Page 53 of Break My Fall

“Not sleeping?” Gray asked as Cal went to the kitchen.

“Landry wasn’t feeling good. She was up several times last night.”

“You should have told me, you moron. We could have talked at your place.”

Cal returned to the table. “Landry’s in her studio. Eliza’s with Mom.”

“No Abby?” Abby and Eliza were best friends. Now they shared a Nana. They were growing up the same way Cal had grown up with Meredith and Mo, and everyone involved was thrilled.

“Mom’s trying to spend time with them individually. She doesn’t want Abby to resent Eliza, and she wants to get to know Eliza away from Abby. She’s set up a plan where the girls go hang out with her one-on-one, and then later the other one joins in the fun. I think they’re planning to pick Abby up for lunch. Who knows what will happen after that.”

Cal looked out the window. “It’s hard to believe all this is going on right next door. I want it to be as safe for the kids as it was for me, Mo, Meredith, and Bronwyn.”

“I’m doing the best I can, brother.”

Cal toasted him with his mug. “I know. What do you need from me?”

“I had a message about the wedding.”

“By the wedding, do you mean the one Meredith’s doing the flowers for?”

“That’s the one.”

“Do you want me to figure out how to convince her not to go?”

“No. I want you to figure out how to be sure she takes me as her plus-one.”

Two hours later, Meredith stopped on the trail they were hiking, picked up a pine cone, and threw it at Cal’s head. “Have you lost your mind? You ask me to come for a little hike, and then you drop this ‘you still have to take Gray to the wedding’ on me?”

Cal didn’t look ashamed of himself. He’d tricked her. Convincedher that what she needed was some fresh air and a hard hike to clear her head.

And she’d been scatterbrained enough to believe him. She’d enjoyed the hike. She always enjoyed the hike. When they were kids, they would go on hikes and pretend that Mo and Cal were Lewis and Clark while she was Sacajawea. It worked great for her because, in her version of the story, she bossed everyone around and told them where to go. The consensus was that she had a better sense of direction than the rest of them, and she’d led them out of a few close calls.

She couldn’t believe Cal had done this. “I’m telling Granny on you.”

“No you won’t.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because if you tell Granny, she’s going to make you tell her what happened with Gray.”

Meredith picked up another pine cone and threw it.

Cal batted it away. “Quit that. You’re mad because I’m right.”

“What I want to know is how you drew the short straw.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why is it you and not Mo having this super-fun conversation with me?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Mo doesn’t know anything about it yet.”

Meredith trudged up the trail and didn’t speak to Cal for a full five minutes. She paused after crossing a small creek and waited for him to join her. “Tell me why.”

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