sweater. I shivered in response, offering my grandfather a sideways glance as he peeled off his jacket and hung it up by the door.
“Hey, pixie stick,” he said, his voice only slightly strained. “Brooklyn.”
“Hey, Pastor Bill,” Brooke said. “Do you like your new phone?”
He strolled over and bent to give me a hesitant peck on the cheek. “Not even a little,” he said, then offered Brooke a peck too.
“Well, I love mine,” Grandma said, her eyes glued to the screen, sparkling with an alarming degree of lust. I never figured Grandma for a techno geek, but she was really getting into that thing.
She pushed a button, and a microsecond later Granddad’s phone beeped. With a heavy sigh, he took it out of the case at his belt and worked a few moments to get the message to come up. Then his face morphed into one of his signature glares. The one that reminded me of a guy at a carnival one time when I tried to convince him I was old enough to go on the Terrifying Twister without my parents’ consent. I was four.
“You couldn’t have just said good morning?” Granddad asked. “I’m standing right here.”
“No.” She waved an impatient hand at him. “You have to text that to me. Pretend we’re on our honeymoon.”
Brooklyn choked on her milk and spent the next two minutes coughing. Then she made this gagging sound that was very much like her reaction to my shampoo.
Taking Brooke’s sudden fit into consideration, Granddad explained. “We had a huge fight on our honeymoon. We didn’t talk for days.”
“But if we’d had these phones,” Grandma said, shaking it at him for effect, “we wouldn’t have needed to talk. These things are great.”
His phone beeped again. “Really, Vera? I’m right here.”
“What? I can’t hear you.” Then she giggled like a mental patient, and I almost smiled. Maybe the phones weren’t such a good idea after all.
The back door opened again when Cameron strolled in, his blond hair a disheveled mess.
“You look like a tumbleweed,” Brooke said, her voice hoarse from her most recent efforts.
Never one to be accused of social graces, he shrugged at her before nodding to my grandparents. “Hey, Pastor, Mrs. James.”
“Hi, Cameron,” Granddad said, but Grandma was still busy with her phone.
He didn’t seem to mind. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and leaned against the wall, waiting for us. But when Brooklyn wasn’t looking, his eyes wandered toward her, a glint of interest in them despite the fact that she was in the middle of stuffing the last remnants of apple into her mouth. Then his phone beeped. He fished it out of his front pocket, frowned, then looked up at Grandma, who now wore a satisfied grin on her face. After clearing his throat in obvious discomfort, he mumbled, “It’s nice to see you too, Mrs. James.”
Grandma nodded. This was getting ridiculous.
“How did you know it was Grandma?” I asked him. “She just got that phone.”
He leaned forward to confide in me. “She’s been texting me all night.”
“Grandma!” I scolded, breaking my vow of silence and giving her my best look of shocked dismay. “You can’t go around texting high school kids in the middle of the night. You’ll get arrested.”
Cameron broke, chuckling before he headed toward the back door. “Are you kidding? I now have your grandma’s famous recipe for chile con queso.”
“Sweet,” Brooke said, scooping up her jacket and backpack and following him out. “You can make some later.”
I took an apple to eat on the way to school and grabbed my jacket and backpack as well.
“Can we talk to you, pix?” Granddad asked.
I paused but didn’t look back at them. “I’ll be late for school.”
“We’ll talk later, then,” Grandma said, her voice soft and sad.
It made my throat constrict. I nodded and headed out of a perfectly warm house into a cold, frigid wind that whipped my hair about and took only seconds to convince me I’d underdressed for the occasion despite Cameron’s warning. Bummer that insulated work coveralls and ski masks weren’t in fashion.
We hurried into Cameron’s beat-up Chevy. He’d kept it running, and it rumbled and shimmied as we climbed in. Despite its haggard appearance on the outside, the inside boasted a toasty warmth that kept the chills at bay. That was all that mattered at the moment.
“I think you should look for Jared today while we’re in class,” I said to Cameron as we drove to school.
He shook his head, and disappointment rushed over me.
“But