Page 22 of Growing Into Love

“It might be easier to talk if you’ve put the text behind you,” Winter says.

“Maybe,” I say reluctantly. I hear Virgil’s voice in the background again.

“Don’t you dare,” she calls to him. “Sorry, your brother is threatening to start playing one of his horrible jazz albums if I don’t get off the phone. Okay, last thing to point out because it’s so obvious I was hoping I wouldn’t have to but…”

“But what?” I ask.

“He volunteered to go to the competition with you,” Winter says. “He. Volunteered. If he really thought the text was so embarrassing or whatever, would he want to spend five hours on a plane and then a weekalone with you?” I hear the satisfaction in her voice like she’s hit her mark.

“No,” Autumn says, also smiling smugly. “No, he would not.”

“High five, sis.”

“High five back at you.”

“And that, my dear Cass, is what we call the Van Der Hoek slam,” Winter says.

I burst out laughing. “You just made that up.”

“Okay, I did, but it’s genius and we’re keeping it. You just got Slammed. Don’t be a dummy just because he’s being one. You’ve got this. Okay, gotta go for real this time. Love you, keep me posted!”

She hangs up and Autumn puts her tea down and scoots over to hug me.

“This is going to work out,” she says.

“How can you be so sure?”

“It always does.”

“If you’re a Van Der Hoek.”

She releases me and fixes me with a stern look. “Don’t make me Van Der Hoek Slap you upside the head.”

I laugh again, even as doubt creeps into the back of my mind. But I don’t tell Autumn my fear that I’m cursed. That I took something away when I entered this world and now, I have to pay for it. She’d only brush it aside and tell me I’m being silly or superstitious.

“Come on,” I tease her instead, “make yourself useful and help me pack.”

SIX

JAZ

Declanand I head to the Stag and Deer for a pint after dinner.

I feel queasy, like my stomach is wriggling with spiders.

I’m getting on a plane tomorrow. With Cass.

She was really something else at dinner. Never heard her stand up to Dec like that. I wonder if the guy she’s seeing inspired this change.

Blair, the owner of the bar, greets us as we grab stools.

“Evening gents,” she says. “Two pints?”

“Please, Blair,” I say.

She heads off to pour our beers.

“Why’s Cass got to be so stubborn?” Declan growls.

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