Page 8 of Coming Home for Fall 4
“James Harris…” Ariel repeated, her face scrunching up as she tried to recall the name. “Hmm… Did he have any older siblings?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Wait a second.” Taylor laughed. “Was that the valedictorian of your year? The one who spoke at your graduation?”
Mallory sighed. “Yeah. Him.”
Ariel’s eyes widened. “Oh, I remember him now! That whiz kid from my calculus class! He was the only freshman who could take such a high level of math his first year of high school, and he made the rest of us look like idiots. In fact, I’m pretty sure I asked him to help me study on more than one occasion.” She smiled. “I probably wouldn’t have passed that class if it weren’t for him. He was a sweet kid.”
“Is he still sweet?” Erica smiled wickedly at Mallory.
“Is he still a huge nerd?” her brother joked.
“Yes, he’s sweet,” Mallory said. “And no, he’s not a huge nerd. Or—well—I don’t know! He could be. I only spent like an hour with him while he was trying to get all the coffee out of the keyboard. Clearly, he’s still very smart, since he works with computers, but I hardly know anything else about him.”
“Except that he’s cute,” Ariel said. “That we’ve already established. I’m still waiting on an answer to the question of whether he’s single or not though…”
Mallory rubbed her face; regretting having mentioned anything James. “I’ve told you all that I know about him,” she said eventually. “If you want to find out more, then you can go sifting through the Ferndale rumor mill yourself.” She threw her hands up and started to walk out of the kitchen. “I think I heard mom and dad pull up in the driveway, so if you’re done giving me the third degree, I’m going to go see if they need help wrangling the kids.”
*
At dinner, the topic of James came up again. The kids had already finished eating and were watching a movie in the other room. Dot was asleep in her playpen, leaving the adults to sit around the dining room table and chat amongst themselves.
This time, however, it wasn’t Mallory who brought him up. When David was discussing some of his upcoming travel plans, he mentioned his laptop’s premature demise and the nice man that had tried to fix it. At that point in the story, almost everyone in the room gave her a knowing look. If she could’ve sunk further down in her chair without falling out of it, she would’ve.
“Do they sell new computers at the repair shop?” Ariel asked innocently, although Mallory knew exactly where she was going with this.
“I’m not sure,” David said. “Mal, do you know?”
“Yeah,” Mal said begrudgingly. “They do. But they don’t have a big selection. You should probably go to a bigger electronic store to find a new one.”
“No way! It’s better to support local stores. I think you should absolutely go to the Ferndale shop,” Ariel said, grinning at Taylor. “We’ll come with you to help you find a good one.”
“I’d love to help,” Taylor chimed in. “And that way I can meet this amazing repairman. He seems like a great guy.”
“Not only that, he’s also very handsome.” Callie stared across the table at her youngest daughter. “And did you know, he went to school with Mallory back in the day. According to your sister, he was kind of a geek, but you’d never know from looking at him now.”
“That’s very interesting,” Taylor mused, as if he didn’t already know all of this.
“It’s really not,” Mallory said with a flat tone. “I’m sure a lot of people we all went to high school with still live here. Some of them were dorks, some jocks. Ariel, what’s your high school boyfriend doing these days? Should we call him up and see if he’s still in town?”
Ariel narrowed her eyes. “Don’t even go there. It’s not even accurate to call him my boyfriend. We only went out a few times when we were fifteen! That doesn’t count.”
“Well, in Mallory’s defense,” Taylor said. “Thatdoescount as a serious relationship in her book.”
“Rude!” Mallory gave her brother a light slap on the arm. “You’ve been here less than a day and already you’re bullying me. What’s that about?”
“I was just joking.” He tried to pull her in for a side hug, but she dodged and stuck her finger in her mouth, ready to give him a wet willy.
“Oh, you two quit it,” Callie said, shaking her finger at them. “Sasha’s gonna think we raised a bunch of troublemakers!”
“You did.” Ariel snorted.
“Honestly, it doesn’t faze me,” Sasha said. “I had a lot of cousins growing up, and we used to fight all the time. This is pretty normal for me.” Mallory took note of this small little detail about Sasha, but she didn’t get the chance to jump on it. “But back to the topic about serious relationships.” Sasha looked at Mallory. “Is it true you’ve never had one?”
Before Mallory could even be offended by the bluntness of this question, her sister answered for her. “Mallory doesn’t do serious relationships.”
“She doesn’t even do casual relationships.” Taylor took a big sip of his wine glass. “She prefers being alone.”
