Page 63 of Stay

“Yeah. It has.” I’m not sure what else to say.

“Guess what?” Cole leans forward to look at his baby brother. “You’re on dish duty.”

Reid’s shoulders slump. “Damn. I forgot about that.”

“We’ll help,” I say, because honestly, Reid looks like he could fall face-first onto his dinner plate from exhaustion. “Won’t we, Cole?”

“What? No way.”

I smack his arm.

“Okay, fine.” Cole places a roll on my plate. “You’re lucky she’s sweet, bro. I’d have made you suffer.”

Reid scoops a huge pile of green bean casserole onto his plate. “I owe you one, Haley.”

“So, boys,” Bryan says. “Who’s got some good news for us?”

The brothers and their significant others take turns sharing great things going on in their lives, but I notice neither Reid nor Cole look like they plan to say a word. In fact, when it’s Cole’s turn, he just sits back and shrugs. “Same ole, same ole.”

Reid nods. “Same ole, same ole.”

What? No. “What about your big—”

Cole flicks me a warning look that has me shutting up immediately.

“Your big what?” Ellie presses.

“Nothing,” he says, playing it off like he has no clue what I’m talking about.

I can’t believe him. Why isn’t he telling his family about his big design getting accepted for the Marine Life project?

Chapter 20

Cole

After dinner, everyone breaks off into groups. There’s a card table for playing spades and rummy. Dad brought out a bunch of board games, too. Reid, Haley, and I are doing the dishes while Mom takes pictures of everyone else having fun.

“What’s going on with you, man?” I take a clean plate from Reid and dry it off.

“Nothing.”

“You look like you’ve been hit by a truck.”

“Thanks.” He shoves another dripping plate at me.

Haley comes in with more dishes for us to wash, and quietly places them on the counter.

Reid eyes me up. “What’s the big news you don’t want to share?”

“Don’t have any,” I lie.

Reid looks over his shoulder at Haley. “Got something to do with her?”

“Nope.” I stack the dried plates on the kitchen table and grab another towel from the drawer. “Trey says you’ve been sleeping in the office.”

“Trey needs to mind his business. He doesn’t even work in my office anymore, so how would he know?”

Good point, but my guess is he has people checking up on our baby brother.

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