Page 25 of So That Happened

It’s been an extremely confusing twenty-four hours, and I’d quite like to move past it all.

I just hope that, by tomorrow, the night we spent together will be a blip in her memory too. And I’ll chalk up the strange emotions she triggered in me as being due to overtiredness and a lack of fresh oxygen. And maybe the workings of a meddling senior.

Never to be thought about again. Like it never happened.

I look at the candy one last time. Then, I pop the sweet in my mouth and chew it until it’s gone.

* * *

I let myself into Lana Mae’s house and I’m greeted by… silence.

“Hello?” I call as I step inside. I slip off my shoes and place them next to the suitcase that stands alone in the middle of the entryway.

Harry Styles, the giant orange tabby cat, appears in the kitchen doorway. I had to bribe Legs with twenty bucks not to call the damn thing “Liam.” Which, apparently, is another band member’s name.

The cat rubs his side against my legs and purrs noisily. By the time he walks away, a fluffy ball of ginger remains attached to my pant leg.

“Hello, Harry.” I sigh, brushing it off.

“Give Harry a hug!”

The voice comes from the top of the stairs, and I look up to see Legs, her face twisted in a scowl that Lana Mae claims makes her look like me.

The nerve.

“I brought donuts,” I say, ignoring the fact that I clearly won’t be getting a hug myself, and proferring the box of fresh Krispy Kremes that I brought to get back in Legs’s good books.

Legs continues scowling. She doesn’t back down easily—something I love about her. My initial offer for her to not name the cat Liam was five bucks, and she talked me up to twenty before snatching the bill and saying her second choice had been Niall all along. Liam was only her fourth favorite One Directioner, it turns out. In third place was Louis, and Zayn came in last for being “a deserter.”

Lesson learned.

“Allegra,pleaseget dressed. Mommy’s gotta go soon.” My sister appears next to Legs, tripping slightly as she attempts to simultaneously put on an earring and usher her daughter back to her bedroom.

“Uncle Liam has to hug Harry Styles first,” Legs insists, crossing her arms over her narrow little chest. Which is currently drowning in an oversized, slightly disturbing pajama top with a picture of Justin Bieber—or “Justin Beaver,” as Legs calls him—plastered on the front.

I need to have words with Lana Mae about appropriate nightwear for children.

Lana Mae catches my gaze and looks over her daughter’s head at me pleadingly. “Birthday present, she wanted it. Don’t start with me, the child has Bieber Fever. And for goodness sakes, hug the cat, Liam. I don’t have time for an argument this morning, I’m already late.”

“Fine,” I grumble. “But you owe me big time.”

Then, I steel my favorite person in the world with alook. This child inherited her excellent negotiation skills from somewhere, and they sure didn’t come from her sweet, giving mother or her deadbeat father.

“If I hug Harry,” I say slowly. “Will you get dressed and also forgive me for missing your party?”

“Only get dressed,” she counters.

“What if I told you I brought you a present?”

A flicker of interest lights in those big, brown eyes. All of us Donovans have the same dark eyes—it’s a family trademark. Her mouth sets in a line. “It’s not the donuts, is it? Because you bring donuts, like, every week.”

“It’s on top of the donuts. And you’ll like it, I promise.”

“Stop encouraging her,” Lana Mae says, then turns to her daughter. “Allegra Liana Donovan, for the fifteenth time this morning, will you please go to your room and get dressed.”

Lana Mae points with finality in the direction of Legs’s bedroom, then makes her way down the stairs, shrugging on her jacket as she goes. Legs ignores her mother, keeping her eyes on me. She pulls on one dirty-blond pigtail, considering.

“Okay,” she says finally. “I’ll forgive you, Uncle Liam.”

---