Page 4 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
I’ll get right on that. Make it my top priority.
Just as soon as I respond to her text.
Chapter Two
Brody
I was nine yearsold when Katherine Anne Fletcher—Kate—climbed onto the school bus just after the three o’clock bell, looked at the empty seat beside me, and said, “If I sit here, will you promise not to be stupid?”
She dropped onto the narrow bench, nudging me over with her hip, and pulled her overlarge backpack onto her lap. Her hair was long and dark, hanging over her shoulder in a thick braid, and her face was covered in freckles. We didn’t get new kids in Silver Creek very often—it’s too small a town for people to move in with any regularity—so everyone on the bus was sitting up and taking notice of the new girl. And the nerdy kid she’d chosen to sit beside.
As for me, I couldn’t even manage a word. I just sniffed and pushed my glasses up from where they’d slipped onto the end of my nose.
“The thing is,” she continued, “experience has taught me that most boys are dumb with a capital D.” She eyed me, her gaze shrewd. “I watched you when you got off the bus this morning. You’re nicer to your sister than the other one.”
I looked toward the seat directly in front of me where my younger brother Flint and our little sister Olivia were sitting together. Our two older brothers were already at the middle school and rode a different bus. Kate was observant. Flint was always tougher on Olivia, but Olivia was tougher on him too.
I lifted a shoulder. “I’m older,” I said, like that explained everything.
She shook her head dismissively. “Some kids use that as a reason to be meaner. Are you good at math? I’m terrible at it, so it would be excellent if you are.”
Was I good at math? Even with my limited experience, I understood that I was being interviewed. Kate Fletcher was deciding if I was friend material or not. And that question? It was a winning lottery ticket. I wasn’t just good at math. I was a genius at math. The kind of next-level nerd who tested out of every math class our elementary school offered by the middle of my fourth-grade year. The kid who, two years later, would go onto the Ellen DeGeneres Show as a twelve-year-old “human calculator.”
“Did you just ask if he’s good at math?” Flint said, turning around in his seat so he could look over the back. He was a faithful and competent wingman even back then. “He’s the best there is at math. Give him a math problem. Any math problem. Something with a billion numbers in it.” Flint tapped the side of his temple. “He can do it in his head.”
It was a slight overstatement. There were limits to what I was capable of computing in my head, but I usually did all right when it was kids coming up with the problems.
“Really?” Kate asked, her eyebrows arching high on her forehead.
I shrugged noncommittally even as my heart started racing and a thin sheen of sweat broke out across the back of my neck. “Sure.”
“Any math problem.”
I nodded.
“Two-hundred forty-five thousand, five hundred fifty divided by twenty-five.”
“Piece of cake,” Flint muttered under his breath. “He can always do the ones with fives.” Olivia was watching now too, her eyes hopeful as her gaze darted from me to Kate and back again. She seemed to sense the gravity of the moment just like I did.
The answer tumbled into my brain with measured certainty. I can’t explain how it all works, though as an adult, it’s easier to recognize the patterns that back then just felt like magic. “Nine-thousand, eight-hundred twenty-two,” I said.
It’s been eighteen years and I still remember how her eyes lit up when she checked my answer with a calculator she pulled out of her backpack.
Our friendship was a done deal after that.
Kate decided we would be best friends—a very Kate move I recognize in hindsight more than I did at the time—and we were.
But now? I don’t know what to call what we are now. We aren’t estranged exactly. But we aren’t talking either. At least we haven’t been until today.
Kate: Hi, Brody. It’s been a while.
I don’t need to have my phone in front of me to see her text. The words are floating in my mind’s eye, even as I move around the room and pack up the last of my gear. I force myself to focus, mentally cataloging all the items in my bag, double and triple-checking that I’ve remembered everything. Perry’s list was comprehensive. The only thing I adjusted was how much water he suggested I bring. His estimates shorted me sixteen ounces.
“You’ve got all your food packed?” Perry says, eyeing my bag. “Everything I suggested?”
I nod. We’ll be on the trail three days before we can resupply, so we’ll be carrying everything we’ll need to eat until then. “I’vegot everything. Plus a little extra water, which you’re going to need too. How heavy is your pack?”
“Brody.” Perry levels me with a glare. “If you run the calculations for how much water I’m going to need one more time, I’m going to tell Dad about the time you stole the Gator and drove it to Kate’s in the middle of the night. He never did figure out who caused all four tires to go flat. I bet he’d like to know.”
