P.S. I Like You (19 page)

I groaned inwardly. Cade was in my house judging me all
over again with new criteria to add to his list. I stacked the bowls and set them in the sink.

Wyatt came running into the kitchen. “Hi, Coach!” he said to Cade. “I’m ready!”

“You must be Wyatt.”

My brother nodded, then glanced at me. “What’s wrong, Lily?” he asked. “You look mad.”

“I do?”

“Are you still mad that Jonah—”

“Ate all the Lucky Charms?” I quickly interrupted. “Yes. I am.”

“I didn’t eat all the Lucky Charms!” Jonah protested from the table.

“Then where are they?”

Jonah hummed an “I don’t know” and kept eating his cereal.

Wyatt scrunched up his nose and was probably about to contradict me when I said, “You better be on your way. You don’t want to be late.”

Cade headed for the door and I stopped Wyatt. “Hey,” I whispered. “Don’t mention my broken guitar to your coach, okay?”

“Why not?” Wyatt whispered back.

Because if he thought about it too hard, he might figure out that my brother breaking my guitar was too similar to a certain letter he’d read recently.
“Because I don’t want him to think badly of Jonah.”

“He wouldn’t like Jonah if he knew?” Wyatt asked.

“We just don’t need to talk badly about Jonah to people.”

“Okay,” Wyatt said, and hurried out the door.

For two hours I waited anxiously for my brother to get home. I tried to distract myself with sewing and then writing and then sketching, but each attempt was useless. When I saw Cade’s car pull up around seven thirty, I opened the front door and stood on the porch as Wyatt came running up. I waited for him to turn and wave to Cade. As soon as Cade drove away, I said, “So? How was it?”

Wyatt was beaming. “It was great! I love baseball. We all got nicknames. Want to know mine?”

Of course Cade would give them all nicknames. “Yes,” I said, already worried.

“Pink Lightning!”

“Pink? Lightning?”

Wyatt held up one foot. Across the side of his baseball cleat was a hot pink Nike swoosh. My mom must’ve picked them up at the thrift store like she did a lot of things.

“Yeah. The kids thought it was funny when Coach Cade said it. They laughed. But then everyone was cool with it.”

I swallowed the anger in my throat for my brother’s sake. I did not want him to feel bad. That was a name everyone was going to laugh at every single week and have to keep remembering they were cool with.

“That’s a fun nickname,” I said at last.

“Yeah. It’s good.”

“Well, go shower.”

He started to walk away then stopped. “Lily?”

“Wyatt?”

He looked down at his feet. “Um … never mind.”

I frowned. Had Cade made him feel stupid? I didn’t want to ask him that if it wasn’t true. But I wanted my brother to be able to talk about it with me. For him to know he wasn’t alone in that feeling.

“Are you sure you don’t need to tell me something?” I asked gently.

Wyatt nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Wyatt may not have needed to talk about it, but
I
was going to talk about it. With the source.

I searched the halls before school on Friday, not sure what Cade’s morning routine was. I’d seen his car in the parking lot, so I knew he was here. I usually tried to avoid him. Today would be the opposite. My blood was on fire. Even my eyes were hot.

He was standing alone at his locker, staring at it, like he’d forgotten the combination or something.

I marched straight up to him and poked his shoulder with my finger. “How dare you.”

He turned to me, a tired look on his face. “What do you want?”

“You named my brother Pink Lightning? Let those kids mock him?”

Cade’s eyebrows went up. “Is that what he said? That the kids were mocking him?”

“Yes. He said they laughed at him.”

“For one second.”

“Well they wouldn’t have at all if you hadn’t given him that nickname,” I spat out.

“Really? That’s what you think? Did you see the sneakers your brother was wearing? I knew they would make fun of him. I needed to cut them off at the pass.”

“By beating them to it?”

“By making it seem purposeful. Cool, even.”

The next words I’d planned, whatever those were, left my brain. I stood staring at Cade.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “Are we done? Have you rid the world of all your perceived injustice?” Before I could respond he started to walk away. Then he turned and added, “Who bought him those cleats, anyway? They’re the person you should be yelling at.” He didn’t wait for my answer before walking off again.

