Page 37 of My Life with the Walter Boys
Benny stopped jumping, his eyes huge. “Is that the newest Dr. Cyrus Cyclops?” he asked, sticking his face next to hers so he could get a better look.
“It is,” Kim said.
With Benny distracted, Riley was able pluck my bra off his head. She handed it to me, and I recognized it immediately as the one that went missing from the bathroom while I was showering. Someone had drawn nipples on each cup with a marker.
“Can I read it with you?” Benny asked, and then he added, “Please?”
“How about this,” Kim said. “If you promise to leave us alone and not repeat any of the conversation you heard, I’llgiveit to you.”
“Like to keep?” he asked, and Kim nodded her head. “Wow! Cross my heart, hope to die,” he said instantly. Benny held out his hand, but Kim didn’t hand it over right away. She gave him a look, one of those piercing stares that said, “Don’t mess with me.” Only when Benny swallowed, clearly nervous, did she relinquish her comic.
He sat on my bed for a moment, holding it in his hand as he gazed down in amazement. Then he bolted from the room as if Kim might snatch it back.
“Nice one, Kim,” Heather said, shutting the door behind him.
She shrugged and stretched out. “I try.”
“Thanks a bunch.” I let out the breath that I had been holding since Benny appeared. “That could have been disastrous.”
We all looked at each other for a minute before bursting out laughing.
***
“I had fun last night,” Riley told me, zippering up the sleeping bag she’d slept in.
“Yeah, me too,” I said as I grabbed my own bag to roll up.
It was Sunday morning, and Riley was helping me clean up the mess in my room. Kim needed to be home in time for church with her family, and since Heather was her ride, the two had left before Riley and I were even awake.
We stayed up most of the night talking about all sorts of things, like how Kim was too obsessed with her online gaming—a problem Heather thought could be solved with a boyfriend—and how Riley thought the new American history teacher was cute in a scholarly, Harvard professor sort of way. But most of all, we talked about Cole and the Walters. I spent the whole night constantly trying to change the subject, but it was as if Riley’s and Heather’s brains were hardwired to think about Cole every half an hour. It wouldn’t have been so awful if they hadn’t kept insisting that I liked him, and vice versa.
“It was really cool of Mrs. Walter to let us stay over,” Riley added as she shook a blanket out, holding it by two end corners. A few stray pieces of popcorn were launched into the air, but she ignored them and started to fold up the flannel fabric.
“Yeah, Katherine’s been awesome to me.” I’d moved on to cleaning up the nail polish. Heather had dumped the entire box over in search of the perfect pink.
“You know, you’re pretty awesome too,” she said. After setting the newly folded blanket on my bed, she dropped onto the floor next to me and helped me with the bottles. “Most people can’t put up with Heather and me. We’re a little…”
“Intense?” I offered.
“That’s a nice way of putting it, but yeah.”
I shrugged. “Back home, I have this friend Sammy who reminds me of you both. The girls at my old school think she’s weird, but she’s just super passionate. You know, the kind of person who comes off as crazy because she cares too much?”
Riley grinned. “Sounds like we’d get along.”
“Totally.”
A minute passed as we finished picking up the nail polish. When all the different colors were off the floor, Riley sat back on her heels and tucked a strand of bright red hair behind her ear. I was about to pick up the cardboard box and put it back in the closet, but she looked at me then, a strange half-happy, half-sad expression on her face.
“So,” she asked slowly. “Are you…settling in okay?”
It was the closest she had come to asking about my family, and in the silence that followed, I realized that I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s only been a week,” I finally replied, even though that didn’t answer her question. And then I added softly, “Everything is so crazy here.”
“How so?”
“Living with the Walters—I feel like I never know what’s going to happen. It’s so—” I broke off, not able to think of the right word.
