see me.”
I stood up, Oliver cocked on my hip, but when she came through the swinging door, she had Luca with her. This I did not expect. Oliver bounced himself joyfully, smiling his silly, two-tooth smile at the sight of her. He was crazy about Maddy.
“You remember Luca?” she said, coming all the way to me to give Oliver a little tickle on his belly. “Hi, stinky baby.” Her cheeks were pink with pleasure.
Luca gave me a casual hand wave. He slouched by the breakfast bar, looking like a godlet in his perfectly cut jeans and Doc Martens.
“Hello, Luca. It’s great that you’re here, actually,” I lied. I didn’t want any damn thing Roux-related within a mile of me today. But this was my job, and I would do it. I made sure my tone was friendly but also firm. “I wanted to talk to you about our house rules. We don’t let Madison ride with teen drivers. Kids need at least a year of experience driving alone before they start toting other kids around. Especially if the kid is ours. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and that surprised me. The “ma’am.” It didn’t even sound ironic.
Maddy’s pink cheeks had gone all the way to crimson. She knew she was busted, and she was begging me with all her eyes not to ground her, not to make this boy go home. Oliver was still reaching for her, so she took him, then buried her blushing face in his neck.
“How long have you had your license?” I asked Luca.
“Ummm,” he said, thinking, and then he shrugged. “Not a year.”
That was reassuring. That meant he was likely still sixteen. A junior.
“We all understand each other?” I said to both of them.
“I’m sorry, Monster,” Mad said. She put her face by Oliver’s face and smiled. “Am I to be executed with the sunrise? Should I bid my dumpling of a baby brother a final farewell?” She kissed Oliver’s cheek with a resounding smack, and he giggled. I couldn’t help but smile back at the both of them.
Part of me still wanted to ground Maddy, mostly so I could send Luca away, but that would not be fair. Plus, in an hour Maddy’s mother was scheduled to have her weekly phone call. Laura lived in Birmingham, and while the court had granted her supervised visitation, she only managed to show up for it once or twice a year. There was a good chance she wouldn’t call at all, which was one kind of awful, and an equally good chance that she would call very late, or drunk, or both. Wednesdays were hard, but today, with this boy in tow, Maddy was being silly and charming and kissing on the baby like it was still Tuesday.
“‘Buttercup doesn’t get eaten by the eels at this time,’” I told her, and she grinned.
“Go see your mommy,” she told the baby. I held out my hands, and Oliver lurched toward me. I perched him on my hip again.
Maddy turned away and plucked at Luca’s shirt, pulling him back toward the swinging door.
“Where you going?” I asked.
She froze. “Upstairs? I wanted to show Luca this video.”
“Run up and bring the iPad down,” I said, and then fixed Luca with a firm gaze. “We also don’t let Mads take boys up to her bedroom.” Maddy shot me an agonized look for saying “bedroom,” but I was not here to play. “Why don’t you sit down at the breakfast bar. Have a snack. I’ve got homemade blondies.”
Maddy looked like she was hoping the earth would mercifully open up and swallow her whole at my offer, or maybe she was hoping it would swallow me. But Luca was a teenage boy, and he perked up at the mention of food.
“Great,” he said.
“Milk?” I asked him.
“Oh, my God,” Maddy said, but Luca said, “Yes, please,” at the same time.
I began the process of getting plates and napkins and blondies and pouring milk one-handed, with the baby “helping.” Luca wandered past us, into the keeping room, looking around while I got their snack together. Maddy plopped onto a stool at the breakfast bar, staring daggers at me, trying to eye-stab me out of the room.
“These are cool,” Luca said. He was over by the sofa that sat against the side wall, looking at the photo grouping I’d hung there, eighteen pictures in various sizes of undersea animals. He pointed at the center shot, a spectacular purple-and-orange Spanish shawl. “What’s this guy?”
“A nudibranch,” I said,