Page 77 of Let's Kiss and Tell

“No.” I laugh. “She’s just…working on an expansion.”

“What’s an expansion?” she asks.

“Ask your parents,” I say. Oliver and Quinn are much more capable of speaking to that than I am.

“Okay. Time for school! Bye, I love you, Uncle Marsh!”

“I love you, Dee Dee.”

“Oh!” Sadie says. “Are you coming to my birthday?”

“Of courseI’m coming. Even if the tooth fairy pulled out all my teeth, that couldn’t stop me.”

“Daaaaad!” Sadie yells on the other end.

I hear some muffled talking as I sit up, waiting.

“Did you tell Sadie that the tooth fairy is going to pull out all her teeth and build a house out of them?” Oliver says.

“I mean, not verbatim.”

“She wants to pull out the rest of her baby teeth to help with the tooth fairy’s expansion…” he says slowly.

“You’ve got an empathetic kid there, Ollie.”

“Where did you get the house-made-out-of-teeth bit?”

“Isn’t that what it’s for?” I ask, standing by my assumption. “I swear I read that somewhere.”

“No!The fuck?”

“You should be thanking me. This could lead her on a very successful path to being an orthodontist.”

“Anyway,” Oliver says, ignoring me, “Quinn feels bad about Julia coming next weekend.”

Truthfully, I forgot about that detail, and I’m oddly not as upset about it as I was two weeks ago. When we had that call,Lucy was just a woman I met at a bar. It’s crazy how much can happen in such a short amount of time.

“Tell Quinn it’s seriously fine,” I say. “I, uh, I’m actually going to be bringing someone if that’s okay.”

There’s a beat of silence on Oliver’s end. “Like afemalesomeone?”

“Yes…is that okay?”

“Are you going to give me any details?” Oliver asks. “I thought you were against dating and now you’re bringing someone to meet the family?”

While I could easily tell Oliver what’s going on between Lucy and me, I don’t for the same reason I don’t want to show up to Julia’s wedding alone: It’s embarrassing. I don’t want to have to tell my big brother that I don’t have it in me to show up solo or that I’m not capable of finding a date on my own.

“It’s nothing serious, Ollie,” I say.

“It sounds serious if you’re letting her meet Mom.”

“Introducing her to Mom doesn’t mean I’m proposing to her,” I rebut.

“Okay, well, yeah, of course you can bring her,” Oliver says. “I’m happy for you!”

“I promise, it’s nothing serious,” I insist. “We’ve just been seeing each other for a little bit and I’m enjoying her company, all right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. So, what’s her name? How’d you meet?”