Page 63 of The Charade

"They have?" Ava looked at me, her expression full of questions. "Now I'm really curious what they've said."

Dawn laughed. "Well, Cambrielle says she's excited to have new girl friends to hang out with. Nash may have told me all about how beautiful the new girls at school were. And Carter…" Dawn glanced at me, as if trying to remember what I might have said.

Honestly, I couldn't remember what I’d said about Ava. I was sure I hadn't been the one to bring the twins up in conversation, but if my siblings had mentioned them at dinner, I had probably added my two cents.

Then Dawn seemed to remember what I'd said. "Oh, yes. And Carter said something about either your sister or you being a lot to handle."

Ava giggled. "He was probably talking about me then." She raised her hand. "Let's just say the first day of school was quite the eventful day for us."

I chuckled at the memory. "Yes, let's just say that Ava has a way of keeping me on my toes."

Dawn studied us with the kind of look I only saw from her every once in a while. The kind of look that told me she’d noticed how happy I'd been the past few weeks and was realizing just now that Ava was probably a big part of the reason for it.

She caught herself smiling at us a second later, though, because she cleared her throat. "Anyway, I wasn't sure who'd be coming home for dinner since Nash and Cambrielle had their drama club meeting, so I had Marie put the rest of the food in the fridge for you to heat up later. So go ahead and take as much as you’d like."

"Thank you," Ava said with an appreciative smile. "It smells so good in here."

"Just make yourself at home." Dawn picked up her dishes and started rinsing them off in the sink.

As I was pulling the containers of food from the fridge and setting them on the kitchen island, Dawn spoke again. "Oh, and Carter?"

"Yeah?" I peeked around the stainless-steel fridge to look at her.

She wiped her hands on the towel after putting away the dishes and closing the dishwasher. "Did Cambrielle tell you and your friends about the party three weeks from now?"

"The one on October sixteenth?"

"I think that's the date," she said, and from the hint of anxiousness in her eyes, I couldn't help but wonder if my suspicions from earlier had been founded.

"She mentioned it."

"And did it sound like everyone would be available to attend?" she asked, seeming to be holding her breath as she waited for my answer.

"Yeah, pretty much everyone said they could come." And then to test my theory, I added, "I made plans to visit Yale's campus that weekend, if you remember, so I'll probably have to miss it. But I'm sure everyone will have a great time."

"What?" Dawn said in a louder voice than she'd used before, clearly surprised.

Ava narrowed her eyebrows. She was probably confused about it too, since I'd just said earlier today that my schedule was wide open that weekend.

"W-why did you plan it for that weekend? I, um…I thought you'd be around." Dawn frowned like she was trying to solve some sort of problem in her head. She said, "Would you be able to reschedule your tour? We have just put so much into planning this already, and we'd really like for you to be there."

Of course they would.

Cambrielle might have said it was just for fun and a way to live out her fantasy of dancing with a duke while wearing a fancy ball gown. But the timing was too coincidental for me to believe that they weren't planning exactly what I suspected.

I could probably keep this going on a little longer, but since I loved Dawn and I really didn't want to cause her too much stress even if she was doing the exact thing I'd told them I didn't want, I said, "I was just teasing you. I don't have any plans for that weekend."

Dawn placed a hand to her chest, and then she shook her head and said, "You enjoyed that, didn't you?"

I grinned and shut the refrigerator door. "What's the use of being a teenager if I can't tease my mom every once in a while?"

Dawn rolled her eyes at me, but I could tell she wasn't really mad. "Anyway, I think I'm going to go take Penelope for a ride." Penelope was her Thoroughbred horse. "It's been a few days since she's gotten a good run in." She turned her gaze on Ava. "It was so good to meet you, Ava. I hope we'll be seeing more of you in the future."

"I hope so too." Ava smiled at Dawn. "And it was great to meet you."

"So, what was that all about?"Ava asked as we heated up our plates of food in the microwave. "Why did you tease your mom about not going to the party?"

"Oh that?" I raised an eyebrow, leaning back on my palms against the counter. "That was just me testing a theory."

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