He shrugs and smiles. “I know. I saw.”
I smile, too, and sit on the edge of his bed. “So all three of you are going to France, and I’m staying here? Talk about unfair.” I’m only half kidding.
“You should come.”
I snort. “Yeah, my parents would definitely be cool with that.”
But Cricket looks thoughtful. “You know, Andy loves figure skating. If you had a free ticket, he might bite.”
“And where, exactly, would I find a free ticket?”
He sits beside me. “Courtesy of my great-great-great-grandfather Alexander Graham Bell, the world’s richest liar?”
I stop smiling. “Cricket. I could never accept that.”
He nudges one of my cowboy boots with one of his pointy wingtips. “Think about it.”
My foot tingles from the shoe-on-shoe contact. I nudge his shoe back. He nudges mine. The microwave beeps, and he hesitates, unsure if he should get up. I reach out and take his wrist, over his rubber bands and bracelets. “I’m not that hungry,” I say.
Cricket looks down at my hand.
I slide my index finger underneath a red bracelet. My finger brushes the skin of his inner wrist, and he releases a small sound. His eyes close. I twine my finger in and out of his bracelets, tying myself against him. I close my eyes, too. My finger guides us onto our backs, and we lie beside each other, quietly attached, for several minutes.
“Where’s Dustin?” I finally ask.
“He’ll be back soon. Unfortunately.”
I open my eyes, and he’s staring me. I wonder how long his eyes have been open. “That’s okay,” I say. “I came here to give you a late Christmas present.”
His eyebrows raise.
I smile. “Not that kind of present.” I untangle my finger from his wrist and roll over to grab my purse from his floor. I rummage through it until I find the tiny something taken from my sock drawer. “Actually, it’s more like a late birthday present.”
“How . . . belated of you?”
I roll back toward him. “Hold out your hand.”
He’s smiling. He does.
“I’m sure you don’t remember anymore, but several birthdays ago, you needed this.” And I place a tiny wrench into his palm. “Lindsey and I went everywhere to find it, but then . . . I couldn’t give it to you.”
His expression falls. “Lola.”
I close his fingers around the gift. “I threw away your bottle cap, because it killed me to look at. But I never could throw away this. I’ve been waiting to give it to you for two and a half years.”
“I don’t know what to say,” he whispers.
“I’m almost full,” I say. “Thank you for waiting for me, too.”
Chapter thirty-one
The doorbell rings early the next Saturday. It wakes me from a deep slumber, but I immediately fall back asleep. I’m surprised when I’m being shaken awake moments later. “You’re needed downstairs,” Andy says. “Now.”
I sit up. “Norah? She was kicked out already?”
“Calliope. It’s an emergency.”
I tear out of bed. An emergency with Calliope can only mean one thing: an emergency with Cricket. We’ve been texting, so I know he planned to come home before leaving for Nationals. But his light was off when I got back from work last night. I couldn’t tell if he was there. What if he tried to come home, and something happened along the way? “Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God.” I throw on a kimono and race downstairs, where Calliope is pacing our living room. Her normally smooth hair is unwashed and disheveled, and her complexion is puffy and red.