Page 79 of The One I Want
“Yes. Tiny mite, and we were adorable.”
She leans in and kisses me on the cheek. “I’m sure you were.”
A napkin hits my head, which I realize was just thrown by Simon. “Hurry up and get on with it.”
“Fine,” I say, throwing it back at him. “For the next few years, it was the three of us. And we were doing just fine.”
“And then!” Simon yells. “I move to town! This is the good part.”
Shane gives him a look. “I think you need to rethink your definition of the word ‘good.’”
Simon shakes his head. “Nope. I know it. I’m comfortable with it. And it’s not just good, it’s fucking great.”
“Uncle Simon!” Magnolia yells from a lane over. “Swear jar!”
Simon groans but takes out his wallet and holds up a five. “How about you just take the money and go to the concession stand?”
“Okay!” Magnolia runs over, but instead of grabbing the bill, she takes his whole wallet. “Thanks, Uncle Simon.”
We all start laughing as Magnolia recruits all the kids for snacks on Uncle Simon’s dime.
“Can we get back to the story so I can forget that my goddaughter just robbed me?”
“Fine,” I continue. “Now comes fourth grade, and there are three classes. Oliver and I are in one, Shane is in another. One day at recess, we noticed a new kid. No one seemed to know his name. So we went about our business.”
“Translation,” he says, looking directly at Betsy. “They were threatened by my good looks from day one. It’s not too late, you know.”
She laughs, but snuggles in closer to me. “Thanks, but I’m pretty confident with my choice.”
I look down at her. “Prettyconfident?”
“Don’t get hung up on the words,” she says, giving my legs a squeeze. “Keep going.”
“Fine, but we will be revisiting that later,” I say. “So, a few days later, the three of us notice Amelia crying.”
She holds up her beer. “Yes, the first time I cried over a boy was in the fourth grade.”
“Randy fucking Dalton,” Shane growls.
“Yes, Randy Dalton,” I say. “One of those kids who was an asshole when we were young and an asshole when we were older.”
“In my defense,” Amelia chimes in, “he had a CD burner and made me a mix. I was a goner after that.”
“Don’t need to tell me, sister,” Betsy says. “My third-grade boyfriend had an iPod Shuffle. I was also a goner.”
“Anyway,” I continue. “We go over to check on Amelia, and she tells us what happened.”
“He called me ugly because I had just gotten my braces and broke up with me.”
“How rude!” Whitley exclaims. “Did you guys beat him up?”
Amelia looks over to Shane. “This one tried to.”
The two lock eyes like they have so many times over the years when we tell this story. This might have been the first time Shane came to Amelia’s defense, but it wasn’t the last.
“Before we could stop him, Shane was marching over to Randy,” I say. “When he gets there, he demands Randy apologize to Amelia. Of course Randy said no, so Shane pushed him. Randy pushed back, but Shane being Shane…”
“I hit the fucker.”
