Styx was right about Cory Cormier. The very mention of Susie made his whole face light up.
“Really? I can come play with her? You guys wouldn’t mind?”
“Naw. We think it’d be real…special,” Bobby Gene said.
“She likes you,” I said. “Misses you, even.”
“She does?” Cory scuffed his shoe against the ground. “I kinda thought so. Maybe.”
“Course she does.” I fist-bumped his shoulder. “Who wouldn’t?”
Cory grinned. “It’ll be good practice for me too.”
“Practice?”
His grin got bigger. “I’m getting a baby cousin! That’s what my uncle came over to tell my mom yesterday.”
“Oh, congrats,” Bobby Gene said.
“My mom has a bunch of my baby stuff in the attic that he wants. Mom says I can make some things for the baby too. To help out.”
“Help out?”
“Kids are expensive, Mom says. And Uncle Greg is pretty broke.”
“How’d he get the stuff home on the motorcycle?” I asked, picturing him riding down Main Street holding a Pack ’n Play.
Cory shrugged. “He didn’t take anything. He just picked stuff out. He’s gotta buy a car now, Mom says. I say, no way he gives up the bike. You should see his house. It’s decorated like Harley-Davidson central.”
“Can’t put a car seat on a chopper, that’s for sure,” Bobby Gene said.
This conversation was getting boring fast. “Well…that’s great that you’ll have a cousin.”
“I’ll teach her everything I know!” Cory declared. “Or him. We don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl.”
“Anyway,” I said. “A little Susie snuggle time…what’s that worth to you? Worth covering for us for a morning?”
“Which morning?”
Soon, Styx had said.
“Tomorrow?”
Cory bit his lip and sighed. “Okay.”
We rushed through lunch so we could head to Styx’s place. We were much too excited to report our news to wait until later.
We found Styx sitting on his back porch steps, but he wasn’t alone. Some girl was with him. She was sitting right up next to him and smiling. He had his arm around her. Not around her shoulders, like buddy-buddy, but lower around her hip. His hand was almost all the way into her pocket, it looked like. Maybe he was reaching for some gum.
Their heads were close together. The girl had long brown hair and dimples. Her hair curtained across their faces as she leaned even closer toward him.
“Hey,” we said.
Styx popped his head forward. “Hey.”
“Hey,” the girl said too, lifting her head. The curtain of hair shimmied back over her own shoulders, where it belonged.
“I thought we were meeting a little later,” Styx said. “Did I lose track of time?”
The girl laughed softly and snuggled against Styx.
“We wanted to tell you something,” I said. “It’s pretty important.”
“Let’s do it later, okay?” Styx answered. “I’m a little busy, you know?”
“Sure, sure,” Bobby Gene said. “No biggie.”
Heck yeah, it was a biggie. “It won’t take long,” I told Styx. I didn’t want to say much more in front of the girl. “And we definitely have gum at our house, you know.”
Styx looked confused.
We waited.
“Um, so, I’m Lisa,” the girl said. “What are your names?” She said it in the kind of voice a new babysitter uses. As if we were little.
“Caleb,” I mumbled.
“Bobby Gene.”
“Hi, Caleb. Hi, Bobby Gene. It’s really nice to meet you both,” Lisa said. That’s when I noticed she had her arm around Styx’s waist too.
What was Styx doing hanging out with a babysitter? He was way too old to need one.
We waited.
“Guys,” Styx said finally, “I’m gonna need a minute.”
Bobby Gene’s eyes got wide. “Oh—oh, right.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the woods.
“Hey,” I complained.
“Catch you later,” Bobby Gene said.
“Oh, they’re so cute.” Lisa giggled. “Your little brothers?”
“Yeah,” Styx said. He could have corrected her, but he didn’t.
I glanced back as Bobby Gene marched us away.
Brothers?
To be Styx’s brother would be some kind of fantasy—nothing ordinary in that. But there was something else. Something about the way he claimed us. The way he said “Yeah,” like he so often said “Yeah.” It sounded different to me now. Slippery. He was letting her believe what she wanted to believe.