Page 53 of It's in the Contract
I lift my head as Mia comes waltzing into Zeke’s room like she owns the place, wearing little pink shorts and a blue shirt with a mermaid on it, complete with a shiny sequin mermaidtail. She runs up to Zeke with a squeal of joy and hops onto his lap. She stays far away from his D&D stuff like they’ve had that talk before, even though she eyes all the figurines with interest.
Zeke’s room looks as it always does, though am I imagining it or are some of his boxes unpacked and put away? His bed is unmade today, and it’s driving the clean freak inside of me nuts. A book the size of my pug lays open on his sheets.
Mia looks up at Zeke’s face. “Mama evil unicorn?”
Zeke and I exchange a look. He turns back to Mia. “You want me to be your mama evil unicorn?”
Mia nods. She pats her chest. “Baby evil unicorn. Heh heh.”
I hide my smile. That was the cutest little evil laugh ever.
“What does an evil unicorn do, Mia?” I ask.
She eyes me warily. “Tomorrow, I tried to pee like Zeke, and I got pee on my foot.”
I blink.
Zeke covers a laugh. “You mean, ‘yesterdayI tried to pee like Zeke and got pee on my foot.’” He gives Mia a squeeze and buries his face in her neck, peppering her with kisses, and she squeals.
Mia glances up at the ceiling, and her eyes go huge. “Uh oh. Zekie. Look.”
Zeke sets her down and looks where she’s pointing. His eyes go enormous, and his dark brown face pales. “Oh no.”
I turn to see what everyone is looking at, and I swallow. A spider the size of my thumb pad is crawling along the wall. It’s brown with darker lines, and the little fuzzy hairs are visible against the white bedroom wall. I shiver.
Zeke shrieks and retreats to the back corner of the room, clutching Mia to his chest. Mia squirms and tries to get out of his arms.
“Too tight, Zekie!”
“Zeke, it’s going to be okay.” I don’t like spiders, but Zeke and Mia aren’t going to be any help here. Someone’s got to take care of this. I hunt around for a shoe or something to kill it with.
Zeke is as far away from the spider as he can get without actually leaving the room. He finally loosens his hold on Mia, but she doesn’t leave his lap. “Callie, get away from it! We’ll just go to another room until my mama gets home.”
I give him a look. “Your mom kills spiders for you?”
Zeke doesn’t even look embarrassed. “Yes.”
I kind of want to laugh, but I remember Troy once laughing at me for how afraid I was of climbing up to a diving board at Noah’s pool, so I hold it in.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I got this.”
I find one of Zeke’s shoes with a relatively flat bottom, keeping one eye on the spider slowly making its way across the place where the wall and the ceiling meet. I hold up the tennis shoe. “Can I use this?”
Zeke looks utterly terrified. Mia sits on his lap with a distressed expression. Zeke nods.
I step up onto Zeke’s bed, which feels too intimate, but there’s no other way to reach the spider. His blanket is downy soft under my bare feet.
I jump, whacking the shoe against the wall. The spider, unfortunately, scampers across the ceiling, dodging my shoe missile.
Zeke screams, and Mia follows, picking up on the emotions from her brother.
“No worries,” I say. “I’ll try again.” But the spider has already made its way across the room, and now it’s far out of reach, even with me standing on the bed. I eye the chairs we were sitting on, thinking to drag them across the floor, but I don’t think they’re tall enough to give me the reach I need.
“Can I sit on your shoulders?” I ask. Embarrassment flickers in my belly for asking for something so intimate, but it’s all right. We’re not even friends. It would mean nothing to touch him like that.
Zeke looks at me, dark brown eyes enormous. “I can’t . . . I can’t get close to it.”
“It’s going to be okay,” I say. “We’ve got this.”