I growled then looked at his locker, the one he hadn’t opened. Had he forgotten since I interrupted him or had he gotten something out before I came? If so, why had he been standing there staring at it when I walked up? No, I was not going to worry about Cade. He didn’t need my worrying. He took care of himself just fine.

P
icturing Cade’s face now as I read his letters was both infuriating and oddly satisfying. Infuriating because he was cute and he knew it, which made me angry. Satisfying because it was nice to put a face with words. It made them more personal.

Even if that face infuriated me …

Have you and your brother made up yet? It is almost Thanksgiving. I don’t know what that has to do with making up with your brother but the holidays always seem like a good time to do … well, anything, I guess. It’s the Fourth of July, let’s eat and get the family together. It’s Easter, we better make up with the neighbor who ruined our fence. It’s Presidents’ Day, let’s buy a couch. My mom actually did buy a couch last Presidents’ Day. I didn’t even know we needed a couch. I really think she bought it just because it was a holiday. Anyway, I’m going off the path here. My point? It’s Thanksgiving (almost). Time to do that thing you’ve been meaning to do. I’ll do my thing, too.

And that’s how he ended the letter. In that vague way that left me dying to know what his thing was. What had he been meaning to do?

I bit my lip. Hadn’t I sworn I wasn’t going to write him back? But what was one more exchange really? In the scheme of things.

What thing have you been meaning to do? Listen to the entire Pink Floyd library in one sitting? I’ve been meaning to do that. Maybe that needs to be my Thanksgiving thing because my brother and I have sort of made up. Or at least I’ve accepted that he’ll never admit to what he did, but he is my brother. So yeah. All that’s left in the make up is the official hug-it-out. That has to be part of every make up because hugs are full of magical healing powers.

Also, I didn’t know we were supposed to buy couches on Presidents’ Day. My family has some catching up to do. Speaking of catching up … How are you? Everything okay?

I tucked the letter into place, angry at myself. I felt like some addict who couldn’t kick a habit. And this made me even angrier at Cade. But this was the last day before Thanksgiving break. A weeklong break would surely cure me of my need. It would be like a detox. An even better detox, I thought with a
smile, would be going out with Lucas. In about eight hours, I’d be doing just that.

Day four of detention. Only six more days to go. It hadn’t been too bad so far, I thought as I opened the door to start my time.

And then I walked in and saw Sasha sitting in the seat I normally sat in, toward the back of the room.

Of course she’d steal my seat. It’s what she did.

I wondered what she’d done to land in detention today. She should’ve been the one here all along considering I was fulfilling
her
sentence.

I claimed a seat on the opposite side of the room. There was a pretty senior girl sitting next to Sasha. I didn’t know her name but the two of them were chattering away. I tried to drown them out by sketching a shirt design into my book. Shirts were much harder to sew than skirts, but I was ready to try my hand at it. I’d come up with a cute wide-necked crop-top idea. I had pulled out my sewing machine the night before and found the best material in my scraps. I just needed to figure out how to piece it all together.

I was doing an excellent job in my goal of shutting out Sasha’s loud voice when I heard her speak his name: Cade.

My ears pricked up.

“Are you and Cade together now?” the senior girl asked Sasha.

I was curious about that as well. My pencil paused on the bow I was drawing.

“Yes,” Sasha said happily.

“How’d that happen?”

“The other day, out of the blue, he asked me out. It was adorable.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did he ask you out?”

“Why not? You should be asking what took him so long. He finally realized what he was missing.”

I continued drawing. Fine. Great. Sasha and Cade were together. The world was now well ordered. Cade had found his perfect match.

T
he band, Frequent Stops, was loud but awesome. I would definitely be downloading some of their songs when I got home. I wondered if Cade had ever heard of them before. I’d have to write to him and tell him to add Frequent Stops to his playlist—

No. I wouldn’t do that. What was wrong with me?

I glanced at Lucas. His club wardrobe wasn’t much different than his school one, minus the earbuds—jeans and a tee. We’d been here for an hour. Gabriel and Isabel had driven down to Phoenix with me, Isabel talking the entire time, seeming to know how nervous I was. The nerves were mostly unfounded. Lucas was waiting for me outside, with his adorable shaggy, long hair, and he’d given me a slow smile. I’d introduced him to Isabel and Gabriel and we’d all gone inside together, a red underage bracelet attached to each of our wrists.