Chapter 1
It Runs in the Family
This story takes place before Between You and Me.
It was New Year’s Eve, and for the first time in forever, Bobby and I had the place to ourselves.
We were in the kitchen (and yes, I’d gotten permission from Indira).
Wind howled in from the ocean, battering the walls of Hemlock House, but the kitchen was warm and dry, with the air smelling of hot oil and garlic and masa.
I’d turned off the lights in most of the house.
I’d set out a pair of champagne flutes, and the bottle was chilling.
I’d stocked up on enough poppers, paper hats, and party horns for twenty people.
But the whole point of tonight was to keep this New Year’s Eve to two people.
Exactly two people. And I’d come up with the perfect theme: nachos.
Bobby, however, was choosing to be difficult.
“I’m just telling you—” He sounded like he was trying not to laugh. “—I don’t think they’re called poppers.”
“They pop when you open them, Bobby. They’re poppers.”
“Uh huh,” he said.
“What else would poppers be?”
He was definitely trying not to laugh now. That big, goofy grin covered his face, and his eyes crinkled. “You know what? I don’t know.”
“Hold this,” I said and passed him the plate of shredded cheese. “And be ready.”
“I think the nachos have enough cheese.”
“Exactly: you think they have enough cheese. But I’m the expert, remember? I’ll be the judge.”
“How does someone become an expert on nachos?”
I opened the oven and checked my masterpiece: a sheet pan of perfectly crispy, perfectly toasty, perfectly cheesy nachos.
I had blue corn chips. I had yellow corn chips.
I had chicken. I had jalapenos. I had black beans and refried beans.
And as soon as they came out of the oven, I was ready to hit them with the pico.
“You become an expert on nachos,” I said, “by eating them every day of your life from ages twelve to eighteen.”
“Your parents didn’t make you eat any vegetables?”
“Hello,” I said, “garlic. Onions. Jalapenos. Besides, they were just happy I was easing out of my Top Ramen phase.”
“Honestly, how did you survive being a teenager?”
“Nachos cover a lot of the basic food groups, Bobby. Plants.”
“‘Plants’ isn’t a food group.”
“And cheese.”
“Again, not—”
“And meat. Sometimes I’d put chicken and beef on there.”
“Let me guess: this was your rebellious phase.”
“No, my rebellious phase was when I invented dessert nachos.”
“Okay,” Bobby said, “I know I shouldn’t ask, but I can’t help myself. Are we having dessert nachos tonight?”
“Yes, obviously. First, we’re having appetizer nachos—those are just chips and the liquid cheese that comes out of a bag, and you eat them in a plastic tray, and it’s the only part of going to a baseball game that you like.”
“So many things are making sense right now,” Bobby murmured.
“And then we’re having main course nachos—voila!”
“Very impressive.”
“And then we’re having dessert nachos. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Bobby echoed, and something in his voice made me glance up at him. He was grinning again.
Here’s the thing about Bobby: he’s the most handsome man in the entire universe.
He has straight, dark hair in a razor-sharp part, and these beautifully earthy bronze-colored eyes, and perfect bone structure, and his mouth—you get the idea.
He’s strong, and he’s brave. He’s a sheriff’s deputy.
He’s unbelievably patient. He has a great sense of humor, but you have to get to know him.
He’s also a little like Mary Poppins—none of the singing, froufrou stuff, but he has this way of saying, Let’s straighten up in here, and then forty-five minutes later you find yourself bottom up, scrubbing the tub.
Oh, and I’ve never seen him fly, but the man is a master of packing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he could fit a floor lamp into a valise.
(Honestly, I had no idea that would sound so sexual, but I stand by it.)
“And dessert nachos would be…” Bobby asked.
“Oh Bobby.” I laughed. “Sweet, simple, innocent Bobby. A stranger in this brave new world—”
“Is it the graham crackers you hid under your bed?”
“I didn’t hide them under my bed! I put them there in case I had an emergency.”
His eyebrows went up.
“A snack-related emergency,” I said. “My blood sugar could plummet in the middle of the night. Thousands of people die every year because they weren’t prepared.”
“That’s absolutely not true.”
“And for your information, you can use lots of things. You can use graham crackers, yes. You can use cinnamon tortilla chips. You can use a brownie. Oh! And you can put ice cream on top of it—”
“Isn’t that a brownie a la mode?”
“Why do you do this to me? Why is your goal in life to take away everything good and beautiful from me?”
“I want to circle back to the Top Ramen comment, because I noticed a lot of those ramen packets in the cellar.”
“Did you know if you dump out the soup part, it’s actually a perfect meal? It’s got noodles, check. Flavoring from a little foil envelope, check. Sodium, check.”
“I know you think I’m joking, but I want you to get a physical.”
See, this is what I was talking about—when Bobby wants to, he can be hilarious.
As I pulled the nachos from the oven, I opened my mouth to explain why I didn’t need to see a doctor (because I eat a lot of Indira’s banana bread, and bananas have potassium, and that balances out the sodium). Before I could lay some science on Bobby, though, the doorbell rang.
I fought a wave of disappointment. “Did you invite someone?”
Bobby shook his head. After a moment, he said, “It’s probably Keme.”
But it couldn’t have been Keme. Because Keme didn’t ring the doorbell.
And neither did Millie or Fox or Indira.
And I didn’t know who else it could be. It was New Year’s Eve.
We were in a dark house, at the end of a long drive, on the outskirts of town.
And Hemlock House was, by any technical standard, a Class V haunted mansion—nobody was dropping by for a casual visit.
Except, apparently, they were.
Bobby followed me to the front door. When I opened it, I froze. And then I said a lot of words in my head (words you won’t find in “Auld Lang Syne”).
She’d changed her hair again, of course. And she was tan, even though it was the middle of winter—because she’d been in Borneo or Myanmar or Thailand. She huddled inside a lightweight jacket, shivering, and it wasn’t until I felt the first pinpricks on my face that I realized it was sleeting.
As soon as she saw me, a smile broke across her face. “Baby brother!”