Page 53 of Rebound With Me
Nina
From a block away,I know which boy is Charlie without Vince having to point him out to me. Dark hair, sweet magnetic face and energy, sad eyes. He’s got his backpack slung over one little shoulder and a book in one hand while he looks around, kicking the sidewalk with the toe of his Chuck Taylors, pretending to ignore the kids around him who aren’t talking to him. When he spots us coming towards us, he looks happy to see Vince, but confused seeing him with me. He waits for us to reach him, studying me the way I’ve been studied by all of the Devlin males I’ve met so far.
Definitely a Ponyboy.
“Hey buddy, you ready to go?” Vince lets go of my hand and goes over to the other side of Charlie so that we’re both flanking him as we continue down the sidewalk.
“Yeah.”
“This is my friend Nina. Remember I told you about her?”
Charlie looks up at me, unsmiling. “Hey.”
“Hi. It’s nice to meet you, Charlie. You have a good day at camp?”
“It was alright.”
“Nina’s coming to have dinner with us tonight.”
“Did Dad remember to get all the taco stuff?”
“I hope so, I sent him a text to remind him.”
Charlie looks at me while we walk, then looks over at his brother and says: “You’re the girl Vince is boning now?” He is grinning.
I blurt out a laugh, but Vince looks horrified. “Hey! He learned that from Gabe, not me.” He playfully smacks him on the back of his head. “We don’t talk to women like that, kid.”
I nod towards the book in his hand, changing the subject. “You’re readingMatilda? I loved that book when I was your age.”
He shrugs. “A girl gave it to me today. I haven’t read it yet.”
“Wow,” I say, looking at Vince. “When a girl gives you a book that means she really likes you.” With one sentence, I manage to make both Devlins blush at the same time. It’s a tiny victory.
Charlie growls and raises his fists up. “Grrrr! She’snotmy girlfriend!” He jumps around, having the kind of sudden spaz attack that I’m very used to from little boys. So much energy. “I. Don’t. Like. Girls!” He suddenly takes off running like a maniac.
“Oy! No running—get back here!” Vince’s voice is loud and dominant.
Charlie kicks his leg up in the air mid-run while squealing, and I know before his feet hit the ground that he’s going to land all wrong. He stumbles and wipes out, hands first, but he manages to hang onto the book (which tells me a lot).
“Shit,” Vince says under his breath. I see the look of panic in his eyes, but he tries not to speed up his pace to panic or embarrass Charlie.
When we reach him, Charlie is slouched over and trying very hard to look tough, but his hand and knuckles are scraped and bleeding and the rims around his eyes are red.
“You okay? You’re okay, right? You little spaz. Can you get up?”
“Yeah.”
“Actually, I think I might have something in my purse that’ll clean up that scrape.” I kneel down on the cement beside him and open up my giant day bag, pulling out the container of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I made this afternoon, and placing it on the ground. “It’s important to clean up these little scrapes as soon as possible. I know because I have to do it a lot.”
“You fall down a lot?” Charlie’s voice is constricted, but he’s still teasing me.
“Nina’s a first grade teacher.”
“I am, so I’m around a lot of boys who wipe out, but it happens to me when I play kickball with them too.”
Charlie snort-laughs. I pull out around twenty baggies with different daily necessities in them—sugar-free gummy bears, make-up, sparkly gel colored pens, cotton balls, bandages. I find my little bottle of Bactine near the bottom of my purse.
“What else you got in there, Miss Parks?” Vince knows I’ve been keeping a slender cosmetics bag full of condoms in here lately.
