Page 40 of My Return to the Walter Boys
I grinned, knowing I’d been right.
“Nice twist on the classic water-bucket-over-the-door trick,” I said, stooping next to him so I didn’t give away his hiding spot. “Who arewe pranking?
“Isaac.” He spat his cousin’s name as if it were a curse word. “He made Parker cry yesterday. I don’t think she’s done that since she was a baby. We want revenge.”
For God’s sake, Isaac, I thought.Is there anyone you aren’t willing to piss off?
“What did he do this—”
A familiar crackling noise cut me off. “Lee for Parker. Come in, Parker.”
“Go for Lee,” Parker responded, and that was when I noticed the walkie-talkie clipped to Jordan’s belt loop. It was exactly like the one Nathan kept out in the loft.
“What’s your twenty?” Lee asked.
“In position. Over.”
“The leather jacket jackass has landed,” he told her. “I repeat, the leather jacket jackass has landed.”
“Roger that.”
Everything was still for a single moment, then the front door swung open. Parker, who must have been hiding around the corner, jumped out and aimed her slingshot at the bulging balloon. It broke just as Alex crossed the threshold, only it wasn’t water inside. A thick, cream-colored goo hit his head and splattered across the entryway. The surprise attack made Alex freeze on the spot, and Katherine slammed into his back when she stepped in behind him.
Jordan and I didn’t hang around for the fallout, both of us choosingto scramble up the stairs where we would hopefully be safe from blame, but I could hear Katherine yelling about messes and wasted money. Apparently, the mysterious substance was tapioca pudding, which was supposed to be the team snack following Parker’s next rugby game.
“What the hell, Lee?” Jordan hissed into the walkie-talkie. “We told you the target was Isaac, not Alex.”
Another crackle. “You didn’t actually think I’d help you prank him, did you? Brother trumps cousin every time. Over and out, losers.”
Swearing under his breath, Jordan dropped the device on the steps and disappeared into his room.
I scooped it up and pressed the talk button. “Lee, you still there?”
“Who’s this?” he asked.
“Jackie. Thanks for the heads-up.”
“No problem,” he replied. “I figured I owe you for the other night.”
By the time I joined Riley in my room, she’d finished going through my clothes. There were three potential outfits laid out on my bed, but once she tried them on, she decided they weren’t what she was looking for. Some of my dressier tops were packed away, so with a sigh, I resigned myself to returning to the art studio, even though the prospect made me blush. Cole didn’t get off work until dinnertime, so at least he wouldn’t be there.
When I stepped inside the room, I kept my eyes off the bed and beelined for the closet, Riley trailing along behind me, and then quickly busied myself with searching for the right storage tub.
“Ooh, what’s this?” Riley held up a garment bag.
A knot formed in the back of my throat. “My sister’s prom dress,” I told her. My mom designed it for Lucy herself, and I brought it back from New York on the off chance I was invited to a dance.
Riley carefully eased the zipper open and gasped. “Oh my God! Jackie, this is stunning. You have to wear it to homecoming. I won’t take no for an answer.”
***
Later that night, Cole and I got stuck on dinner cleanup duty. As everyone brought their dishes over to the sink, I lingered on the edge of the kitchen and tried not to choke on the dread working its way up my throat. I hadn’t spoken to Cole since the mortifying moment I walked in on him, and I didn’t think I’d find the courage to do so anytime soon.
By contrast, Cole seemed perfectly at ease, joking with Jordan as he scraped the remainder of his plate off into the trash. Once the room emptied, he surveyed the task at hand—there were dishes to wash, leftovers to put away, and counters to wipe down—before nodding to himself and cranking up the volume on the ancient stereo system mounted beneath the spice cabinet.
“You don’t mind, do you?” he asked after the fact. Katherine’s dinner music was notorious, but not because she had bad taste. Back in the early 2000s, she burned a CD containing all the usual suspects, like Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Frank Sinatra, but at somepoint in the last decade, the disk drive broke. To this day, the CD was still stuck inside, making it the kitchen’s one and only soundtrack.
I shook my head. My mom loved jazz, so listening to Katherine’s dinner music reminded me of her.
