the den.

We?Who else is here? It’s probably Gran. She’s been coming over sporadically for years, just like she used to when I was a kid. Tater Tot Tuesday is famous in these parts.

I don’t know where my love of tots came from—maybe from school lunches—but I used to request them so often that my mother finally had to put her foot down and say we could only have them one day a week. And thus, Tater Tot Tuesday was born. We’ve hosted many people over the years, and sometimes it’s just her and me. When I was younger, there were always at least three of us here. But it hasn’t been that way in a long, long time.

I juggle the bag of toppings I brought as I take off my shoes. My mother didn’t have too many rules growing up, but “no shoes in the house” was one that always stuck. Once I’m free of my flats, I pad down the hall, past the photos of me and drawings I’ve made over the years that line the walls, and head straight for the kitchen, where I immediately come to a halt.

Now I know why my mother saidwe.

It’s not Gran, but he sure is related to her.

“Noel.”

He and my mother are standing side by side, each working on their own dinner. A carton of wine coolers sits on the counter, one missing and one sitting right in front of Noel, already half-gone. Cheese, beans, meat, and various vegetables are spread around the countertop. It’s safe to say that whatever this is, it was planned, and I was left out of the loop.

Noel’s lips kick up into a grin on one side. “Peter.”

“Peter?” My mother’s eyes widen as she looks up at my old friend. “Wow. I haven’t heard that name in ...”

She trails off because we all know exactly how long it’s been since she’s heard it—the last time Noel was here.

“I hope you don’t mind I invited Noel. But he stopped by this morning, and I realized it was Tuesday, and, well, I couldn’t resist. Besides, it’s nice to have both my kids under the same roof for a change.” She nudges him with her elbow, her hands busy spreading Tater Tots in the bottom of a glass dish. “We just started, so scrub in, and we can get these all in the oven simultaneously.”

She smiles at me brightly, and her smile would look entirely innocent to just about anyone else. But I know my mother, and right now, her smile says,Play nice and yell at me later, darling.

---