I never really needed siblings—I have Teddy, and even if I hadn’t, I never had any trouble making friends. But there is a part of me I haven’t had any time to really feel yet that’s disappointed, too.
“Well,” I say, “good thing we only children know how to stick together.”
Chloe’s chin quivers for a second, her eyes shifting from me to Teddy and back like she can’t quite believe it. Then Teddy grabs a Reese’s Puff from the box and flings it at her face.
“Welcome to our weird club,” he says. “You’ve officially been hazed.”
Then the buzzer to Teddy’s apartment goes off, and Teddy bounces up from the couch. “That’ll be your mom,” he says to Chloe, pressing the button to let her in.
I jump up from the couch, too. “Uh—my dad’s going to be out in the hall to come get me any second.”
A hand grabs my wrist. It’s Chloe. Her other hand is wrapped around Teddy’s to stop him, too, but her eyes are focused on the door, steely with determination. “Let it happen.”
I shake my head. “He’ll die. Of introvertism, if nothing else. It’s bad enough that we sicced a whole party full of humans on him yesterday—when he ran into Farrah and Beth, he literally fled the scene.”
“If I can survive going to a brand-new dance class, and meeting like, ten different new people last night, and having to transfer schools without losing my marbles, your dad can handle talking to my mom for five minutes,” she points out.
I hear the click of my own front door opening and pinch my eyes shut.
“Don’t. Move,” Chloe whispers.
Sure enough, we hear a telltale “Cooper?”
“Beth!” my dad exclaims.
My eyes are still clamped shut like it’s happening to me instead of him. Or at least, whatever the Millie version of this would be. Unlike my dad, I would probably be able to walk up to Idina Menzel in the flesh and ask what’s up without batting an eye.
“Wow. Twice in one week!” says Beth.
Chloe, her hands still clamped to Teddy’s and my wrists, slowly backs us up from the door. Their voices are muffled enough that we can’t hear what they’re saying, but not so muffled that we can’t tell that they are, in fact, pleased to see each other.
“If my dad explodes into a million pieces like the Eye of Sauron out there, it’s on you,” I tell Chloe.
She squeezes my wrist harder. “Do you wanna be stepsisters or not?”
I sputter out a laugh, because this seems deeply optimistic given the circumstances—not only has my dad managed to avoid dating for my entire human life, but his method for wooing women before that seemed to be mixtapes and brooding about them on LiveJournal. It’d take a miracle to make something happen now.
But it’d be nice if something did. I make a mental note to drop an unsubtle hint to my dad that I’d be okay with it, just to grease the wheels. Before I can start thinking of the long game, though, there’s a knock on the door, forcing us to answer it.
“C’mon, ParticularlyGoodFinders,” says Beth, jerking a thumb toward the hallway. “If you want to find that cache today we better get going before it’s time for your dad to pick you up.”
The room goes very quiet, Teddy gaping at Chloe, Chloe glaring at her mom, and me desperately trying to hold back the giggle threatening to erupt out of my mouth. I’ve forgotten how delicious it is to be in the middle of some good old-fashioned wholesome drama that has zero to do with me.
“Mom,” Chloe hisses.
“What?” She finally assesses the approximate level of teenage embarrassment and gives Chloe an exasperated look. “Oh, come on, Millie and Teddy know you’re on GeoTeens, right?”
By then Teddy has already opened the app on his phone, pulling up an old conversation. “Chloe, are you—”
She grabs his phone from him. “No. Yes.” She throws his phone on the couch. “Shoot.”
“Chloe, what has gotten into you?” Beth asks, mildly alarmed.
I gently start shutting the door on Beth and my dad, who are both still standing in total bewilderment in the hall. “Just give us one hot sec, okay?” I say with a wink. My dad’s eyes are screaming. I pretend not to notice, clicking the door closed.
“Chloe, I’m FindingTheodory, I’m the one you’ve been—or you were talking to,” says Teddy. He’s trying not to seem as bent out of shape as he’s actually been about it, which might be more effective if it weren’t for the chronic puppy dog eyes betraying him.
“I know. I know,” says Chloe miserably, putting her face in her hands.
I should probably do the same, because the physical effort of not butting into this conversation may actually cause me to combust.
“Why did you stop messaging me?” Teddy asks, picking the phone back up from the couch and staring at the screen. I know he’s just about memorized the last few messages he sent ParticularlyGoodFinders, so there’s really no point. “Did I say something? Did you … I mean, I really thought we…”
“I have to go,” Chloe squeaks, scrambling for her bag.
“Nuh-uh.” In one deft motion I grab her wrist the same way she grabbed mine. “You can’t throw my dad into introvert hell if you can’t take the heat, too. All the introverts in this building are going to suffer right now.”
Then she flashes me puppy dog eyes. For a split second I see my future, now full of not just one hapless, adorable goon to account for, but two. They’re lucky I know how to wrangle them.
“Out with it,” I say.
Chloe’s eyes flit over to Teddy’s. “The truth is—the truth is I had a really, really big crush on the boy from the app. FindingTheodory, I mean. And on the app you were—you seemed to like me, too, and—”
“I did! I do! I—”
“And then I met you,” says Chloe. “And I had a big crush on you, and I felt like a total jerk because how could I keep talking to FindingTheodory about meeting up when I suddenly had a big crush on this other guy named Teddy?”
Teddy’s face turns a truly lawless level of red. He knows full well Chloe was crushing on him, but I guess this is what it took for him to actually believe it.
“And then I figured out you were FindingTheodory, but by then it was too late, I’d already been ignoring him, so I just—thought if I never said anything—that maybe it just wouldn’t matter, and then I realized it would because at some point we’d run into each other at geocaches, and anyway that’s how this whole thing got super awkward and I’m really, really sorry,” she finishes in a rush, as if she has been trying to close the lid on the words for days and they all just finally burst out of her.
To my credit, I don’t say anything. Partially because of the age-old theater rule of “If you don’t have any tea to spill, don’t say anything at all.” And honestly, no tea in my arsenal is going to be as strong or as weird as this.
It takes Teddy a second to catch up to us. “Wait,” he says, the hurt lifting from his face. “You were worried about having a crush on me … because you had a crush on me?”
Chloe’s back to being bashful. “Yeah.”