Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 109903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
"Neil, hello," she said, offering her hand. "I don't think we've been introduced."
Neil shifted his coffee to his left hand so he could give her hand a quick squeeze. "No, but I've seen you at games. You're Katelyn, right? You're on the Vixen squad."
She seemed pleased to be recognized, but Aaron still looked annoyed. Neil didn't blame him. Aaron and Katelyn always looked for each other at games, but Aaron never approached the cheerleaders. This was the first time Neil saw them so close to each other. Maybe Aaron was finally making the move his teammates were waiting for. They were already holding hands, so it had to be going well.
Aaron noticed Neil's downward glance, judging by the cool edge in his, "Goodbye."
Katelyn leaned against him in silent admonishment, but Neil slipped past them without argument. He didn't make it far before curiosity made him look back. Katelyn and Aaron were oblivious as they stood in the café line. Katelyn stood tucked against Aaron's side, a few inches taller than he was but somehow fitting perfectly against him. They looked surprisingly comfortable together for how carefully they avoided each other at games. Neil expected their first steps to be a bit more awkward.
"The coffee that interesting?"
Neil wondered if the Foxes secretly installed him with a tracking chip and turned towards Nicky's voice. Nicky was almost to the top of the stairs, his backpack dangling off one elbow and his arms loaded down with magazines.
"Not really," Neil said, but Nicky stopped beside him and looked into the café. Neil braced for an excited reaction or some triumphant spiel about all the bets he'd just won. He wasn't expecting Nicky's approving nod.
"Smart of them to pick the library as necking grounds," Nicky said. He turned Neil away from the café with a hand on his shoulder. "Andrew claims he's allergic to books, so he doesn't come here unless Kevin makes him. They're safe for another week at least. Do us all a favor and don't mention it?"
"I thought they weren't together," Neil said, setting off in search of a place to study.
"Not officially, no." Nicky followed along behind him uninvited. "Aaron's too smart to ask her out and for now Katelyn's okay with waiting. I don't know if she'll last until graduation, and I know it's not fair to ask her to, but I kind of hope she does. They're good together, right?"
"I wouldn't know."
Neil found an empty table and set his things down. Nicky promptly scattered his magazines across three-quarters of the table. Neil scooted a couple out of his way and sat. He was half-afraid he wouldn't get anything done with someone as chatty as Nicky around, but Nicky was surprisingly focused on his own project. What Neil had assumed was leisure reading turned out to be source material for one of Nicky's marketing classes. They worked in silence for almost twenty minutes before Nicky finally spoke.
"Andrew hates her, you know?"
It took Neil a moment to figure out what Nicky was talking about. His head was full of numbers; he was working through a six-page pamphlet of mathematical equations. But Nicky said it like he'd been thinking about Aaron and Katelyn this entire time. Neil almost said nothing, because his review was more important than something as trivial as Aaron's maybe-relationship, but it was hard to ignore an opening line like that.
"Why?" Neil asked.
"Because Aaron likes her," Nicky said, as if that was obvious.
"Last I checked Andrew doesn't like Aaron, either."
"Precisely." Nicky flipped his magazine shut, looked very obviously over his shoulder to check for either of his cousins, then leaned across the table toward Neil. "Andrew's not really big on the idea of Aaron's happiness, see? So if Aaron likes Katelyn, Andrew doesn't want him to have her. Andrew might smile awful bright but he is a master of childish spite."
"That doesn't make sense," Neil said.
"It's complicated," Nicky said, rubbing the back of his neck as he leaned back in his chair. "I didn't really get into the gritty details last time because those aren't really Dan and Matt's business, but you're family, so I can tell you." He looked over his shoulder again. "I told you Aunt Tilda gave Andrew up, right? That's only half of it. Truth is she put both of them in the system at first. One week later she changed her mind."
"She could do that?"
"The system allows for panic and regret." Nicky grimaced. "She didn't have to give the clerk her name but she had to take the gray ID bands that marked which kids were hers just in case. So long as she came back fast enough, yeah, she could have her babies back.
"Aunt Tilda felt guilty about giving up her sons, but she didn't feel bad enough to take them both. She could only handle one, or so she told Dad when he found out about Andrew. I don't know how she chose which one she went back for. Did she go alphabetically, Aaron before Andrew, or did she reach into the drawer and take whichever band she touched first?"
Nicky went quiet for a moment as he thought about it. He scrubbed a hand across his forehead and continued. "They each had a fifty-fifty chance of getting screwed. Ha!" Nicky's smile was humorless. "Guess they both got the short end of the stick. Andrew went off to foster care and Aaron became the living reminder of Aunt Tilda's guilt and failure. Aunt Tilda tried as hard as she could to not deal with Aaron at all, at least until Andrew came back into the picture. That's when Aaron says she started getting angry instead of just neglectful."
"They know she gave them both up?" Neil asked.
"When Andrew's foster mother called to set up that meet-and-greet, she asked Aunt Tilda how only one of them ended up in the system. Aunt Tilda told her, and Aaron heard it on the upstairs line." Nicky gestured up as if indicating Tilda's bedroom. "I don't know why the hell Andrew's foster family told him, but yeah, he knows. I'm thinking that's why he wouldn't talk to Aaron when Aaron wrote to him. He was—justifiably, I think—pissed off."