Page 3 of Best Laid Plans
God, she wanted to strangle him and hug him in equal measures sometimes.
“The team’s doing great,” he screamed, shutting the blender off halfway through so the ‘great’ boomed across the living room.
She covered her ears and winced. “Jesus.”
Wyatt smiled and started to pour the smoothie into a mug. “Need a voice that carries across the football field, you know?”
“Well, isn’t it great you’ll have a chance to get it out of your system for two weeks.”
“It comes from the belly.” He patted his t-shirt-clad stomach. “I watched a YouTube video about it.”
“Of course you did.”
“As the poet Bubba Sparxxx said, ‘whatever it is that you do, do it admirably.’” She could tell how pleased he was with that one, his straight teeth taking up his entire smile.
Elle was struck with the strangest feeling, then. She was going to miss Wyatt while he was gone. He drove her crazy in a way that only a sibling could, but he didn’t hold her current attitude against her. If anything, it only made him more intent to pull her out of it.
“Why do you look like you’re about to cry?” Wyatt asked, alarm etched across his face. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re just a really good brother. I’m lucky to have you,” she said, her voice catching as she willed away the tears prickling behind her eyes.
God, what was wrong with her lately? She never cried. Except that apparently now, she did.
She picked at the sticker on an apple in the fruit bowl on thesmall island counter, distracting herself from thinking about the last few weeks of her life.
Wyatt never leaned on her the way she did with him, but it had always been this way. He was four years older. Her brother. Her protector.
“These really are unprecedented times,” Wyatt said, already around the island and scooping her up in a surprisingly gentle hug.
Her life was an absolute mess, but at least she had a great brother and a private place to get back on her feet over the next few weeks.
It wasn’t all she wanted, but it was something.
The mood was set.
The lights were turned off. An ambient candle that smelled like fresh pine needles was burning on the coffee table to the left of where her feet were perched. She’d draped the oversized, deep burgundy blanket–freshly washed and warm from the dryer–across her body for maximum coziness.
Elle wasready.
She pressed play as the sight of a bustling summer camp came into view on Wyatt’s ridiculously oversized television, stereo sound enveloping the room with the laughter of campers who had no idea what horrors were about to befall them. Elle knew a little something about that.
Snuggling in deeper on the sofa, she leaned back to take in the full view of the screen. In her Boston bedroom, in an apartment she’d shared with a roommate who’d lived there first, she’d barely managed to fit a television on her dresser. And it was at a weird angle, so she could never really see the bottom right corner unless she sat up against her headboard.
But this? This felt like a night at the movies. The thought reminded her to grab the popcorn bowl from the end table, and she wrapped her arms snugly around it like she was swaddling a baby.
The ease only lasted for a few minutes until a piercing scream filled the room. Elle jumped instinctively, even though she’d seen this movie dozens of times throughout her life. The first time, and inarguably the best, had been when she’d been eight, and had hidden under her brother’s bed after already having been told that it was too scary for her.
She’d always been curious. So sue her.
And she would have gotten away with it, except that about halfway through the movie, she’d finally had to pee so badly that staying still was no longer an option. So, she’d slowly army crawled out on all fours from under the bed where her brother and his best friend, Cam, had sat riveted in the darkness.
And then the top of her head had brushed Wyatt’s foot.
Touching any part of her pubescent, teenage brother had been so unbelievably gross that she’d let out a strangled sound, but nothing could compare to the blood curdling scream that Wyatt had let out in response. The moment had quickly descended into chaos. She’d let out another sound, an ‘oof,’ as the bed had dipped from his weight as he’d sprung to the floor. He’d run, but only across the room to get his baseball bat.
Her brother had been momentarily furious with her, though it only lasted for about as long as it took for his heart rate to return to normal, until he’d finally joined her and Cam in the kind of laughter that had made her stomach ache.
She hadn’t laughed that hard in years.
