Page 15 of The Oscar Escape
Secrets get people hurt.
The words hung in the air.
Ivy’s eyes sparkled. “I can tell you one thing about the surprise. I learned how to make it in graphic design class at school.”
“They have graphic design in third grade? I don’t remember Whitmore having that class,” he answered, grateful they’d moved on from talking about secrets.
“That’s because you’re old, Ozzy Bear.”
That got another chuckle out of him. “Twenty-four is old?”
“You’re almost twenty-five. I’m gonna marry Dylan Laughlin and have sixteen babies and live in a shack by the ocean by the time I’m that old.”
The smothering guilt and riling turmoil weighing him down made way for complete and utter befuddlement. “Who thehell, no,heck. No, I need to swear in this case. Who thehellis Dylan Laughlin?” he sputtered.
“He’s a fifth grader. An older man.”
Fuck that.
“No, no way, Ives!” he exclaimed instead, barely holding back dropping the F-bomb. “You’re not marrying this older man. And where did you get the idea that you’d have sixteen babies and live in a shack? Kids are great, but sixteen of them?”
“Tula and I were playing this game where you figure out a whole bunch of stuff about your future called MASH, and I had to give her three numbers. I didn’t know what they were for. I said, infinity gazillion, forty-five thousand, and then my last number was sixteen.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sixteen does sound more reasonable than infinity gazillion. I’ll give you that. But you forgot one thing, kid.”
“What’d I forget?”
“As your older brother, I get to decide who you marry.”
Her cheeks matched her red hair. “Do not!”
“Do too!”
“Do not!”
“Do too!” He sounded like an eight-year-old. He pulled himself together. “Ivy Madelyn Elliott,” he lectured, ready to drop the last word on this Dylan subject.
“Oh boy! Here goes Ozzy Bear,” she interrupted, to his chagrin.
“Ivy Madelyn Elliott,” he repeated, “you’re not allowed to date until you’re thirty, so you can forget about marrying Dylan Laughlin and having sixteen babies by age twenty-five.”
Ivy groaned. “That’s what Daddy said.”
“Dad’s right.”
The girl’s sourpuss expression gave way to genuine concern. “Is Daddy right about you?”
Oscar flinched again. “What did Dad say about me?”
“I heard Mom and Dad talking. They’re worried you’re lost. Do you need a map? There should be one on your phone. I have my important places on my phone, like our house, Tula’s house, Phoebe and Sebastian’s new house, Daddy’s restaurant, the Crystal Cricket, and the house Aria stays at when she’s in Denver in the Baxter Park neighborhood. But I don’t have one for you. Are you lost, Ozzy?”
It broke his heart to know his lifestyle worried his sister. The lump in his throat returned. “I know where I am, Ives.”
Was that another lie?
She brightened. “Can I visit you in that place? Can I see you on your birthday? I asked Mom, and she said if you said yes, then I could go to wherever you’re working. You owe me a brother-sister trip.”
He sighed. “We’ll see.”
