Heart Like Mine A Novel - By Amy Hatvany Page 0,30
“Almost nine.”
He squatted down and cupped the back of my head in his hand. “Here, kitty kitty.”
I noticed he still had white foam near his ears from shaving, so I grabbed the towel off the rack and wiped it away for him. “Why don’t Gramma and Grampa want to see Mama?” I asked. It scared me to think that my parents could someday not want to see me.
He frowned. “Were you eavesdropping again, young lady? We’ve talked about that a hundred times. Not okay.” He gave the end of my nose a light pinch.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to. I was just walking down the hall.”
“Uh-huh,” Daddy said, but winked at me, too, so I knew he wasn’t really angry. Daddy never stayed mad at me or Max for very long; Mama was the one who took away TV privileges or sent us to our rooms when we misbehaved. With Daddy, I knew I could get away with pretty much everything.
I tried again. “Are Gramma and Grampa mad at Mama? Bree got mad at me once and didn’t talk to me for a whole week.”
“It’s complicated, sweetie. Sometimes grown-ups have problems in their relationships that kids really can’t understand.”
“Like I don’t understand division?”
He chuckled. “Sort of.” He grabbed the towel from me. “Now, you need to scoot so I can finish getting ready.”
“Do you have to go to work?” I asked, carefully searching his face with my eyes. He had brown hair and gray eyes and long, dark lashes. He was the handsomest man in the world.
He gave me a small smile, making his dimple show up. I wanted to stick my finger in it. “I do, kitten,” he said. “It’s how I take care of you guys.”
“But do you have to be gone so long?” I whispered, not looking at him.
He sighed. “As long as it takes to get the business on its feet, baby girl. I know it’s hard, but we’re a family, and we’re going to go through some rough times.”
“Mama’s tired,” I said, still in a whisper. “She cries sometimes, in the middle of the day, she’s so tired.”
Daddy was quiet a minute, pressing his lips together and breathing slowly, through his nose. Then he spoke. “I’ll take care of your mama, okay, Ava? Don’t you worry.”
Nodding my head felt like lying, but I did it anyway. I told my daddy exactly what he wanted to hear.
Kelli
When Jason Winkler sat down next to Kelli in Algebra I, she took it as a sign that they were meant to be together. He was by far the cutest boy in the school—everyone thought so. He was tall but not skinny. His dark hair fell over his blue eyes in a way that made Kelli want to reach out and brush it back with the tips of her fingers, then let them slide down the warmth of his cheek. He had a lopsided smile that was almost always accompanied by a wink—Kelli was pretty sure that on the first day of class, he’d smiled more than once at her before sauntering to the back row and plopping into the chair beside her. He was a junior but spent more time at basketball practice than studying, so this was the third time he was taking the introductory class. Kelli was just a freshman and didn’t care about that. She only cared that of all the open spots in the room, he picked the one next to her.
“Hey,” he said this morning, swinging his head around to look at her. There it was. The smile . . . and the wink. Kelli felt the space between her legs get warm and she blushed.
“Hey,” she echoed, tucking the sheet of her long blond hair behind one ear. It was her pride and joy, that hair. Sleek and shiny, not an ounce of frizz or split ends. She spent hours brushing it at night, staring in the mirror, practicing imagined red-carpet speeches into her comb. Her parents said she was vain; she preferred to think of it as optimistic.
“You get the assignment done?” Jason asked as he stretched his long legs out straight beneath the desk and crossed one ankle over the other.
She rolled her eyes. “Kind of. It was totally hard.” She hoped he noticed the outfit she’d changed into in the school bathroom—peg-legged Levi’s and a tight pink sweater, borrowed from her friend Nancy. They were clothes other girls took for granted, but her parents would have screamed at her