Page 12 of Running into Trouble

“Even an old, stubborn one.” She doesn’t hide her resentment.

“I might be stubborn but it’s my unwillingness to try new things that keeps my freezer stocked with cookie dough ice cream.”

“If you think you can make me forget how angry I am at you with a bowl of my favorite ice cream, you’re wrong.”

I shrug. “More for me.”

“Are you seriously going to blackmail me with dessert?”

“A scoop for every smile,” I sing like I did when she was little. Every time she came home from school frowning because she’d had a fight with her best friend or she found out the boy she had a crush on liked someone else.

“There’s one,” I say catching her lip curling in one corner as she rolls her eyes.

“You’re so lame,” she says as the other half of her mouth joins the party.

“There’s another.”

I put on a smile of my own even though my heart sinks a little at the insults she stacked against me. Old, stubborn, lame… It sinks further knowing none of them are untrue. And all of them are good reasons for me to forget all about Riley and the picture I promised to send her.

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