Page 18 of From This Moment (After We Fall 4)
“Oh.” She stiffened. “I guess if we’re not invited…”
I took a breath and counted to three. “Everyone is invited. I just didn’t want you to go to any trouble.”
“Since when is feeding my family any trouble?”
“I like hot dogs and s’mores,” my father put in without looking up from his crossword.
“There. See? We can just keep it casual.”
My mother sniffed. “Fine. Casual. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make a few things on the side.”
“That sounds great, Mom.” A compromise. I’d take it. “Thanks.”
“I also want to talk about your birthday dinner.”
“My birthday isn’t until October.”
“I like planning ahead. And you haven’t been around for your birthday in years. I want to make sure we celebrate it.”
I understood that she needed something fun to focus on for my birthday. Otherwise, it would just be another day to mourn the loss of Drew. It would have been his birthday, too. It was still strange to me that I was older than he would ever be. He’d been older than me for thirty-five years. “We can do whatever you want, Mom.”
She smiled. “So what are you up to the rest of the night?”
“I was thinking of giving Pete a call.” I hadn’t actually thought of it until right that minute, but despite the cathedral ceiling above me, the house was feeling a little stifling.
“Might as well.” She sighed and picked up her magazine again. “Since you already had dinner.”
I ignored that and wandered out through the sliding screen door onto the wooden deck that overlooked the lawn and, beyond it, the lake. Scrolling through my contacts, I checked to see if I still had a cell number for Pete. I did, so I shot him a quick text and he called me right away.
“Hello?”
“Hey! I heard you were back in town! Welcome home.”
“Thanks.”
“How are you? Is it good to be back?”
I thought about it. “Yes and no. Mostly yes, I guess.”
“It’s gotta be strange for you without Drew here.”
Looking out over the lawn, I saw a thousand games of catch and Frisbee and capture the flag with my brother and our friends. Nights just like this at the end of summer, August heat still hanging on even though it was September, the breeze warm, the temperature of the lake finally perfect. “It is.”
“Man, what a shock. I still can’t get over it.”
“Me neither.”
“Hey, I’m on kid duty tonight because Georgia is working, but want to come over for a beer?”
I slapped at a mosquito on my leg. “Yeah. I’d like that. My mother is driving me fucking crazy. I really need to move out.”
He laughed. “Come on over. Pull around the back of the inn and park in the drive. We live in an addition off the old part of the house.”
“Okay. See you in ten.”
“You’ve got a great place here,” I told Pete after he’d shown me around. “Whoever did your addition did a really good job staying true to the style of the old house.”
“Thanks. We like it.” He pulled two beers from t
