Page 35 of We Shouldn't Be Together
She nods with a small smile. “I’m good, bro.”
“Come on.” I nod ahead of us. “Let’s get you to the café where it’s safe.”
She grimaces at me. “Eww. I’m not some freaking damsel in distress. Don’t talk to me like that.”
I shoot my hands up in defense. “Sorry, bud. I didn’t mean to say anything nice. You’re totally tough as nails.”
Jamie pushes on ahead. “Yeah. I am.”
I board past the storefronts, behind Jamie, until we get to Morton’s Café. This place is owned by Jamie and her aunt. For real, at sixteen, Jamie owns half a business. Their pseudo-grandmother left it to them. Right now, Jamie doesn’t have any financial or decision-making responsibility. That’ll come once she’s legally an adult. For now, she plays waitress, helping her aunt pay for their bills.
“Hey guys,” Laura, one of the servers, greets us. “Kai, you want a burger?”
“When have I ever said no?” I say half-jokingly.
Laura grins. “Coming right up.”
I follow Jamie toward the counter. Laura disappears into the kitchen, and Maddy is behind the counter, telling Jamie which section she’s working.
My fingers itch to reach for my bankcard, but I know it’s a lost cause. Mom would argue with me all the time about ‘paying anyway.’ But once she actually saw Maddy’s hurt face about her niece’s best friend wanting to pay for a burger and a shake, Mom backed off.
I think it’s a family thing. Jamie and her aunt only have each other now, and I guess they like to think of me as family, too. They give the other guys discounts, but giving everyone freebies would really send them broke. It’s for the best because, I swear, Parker and Lewis come in here and have their own unofficial eating competitions.
I feel bad about Maddy feeding me for free because I know how much she and Jamie have struggled to live in this town. Their house is tiny and on the outskirts. Every year, Jamie has to reapply for her scholarship to attend our school. But Maddy won’t take my money. When our family comes in on weekends, Mom and Dad usually leave overly generous tips to make up for it. In the meantime, I help clean up because I figure working for food is at least something.
“Thanks, buddy,” the cook, Jake, says when I plonk a load of dishes on the stainless steel bench by the deep sink.
“You want me to wash them?” I ask. “I don’t mind.”
“Nah, all good,” Jake says. “Laura will be back in a sec to do that. How’s soccer going? You’re a striker, right?”
My chest inflates with the same warm tingles it gets anytime someone asks me about soccer. I can’t help smiling when I reply, “Yeah, man, I am. The season’s been going great so far.”
“Would only be better if I were on your team,” Jamie says, walking into the kitchen in her all-black uniform and a cheesy grin.
“No doubt, James,” I reply. “Our teamdoesneed you. It sucks that the school doesn’t do co-ed.”
“It’s bull,” Jamie complains, wiping her hands on her half-apron.
“Now, now, champ.” Jake says in a cooling tone. “Why don’t you concentrate on being the best girl on your team?”
Jamie smirks and winks at Jake. “Easy done.”
Jake sends me out of the kitchen with my burger, and I plonk down in a booth. Coach is on my case about what I eat, and Mom follows it to the letter. Maddy’s cool. She’s only twelve years older than us and I wouldn’t use the word strict to describe her.
“Oh, look,” Maddy says, looking ahead at the front door. “Kai, your brother is here.”
My eyebrow rises, but I hold back my grimace.
Maddy leaves the counter, and my gaze follows her up the aisle until she meets Milo by the coat rack. “Hey Milo. Good to see you. What have you been up to?”
I drop the tension in my shoulders when Milo lifts a bag with the nearby bookstore’s logo on it. The way my brother barely makes eye contact with Maddy is a relief. He doesn’t want to be here any more than I don’t want him here.
“Aunt Maddy thinks Milo is so great,” Jamie says, hanging by my booth. “She always says, ‘Why can’t you and Kai be more like Milo?’” Jamie claps her flattened fingers against her anchored thumbs in a mock yapping motion. “’Study more like Milo.’ ‘Read more like Milo.’ ‘Beboringlike Milo.’”
As Jamie continues to make her hands yap, she mouths, ‘blah, blah, blah,’ with a ridiculous expression. It cracks me up, making me spit-take part of my burger.
“Look at her,” Jamie says, gesturing toward her aunty. “Have you ever seen more fake sucking up? She couldn’t give a crap about what Milo was up to. ‘He’s just a good boy. Why can’t you be good like Milo?’”
