Page 12 of Searching for Nova

“Everyone smiles.” His lips tick up just a tiny bit, but then return to normal. “Okay, how about this?”

“What?”

“Remember that time Liz made a birthday cake for the dog and we thought it was a real cake?” He starts to smile. “We ate a cake made of fucking dog food.”

I laugh. I can’t help myself. I’m instantly brought back to that day. The cake looked real and it was just sitting there on the table, begging to be eaten. We were five. We had no self-control. We grabbed some forks and each took a bite. The look on Sean’s face was so funny I nearly choked from laughing so hard.

Now we’re both laughing, but I stop when I see it. Sean’s smile. It’s him. It’s really him.

“Nova, what’s wrong?” he asks, leaning down to me, his hand on my shoulder.

I realize I’m crying and hurry to wipe the tears. “Nothing.” I force out a smile. “I was just laughing really hard about that story.”

“So you remember it.”

I look down. “Yeah.”

He hesitates, then says, “Let me give you a ride. I don’t want you waiting here for an hour.”

I nod. “Okay.”

We walk back to the diner, not saying anything. I’m still in shock that he’s here, and that he looks so different than he did as a kid. He’s really hot, which is weird because I used to see him more like a brother. But now he’s all grown up and looks more like a man than a kid. He’s even got a five o’clock shadow covering his face.

“This is it,” he says, stopping next to a black Jeep Wrangler that looks brand new. He opens the door for me.

“Thanks.” I get inside, my feet hitting some empty plastic bottles on the floor.

“Sorry about that,” Easton says, reaching down to pick up the bottles. “They’re protein drinks. I drink them after the gym and forget to toss them out.” He throws them in the back seat, then shuts my door.

As he walks around the front of the Jeep, I notice how he holds himself—shoulders back, head held high. It’s a total change from the kid with the slouched shoulders who walked around with his head down. That’s the Sean I know. This one is like a stranger.

“What’s the name of your apartment?” he asks, his hand hovering over the navigation screen on the dash.

I give him the name and it pops up on the map. He pauses a moment when he sees what part of town it’s in.

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

“No.” He looks at me and smiles. “Want to stop anywhere on the way?”

“No. I need to get home.”

He nods, seeming disappointed, but what did he expect me to say? That I wanted to go hang out? Have dinner? I’m still trying to process that he’s here, and how I feel about it.

“Why’d you change your name?” I ask as we’re driving.

“I didn’t. Easton is my middle name. When my parents adopted me, they asked if they could call me Easton and I just went along with it. And then they changed my last name to theirs.”

“Does anyone know your real name? I mean, your first name?”

“No.” He tenses up as he says it. “Everyone just knows me as Easton.” He glances at me. “So how’d you end up here? In Milwaukee?”

“Ted lives here. He showed up a few months after you left and took me to live with him.”

“Who’s Ted?” Easton asks in the same concerned tone he used earlier when he didn’t want me waiting for the bus. Why is he acting so protective of me? He doesn’t even know me anymore. And I don’t need him to protect me. I do just fine on my own.

“Ted is my dad’s dad.”

“Your grandfather.”

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