Jonah relieved Cade of the bunny and tucked it away in his cage. Ashley and Mark took the contaminated plates inside. My little cousins went back to picking weeds that looked like flowers. Cade stayed on his back on the grass, hands clasped behind his head, ankles crossed. My feet had a mind of their own because they walked to stand next to him.
He squinted up at me. “Your brother’s cute.”
“He knows it, too. Kind of like someone else I know,” I muttered, before I could stop myself.
Cade laughed. “You’re not talking about me, right? Because we have a truce.”
It had been a joke … sort of … but he was right, we had a truce. “You have grass stains on the knees of your pants now.”
He lifted one leg and looked, then put it down and patted the grass next to him. “Sit down.”
I didn’t take kindly to commands but, again, my brain didn’t seem to be in control of my body. I sat. Cade rolled onto his side to face me, propping himself up with one elbow. Then he just stared at me. For so long that I began to squirm under the scrutiny.
I didn’t want to be the first person to say something but I couldn’t help it. “You should look into catching rabbits for a living. You’re not half bad at it.”
He smiled. “That would be almost as manly as becoming a cowboy.”
I laughed. “What are your career plans, anyway?” I asked, realizing we hadn’t ever talked about that in our letters before.
Cade sighed. “You sound like my dad.”
I noticed that he didn’t say stepdad, even though I assumed that’s who he was referring to. “Was that supposed to be an answer?”
“Baseball. Those are my plans for now. Let me know if you hear of any rabbit catcher openings though.”
I knew a non-answer when I heard one. But I was used to Cade sharing with me (in his letters, at least). And, even though it made no sense, it hurt a little that he wasn’t willing to do that now, in person.
But of course he wouldn’t open up to me, Lily. I wasn’t someone he liked. I wasn’t whoever he thought the letter writer was.
“Are you still hungry?” I asked, changing the subject. “There’s probably more food inside.”
“No, I’m good. I actually ate at my house before coming here.”
“Then why did you come?” I asked.
“Because your brother invited me. He’s a good kid.”
I ran a flat hand over the top of the grass, letting the blades tickle my palm. “Is that the only reason?” I wanted him to talk about home. Vent, like he had in the letters. If he’d had a bad morning, I wanted him to talk about it. Maybe I wanted to prove to him that he could talk to me.
“Did you want there to be another reason?” He tilted his head and lifted one side of his mouth into a half-smile. I realized what I’d just implied without the context of the letters.
“No! Of-of course not,” I stammered, willing my face not to turn red. “I just wondered why your parents didn’t make you stay home. My parents don’t let me leave on Thanksgiving.”
His air of confidence seemed to falter. He lay back on the grass again. “Yeah … I’m sure my parents like me to stay home, too. My mom likes for us to spend time together.”
“She does?” That’s not what he’d said … well, written, before.
“Of course. What Mom doesn’t, right?”
This boy had up the biggest wall ever. I wasn’t sure what it took to get him to be real outside of his writing. “Not all moms are good moms. Or dads.”
Cade didn’t even flinch or squeeze his eyes shut. He just turned his head and studied me again. “Your arm is bleeding.”
I looked down to see a few red drops along my arm. “Oh. Bugs got me. It’s no big deal.”
“You probably want to clean that. He’s not exactly the most sanitary creature in the world.”
I could tell our conversation was over by the way Cade draped one arm over his eyes like he was settling in for an afternoon nap. It hurt more than I wanted it to.
It was five thirty and Cade was still at my house. I’d given him one hour and he’d lasted over three. I’d totally lost the bet I’d made with myself. Mark was long gone. He hadn’t even stayed long enough for my grandparents’ annual stories about Thanksgivings past, featuring my mom as a teenager who went on a hunger strike for turkeys everywhere. And he definitely hadn’t stayed for the pie we were about to eat.
The pie. The event I had been pushing off for the last hour, trying to outlast Cade. He could not be here when we did the family tradition I had spelled out so perfectly in the letter. Any minute he would leave. He had to. Those were the thoughts I’d had for the last one hundred and twenty minutes. Minutes filled with my little cousins attaching themselves to Cade’s ankles and not letting go while he walked around. With my dad explaining to him every step of how he built the bookcase in the living room. With my mom using his wrist as a measurement for a “man bracelet” she was making. She had said that out loud to him: “I’m going to make a man bracelet. Let me see your wrist.”
I’d lost count of the number of times my face had turned red. Of how many times Cade had looked confused or amused. I wondered how many of these stories were going to be hand-delivered to Sasha later.
“Where is Sasha, anyway?” I asked abruptly as we sat on opposite couches, Cade’s wrist still being wrapped in the brown leather cording my mom wielded.
He shrugged. “Family stuff. Where’s Lucas?”
“Lucas? How do you … Why would I know where Lucas is?”
“I saw you two at a concert the other night.”
My stomach jumped. “Frequent Stops? You were there? I knew you’d—” I stopped myself before finishing with the words “love them.”
Cade tilted his head. “You knew I’d what?”
“Be there. I heard Sasha say something.”
“Sasha didn’t go.”
“Oh … she must’ve known you would be there.”
“She did.”
“Lucas and I … ” Did I really need to explain my relationship with Lucas—or lack thereof—to Cade? He didn’t deserve an explanation. Especially not in front of my mom. She knew I’d gone to the concert with Isabel and Gabriel and a friend from school. And thankfully, she wasn’t really paying attention now. “… had fun,” I finished quickly. “We had fun.”
My mom flipped Cade’s wrist over. “Don’t move. I need to get the clasp.” She got up and left and for the first time today, the living room seemed quiet.
A movie was playing in the other room, occupying the kids. My aunts, uncle, dad, and grandparents were in the kitchen doing dishes, and I wasn’t sure where Ashley had disappeared to.
I nodded toward Cade’s wrist. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fun. I get a man bracelet.”
I smiled. “I don’t think you get to keep it. She’s just using you as her model.”
“Her model?”
“It’s a fact, not a compliment.”
“Because if you gave me a compliment you might have a stroke.”