Page 50 of The ABCs of You & Me

“Well, would you look at that, he does indeed have a woman with him,” he bellows, his gaze dragging hungrily from Sophie’s head down to her feet and back up again. “Looks like a bona fide one too.”

“Phil, give him a break,” Mom scolds halfheartedly, squeezing past him and rushing out to hug me. “Oh, I’ve missed you, baby,” she murmurs into my neck, and I reluctantly drop Sophie’s hand to hug her properly. When she pulls back, she finally looks over at Sophie, and the look of shock on her face makes me laugh.

“Sophie Hore, you’re the girlfriend?” She drags Sophie to her before she has a chance to answer. “When?” she asks, leaning back, her hands still on Sophie’s upper arms. “How long has this been going on for? And why the hell didn’t you say something?” She smacks my arm playfully.

“About a month, maybe?” I say, looking at Sophie for confirmation.

“About that, yeah.” She offers me a knowing smile that may seem flirty to those observing the interaction, but really it’s just an acknowledgment of the inside joke.

“I’d make him keep it quiet too, blondie,” my uncle remarks gruffly, giving me a look that can only be described as scathing before turning to go back in the house.

Sophie watches his retreating back with wide eyes, her mouth open slightly. “Why would I want to keep it quiet?” she asks, turning to me.

I shrug. “My uncle thinks I’m a failure because of my job.” Sophie doesn’t even try to hide her disgust. “That, and my hair color makes me less of a man or some nonsense.”

“He doesn’t think you’re a failure,” Mom says. “You know how he is.” She shrugs off his insult for the thousandth time.

It’s easier for her to pretend that he means nothing than to confront the problem. Everyone has let him get away with this stuff since my aunt passed five years ago. And my mom hates an uncomfortable family gathering.

“He’s the best EA at the school,” Sophie says, slipping her fingers back between mine. I feel like I could take on the world with her hand in mine. Certainly my uncle at the very least.

“I bet he is, dear.” Mom smiles tightly at Sophie as she leads us into the house.

My mom has never said she’s disappointed in my career path, but she does like to make comments about how it’s not too late to go to teachers’ college. There seems to be a general consensus that only women choose to be EAs.

Before we get to the door, I pull Sophie to a stop while my mom disappears inside.

“You sure you want to do this? You could go straight to your parents and avoid the roasting of Foster Walsh.”

Sophie looks from me to the open door and I see the minute she makes up her beautiful mind. “No, I think I’d rather be here with you. At least I can try and help control the temperature. Perhaps keep it to a light grilling rather than a full-on roast.”

If this was real, if she were mine, I’d pull her to me and kiss the ever-loving daylights out of her.

Sophie is working the room like she was made for it. And it’s not hard to spot her in the crowded space. Despite being the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, she towers over most of the others here. All the men in my family are over six feet while all the women are under five six. Three of my cousins have given me a thumbs-up when they walk away, and there has somehow been less talk about my lack of a real profession than usual by this time in a gathering.

“You know,” my grandmother whispers, while handing me a stack of plates, “I always knew you’d end up together.” I watch as her gaze swings to where Sophie is talking animatedly to my dad.

I should tell her the truth, but I’d really like to know what she thinks she saw. “Oh yeah? How’d you know that?”

“Well, when she was a kid, she only had eyes for you. She always smiled a little bigger, laughed a little louder, blushed a shade darker when you were around.”

“I am pretty great.” I wink at her.

“Then there was you.” She dips her chin and looks above her glasses at me.

“Me?”

“You. I want to say when you were about fourteen you were having a conversation with your grandfather, and she walked by with your sister. Your grandfather said you stopped speaking mid-sentence to watch her. ‘That boy’s got a bad case of the love bug for that string-bean friend of Cassandra’s,’ he’d said while we were driving home.” She reaches out and squeezes my arm, looking around me to where Sophie is still standing. “I’m glad she caught the bug too.”

I shake my head, not remembering this at all. Not believing I ever looked at her that way before I got home from camp. I think I’d remember if I had. Sophie was always at our house, so I obviously saw her a lot, but I didn’t reallyseeher. But as I take the plates to the head of the buffet my mom has set out, I start thinking back.

A lot of my memories before I went away for school have her in them, and a lot of those memories aren’t of anything major. Sophie laughing in the kitchen with Cass, taunting me while she crosses the finish line in Mario Kart first, or playing road hockey with us and a couple other friends, friends I can’t even see the faces of.

“You just gonna stand there holding the plates, Foster? Maybe that girlfriend of yours knows how to reboot you. Although she may not want you. May want to find someone who’s a bit more of an equal, if you know what I mean,” my uncle sneers, roughly grabbing a plate off the top and immediately serving himself food before my mom has called anyone to help themselves.

Doing my best to ignore him, I set the plates down as gently as I can and head back into the kitchen to see what else I can help with only to find Sophie laughing with my grandmother.

“I was telling Sophie how your grandfather caught you staring at her.” Sophie looks at me with an eyebrow raised and a tiny smirk on her face.

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