Page 12 of Tulips and Lost Time

“Yeah,” I laugh. “Nice one, Marcus. Let’s beat on a bunch of fourth-grade girls and remain normal, respectable citizens.”

“We take care of business,” Britt declares. Like the others, she hitches a ride on Sam’s board, and while he does all the work, she checks her nails and smirks. “No one comes near us, because we’re too scary for the basic girls.”

“The basic girls.” I snort. Pretty sure they’re called basic bitches. But I guess it’s not cool to say that at her age. “You girls aren’t creating conflict, are you?” I lean around and check my sisters’ expressions. One pair of bright blue, then a second pair. Both of whom smile like they’re innocent of all wrongdoing. “It’s kinda my job to keep you in school. Not getting expelled because you can’t stop fighting people.”

“That would be so cool, though, right?”

I glance across at Britt’s awed expression.

“Cool to get expelled? No! That would be bad.”

“No,” she snickers. “I mean, it would be cool to fight someone. Like, pow pow,” she shadow boxes and punches the air. She risks unbalancing her board and slamming onto the road. But she was practically born on a skateboard. Her ability to balance is next level. “I’ve never punched anyone with my fists before.”

“And you won’t.” Sam nudges the board to the right and leads us back toward town. “Good girls don’t get into fistfights, Brat. They don’t need to hit people to communicate.”

But of course, she cocks her arm back, balls her fist, and smashes her brother’s shoulder as snotty laughter escapes the depths of her throat. “Ow!” She giggles and stumbles off the board, almost tripping on her dusty and worn converse high tops. And all the while, Sam continues to walk. “That hurt!”

“Serves you right.” He steps onto his board and grins. “Don’t hit me, Brat, and you won’t hurt yourself.”

“Your shoulder is like rock!” She dashes across and jumps onto Ang’s board. Uninvited. Without warning. Without permission. She takes his board and sails off ahead of our group, so her laughter echoes in the breeze. “I’m telling Mom you hit me,” she calls out. “She won’t let you have dessert.”

“You all saw what actually happened, right?” Sam skips off his board and flips it up until he catches it in his arms. Then he hugs it to his chest and walks shoulder to shoulder with me. “You saw she hit me?”

“I saw nothing.” I push the twins forward and make a show of bringing my hands up to cover my eyes. “Isn’t that how things are with these girls? We see nothing. We hear nothing. And we get them out of trouble when shit is going down.”

“Not Kari,” Marc declares. “She does nothing wrong. Therefore, she doesn’t need saving.”

“I wanna learn the Nose Blunt trick.” She twists on her board and searches first, Marc’s eyes, then mine. “I stay out of trouble and give no one any reason to worry. But I want to learn the better tricks on the halfpipe.”

“You’re doing great with the moves you know, Kar.” Marcus spins his sister back, rebalancing the board when her movements throw it off course. “You’ve got the ollie and the nollie.”

“I know how to turn a board,” she drawls. I hear the exasperation in her voice. But I sure as shit notice the way she doesn’t show her brother the eye roll. “Good for me.”

“You can also kick turn.”

“I’m a pro at turning. I’m the next Tony Hawk.”

I look down at my shirt and grin because I’m pretty sure ninety-eight percent of all the shirts I own have some variation of Hawk licensing attached to it. The rest of them have Dominic Broadbent on them—world famous drummer.

“I can teach you the Luca Special,” I offer, bringing my focus back up and feeling absolutely no remorse when sweat dribbles off the tip of my nose and falls onto Laine’s ponytail. That’s what you get when you’re being lazy. “It’s super easy. I got it right the first time.”

Snickering, Kari turns back and shakes her head. “You’re a bit dumb, Luca Lenaghan. Hurting yourself for comedy is immature.”

“Immature.” I swipe my forehead on the arm of my shirt and ignore the ache brewing deep in my back. “Am I the dummy for falling. Or are you the dummies for thinking it was funny?”

“You,” everyone decides at once. Then Marcus shoots me a glare. “You’re the idiot. And don’t let me catch you teaching my sister the Luca Classic. If you put her in a situation where she breaks her skull, I’ll break yours to match.”

“So aggressive.” Taunting, I chuckle and put more effort into my pushing. “Let’s get to Dixie’s. It’s hot as fuck out here today.”

4

LUC

POETRY IN ACTION

“Luc?” Jess’ voice echoes from somewhere on the ground floor of my home. Same voice as Laine. Same intonation. Same inflection. Same cussing when something pisses her off. And yet, I can still tell them apart without even looking. “Hey, Luc? Where are you?”

Billy’s already asleep, snoozing in my arms and completely relaxed after a bottle and a giant fart. She has a perfectly good crib I could put her in. A blanket I should wrap her in. She has a pacifier I could pop between her lips if she becomes fussy.

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