Emmy & Oliver - Robin Benway Page 0,66
said,” Nora repeated.
“Nora, Molly.” Maureen came bustling into the kitchen. “Come on now, it’s bedtime.”
A chorus of protests rose up, but Maureen just flapped her hands at them, like they were baby birds in a nest. “No, no, you know the rules.”
“But our friend is visiting!” Nora cried, pointing at me.
“Don’t point,” Maureen said. “It’s rude. And you can see Emmy tomorrow.”
I nodded at them. “Totally. Besides, you two see me all the time. I’m boring.”
Molly and Nora both glared at me as they started to slink away, a betrayer to their cause. “But Oliver has to read the story!” Molly suddenly said, turning around and pointing at him.
“Don’t point!” Maureen cried. “Does anybody listen to anything I say anymore?”
“Kind of hard not to,” Oliver muttered, but Maureen was too far away to hear him.
“Oliver! You do the story tonight!” The twins (excuse me, the “invididuals”) had let go of me and were now hanging on to him, and over their heads, Maureen gave him a pleading, tired look.
“You do the voices!” Nora said to him, and Oliver gave the same look right back to his mother. It startled me a little to see how similar their reactions could be. I don’t think either one of them realized it, though.
“Oliver, do you mind?” Maureen murmured. “Please?”
Oliver looked at me. “Mom, what’s Emmy going to do while I’m up there?” he asked, even as Nora started to climb him like a tree.
“Set the table,” Maureen replied. “See? A solution for everything.”
Oliver sighed and rolled his eyes, then shot me an apologetic look. “Okay, monsters,” he said, and they cheered. “First one upstairs gets to pick the book.” The girls took off, their feet making thunder-like noises on the stairs as they raced to their room.
“You do the voices?” I asked him, not even bothering to hide my smile. “Are you just a big mush?”
Oliver blushed. “This isn’t the sort of detail that I wanted to be made public,” he said.
“I might die of adorableness,” I said. Maureen had followed the girls upstairs, yelling about brushing teeth and washing hands, and now it was just Oliver and me in the kitchen. I tangled my fingers together with his, pulling him a little closer. “Do a voice for me,” I said. “Go on.”
“No way in hell.” He laughed and started to pull away when I leaned in. “Forget it. Nope.”
“Come on!” I teased. “Is it cute? I bet it’s really cute. Do you do Olivia’s voice? Angelina Ballerina’s? Oh my God, you do Angelina?” I said when he blushed. “This is too cute! I’m dying. No, wait. I have to text Caro and then I’ll die.”
“Do not text Caro!” he said, diving for my hand as I reached for my phone. “Come on, Em. I need some dignity. Please.”
“Oli-ver!” one of the twins yelled from upstairs. “We’re waiting!”
“My audience is really demanding,” he said, pulling away from me even as I continued to giggle. “You’re not really going to text Caro, are you? Tell me you’re not.”
“I won’t,” I said. “I promise. Your Angelina Ballerina secrets are safe with me.”
He hesitated just before leaving the kitchen, then ran back to me and kissed me fast. “Hi,” he whispered. “Didn’t have a chance to do that yet.” Then he disappeared, yelling, “I hope you invididuals are happy now!” as he took the stairs two at a time. I pressed my hand to my mouth, waiting for a moment in the now-quiet kitchen, and then went to find some place mats.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Oliver and I ended up not sitting next to each other at dinner. “Sit at the head of the table,” Rick said to Oliver. It was pretty obvious that Rick was trying to be nice to Oliver, being generous and treating him as “man of the house” or whatever, but Oliver just sat down and didn’t respond. Rick looked like he expected Oliver to say something, but when he didn’t, Rick’s face fell a little and he turned away. Maureen sat down at the opposite end, closest to the kitchen, and my mom and I sat on one side while Rick and my dad sat on the other.
I have to say this about the twins: they may be small, little, and noisy, but when they’re around, there are rarely any awkward silences, and suddenly I found myself wishing that they were at the table with us.
“I hope you all like chicken,” Maureen said, reaching for the salad bowl as my mom started to pass