Page 72 of Icebreaker
Ellie
B and I are at the cabin up in the mountains near Tannenberg. If you don’t have plans, we were wondering if you would maybe like to come up for a hike and dinner. We were going to grill something. Maybe Thursday? No biggie if you can’t.
If you want to invite Matty, that would be all right. B’s parents are coming up too.
But if you’re busy, it’s fine.
Benji
I definitely wanna come and I’m sure Matty will too.
Rafe
I’m gonna be there.
Ellie
Cool.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BRENNEN
“Hey,Mom, are you going with us?”
When she walked in the door this morning, she claimed she was ready for a hike. But now that everybody was here and waiting out front, she had a book and a bottle of wine in her hand.
“Nope, I was going to go, but then I remembered that I hate hiking. Have a great time without me.” She kissed my cheek, took a swig of the wine, and let herself out the kitchen door into the backyard where her favorite Adirondack chair was waiting. Having been dismissed, I made my way back out to the front of the house where the rest of the crew was assembled.
My dad, on the other hand, looked like he was ready to go on an actual expedition. He had his fanny pack at the ready, armed with sunscreen and bug spray. He and Ellie had already had an in-depth discussion about the proper importance of compasses on hikes through unfamiliar territory. My dad had been hiking in these woods since he was a kid, so I don’t know how unfamiliar they could be at this point. I knew my dad realized Ellie was a little, and I appreciated him working to make him feel at ease.
My parents were the fucking best.
“Tater, get your ass in gear. We’ve got hiking to do,” Matty yelled as I came out the cabin’s front door into the yard. “These guys are going to die if we don’t get a move on soon.”
Ellie, Benji, and Rafe must be telepathically connected because they’d all managed to wear cartoon T-shirts, cargo shorts, and hiking boots. They looked like three peas in a pod. My dad, sunscreen spray in hand, sprayed them all down.
What I loved best about my dad, well, my parents, was their absolute refusal to judge anyone’s good time. They’d arrived earlier than expected, and we hadn’t put away the toys Ellie had been playing with yesterday in the living room. My parents gushed at how happy they were to see someone enjoying them again. Then, because if there were toys around, there must be books too, my mom went scrounging through a bedroom closet until she found the children’s books hidden away in a box. She’d proudly moved them to the bookshelf in the living room. And now that my dad was leading the three peas, plus me and Matty, he was full of dad-tour-guide energy.
Dad and the peas were in front of us when Matty put his hand on my arm and jerked his head to get me to slow down. He was nice to Ellie, which helped me dislike him a little less, but we weren’t exactly friends. Matty stayed quiet until Dad and the peas were pretty far ahead. He looked like he was trying to figure out how to start, so I did.
“Thanks for reaching out for Ellie’s number. He’s super shy, and making friends is hard for him.”
“Yeah, the first time I met him, he reminded me of Benji.”
“You flirt with Benji?”
“Uh, no, he’s my brother, and I didn’t flirt with Cooper either.” Matty looked a little guilty when he added, “Well, it wasn’t intended to be flirting. Mostly it was just to annoy the shit out of you.”
“Why the hell are you trying to annoy me?”
“Can you imagine how Benji would react if I gave him that much shit?”
“I’d kick your ass myself.”
“Exactly. It’s gotta go somewhere. Congrats on being the chosen one.”
“Oh fuck me. I’m declining all that shit.”
