Page 104 of Cloudy With a Chance of Bad Decisions

Before I could ask if he was planning on coming back, George saved me the trouble. “If you want…” he trailed off, cheeks ruddy. In the flickering orange firelight it was impossible to tell just how flushed he was, but I knew his face almost as well as I knew my own by this point. I’d certainly spent long enough committing it to memory. So I noticed. “I can come back? After I find Lacey.”

He didn’t need to explain.

But I recognized this for what it was. Nervous rambling. To cover up his second olive branch of the day. It seemed George-Arthur Milton wanted to be away from me about as much as I wanted to be away from him. And wasn’t that a heady thought?

“I’ll find Patrick’s dads.” I agreed. “Meet you here in like twenty?”

“Hopefully.” George bit his lip.

I was pretty sure my smile was bright enough to blind, but George didn’t complain when he finally looked at me. “I’ll be back then,” he said, side-stepping away. “Soon. And we can…”

“We can chat some more,” I replied, still grinning.

“Or…whatever.” George rolled his eyes at himself, but his lips twitched into a small secret smile.

“Or whatever,” I repeated.

He stood there awkwardly for another minute, studying me.

I kept smiling, curious to see what he was waiting for.

“Okay, bye,” George waved one of Mavis’s tiny hands. I waved back.

“Bye,” I teased.

“Bye!” Mavis beamed at me, then turned her attention back to George. He took a few steps away. Before Patrick and I were fully out of earshot I saw Mavis’s little head tip up and heard her innocent question. “Do you likethat boy, Unca George?” George made a choked sound. “Mama says that sometimes boys are mean when they like you.”

“That’s horrible advice,” George scoffed. “No one should be mean to youever. Especially if they like you.”

Mavis sounded confused but agreed.

I snorted out a laugh, then called out, “Hypocrite!”

“Alex!” George admonished over his shoulder. His cheeks were still bright red when he stalked off. Pleased, I turned my attention back to Patrick, who had started to doze. Sugar crash without the high. Brutal. His head was drifting forward, ebony curls catching the firelight.

“C’mon, little dude,” I said. “Let’s find your dads so they can get you to bed.”

I tucked him close, making sure my hands were free of marshmallow so I wouldn’t leave sticky bits in his hair. Patrick curled against my body, letting his weight settle as I picked up our mess and shoved the napkins into my pockets to discard them. When I’d finished, the last thing I expected was to see George again, Mavis still in his arms, waiting right at the edge of our log.

I jumped.

“You okay?” I asked, immediately concerned.

“Yes.” George’s throat bobbed. He looked indecisive. Nervous. Staring at a whorl on the wood, he refused to meet my eyes again.

“Are you su?—”

“I was just…I mean. I could go by myself—to find Lacey,” George said quickly. “But I was just thinking. Maybe…if you wanted to…we could go together?”

Oh Jesus.

Sweet, anxious, adorablebaby.

I wanted to kiss that cute-as-pie worried face.

Worried I wouldn’t want to go with him? Christ. Impossible. Since the day we’d met, all I’d done was worry about what he was doing. I’d accept any and all clinginess he exhibited with the utmost gratitude. It saved me the workof hunting him down. The reality was, I was simply desperate to exist in the same vicinity as him.

“Of course we can do that,” I said immediately, butterflies flitting in my stomach. Apparently, George was as reluctant to be away from me as I was to be away from him. “Tag team it?”

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