on the deck when Mom sits down in the chair across from me. She tilts her head to the side, and I know we’re about to have a Kris Walters heart-to-heart. Mom picks up a rock and toys with it in her fingers. “This is cute, Sid.”
“Thanks.”
“So, listen…” Mom rubs her thumb over the smooth surface of the gray rock. “Is everything okay with you and Asher?”
My hands still. “How could they not be okay, we haven’t really even hung out.”
“I know. And I just thought … well, it’s just that Sylvie was thinking … do you not like him? Did something happen?”
Other than me being a class-A jerk, no. Nothing has happened. “No, nothing happened. I’m just being my hermity self.”
Mom smiles and rubs her hand over my shoulder. “Hermits are awesome. People wouldn’t keep them as pets if they weren’t.”
I smile. “Those are crabs, Mom.”
“Either way.” Mom tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear. “Asher’s nice. You’re nice. I just don’t want you to be bored this summer. Maybe … make a little effort? If you hate him, you can paint rocks twenty-four/seven, okay?”
“Okay.” I put my hand out and my mom deposits the rock into my palm. “I think I can do that.”
As Mom walks back across the lawn toward the deck and the other parents, she throws back a “Love you, Sid” over her shoulder.
* * *
I haven’t really spent time with Asher since our parents had a mini-reunion at an alumni night swim meet three years ago, when we were ten. We shared his tablet and played games, and we haven’t been in a confined space together since. Until tonight. Because I can do this. After dinner, I see Asher from my kitchen window, making his way down to the hill at the edge of the yard, where the fire pit is situated just beyond a row of tall bushes covered in big red berries that look like miniature apples. I wash the last dish, setting it on a towel on the counter to dry. The sink is still full of silverware, but Mom will do those, because yuck.
Last summer I helped Dad make fires every night, but this summer Asher has unofficially claimed the job. I grab a stack of newspapers from the little screened-in porch, take a deep breath, and head toward my demise. I mean, the fire pit. Hopefully the only thing to crash and burn tonight will be some logs. Fingers crossed. Asher is throwing logs into a haphazard pile within the metal ring when I set the papers down on one of the three wooden benches.
“Hey.” Asher smiles at me, and I smile back without thinking, because lips … teeth … blue eyes.
“Hey,” I finally squeak out. “Do you want some help?”
Asher puts his hands on his hips and looks from the sandy circle to me. “Yeah. I suck at this.” I laugh and he looks at me. “What?”
I don’t say anything, because the fact that he admitted that means we are so different. I’m afraid to talk to him, and he’s confident enough to admit he sucks at something; he doesn’t care if I know.
“I’m actually awesome at this,” I say, picking the papers up and handing them to Asher. “I’ll fix the wood. You start twisting these.” I take a piece of paper in my hands and twist it.
Asher sits on the bench across from me and works on the paper, making a little pile on the ground in front of him while I pull all of the wood out of the circle.
“You don’t like my stack?”
“It’s more like a pile.” I find a thick, straight log and stand it on its end in the middle of the ashy circle. “Fires need air, you can’t just dump the wood in there.” That’s what my dad always said. I stack another piece of wood at an angle against my first. “I mean, unless you want to douse it with lighter fluid, but I consider that cheating.”
“I didn’t realize there were rules.” He’s smiling at me like he thinks I’m funny.
I shrug. “There aren’t, sometimes I just make them up.”
Asher watches me as I stack pieces against my first, creating a cone. Before I put on the last piece, I wave at Asher. “Stick a handful of paper here.” I use my log to point to the gap and Asher squats down, shoving paper into the open space there. “Do the same thing on the other side,” I