Chapter 1
Birthday Beginning
This story takes place before By the Book.
Keme was trying to play Xbox.
Trying was the key word.
Maybe my favorite word.
“And then—” I said.
Keme groaned and tapped the controller more furiously. If it was possible to block out sound through sheer effort, he looked like he was doing his best—and like he was about to give himself a hernia.
“—I’ll probably get a tattoo a PS5. Because it’s better than an Xbox.”
“The PS5 is garbage.”
On the TV, a polite—and slightly frantic-sounding—robot was asking for help.
“I think that robot needs help,” I told Keme.
“She’s not a robot,” he said.
He was playing a game called Overwatch, which had, like, a million different characters, and they all had different abilities, and it was shockingly expensive every time a new season came out and Bobby and I had to pony up, and the truly outrageous part was that Keme wouldn’t let me be in his guild or clan or whatever it was called because one time—one time—I got trapped inside my own force field.
I was about to follow up on that comment, since that robot definitely sounded like a robot, but Keme began to tap-tap-tap the controller like it was trying to get away from him.
On the screen, there were a lot of explosions, and Keme said something that Bobby had said one time when he’d been trying to mow the grass and the lawnmower refused to start.
“Did you die?” I asked.
Keme didn’t respond.
“Probably because you didn’t help that robot,” I suggested.
“She’s not a—” Apparently being dead—and waiting to respawn—offered him enough of an opportunity to glare at me, because he fixed me with a pair of death rays. “Shouldn’t you be writing?”
“I’m stuck on a scene.”
“Go be stuck somewhere else.”
“Remember that PS5 tattoo I told you about?” I said. “I’m going to get it on my pec.”
“You don’t have pecs.”
I scrambled into a sitting position. “Keme! Rude!”
“And you’re not going to get a tattoo because you made Indira hold your hand the last time you had to get a flu shot.”
“I didn’t make her hold my hand. I said I didn’t trust that pharmacist, and I certainly wasn’t going to go into a cubicle with him and let him do God only knew what to me, and then Indira said she’d go with me, and she decided she didn’t like him either, and she wanted to hold my hand, and she said she’d buy me one of those Toll House ice cream cookie sandwiches if I was brave, and—I don’t have to explain myself to you! ”
He shook his hair out of his face. He was smirking.
“Also, I’m thinking about taking up smoking,” I told him.
“You are so weird.”
“Maybe I’ll smoke cigars.”
Back to playing the game now, Keme looked like he might not answer, but then he said, “You tried to make Bobby arrest that guy who was smoking on the beach.”
“Because it was a public beach! I’d only smoke inside. In a smoking jacket. I’m not a loser.”
It’s incredible how many things a teenager can communicate with only their eyebrows.
“Do you think I should take Bobby to a club?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Do you want Bobby to break up with you?”
“Hey!”
“You asked Seely to turn down the music at the Otter Slide last week.”
“Because my watch told me that if I was exposed to that volume for eight hours, I might experience temporary hearing loss.”
“You don’t like to dance.”
“I mean, not with my legs.”
His game ended. That gave him an opportunity to look me in the eye and say, “Go away.”
“Then you’d be all alone.”
“Exactly.”
“Oh, what if I joined the Army?”
“The Salvation Army,” Keme muttered. He stood and turned off the Xbox and headed for the kitchen.
I followed him. He went straight to the counter, peeled back the foil from the blueberry crisp Indira had made, and got a fork out of the drawer.
“Indira’s going to murder you if she finds out you ate that straight out of the pan.”
Keme hesitated, but only for a second. “Not before I murder you for narcing on me.”
As he dug into the crisp, I couldn’t help it. I started to grin.
He tried to enjoy his dessert. And, honestly, he lasted longer than I thought. Finally, though, he glowered at me and said, “You are so weird. What is up with you today?”
“It’s your birthday!”
I couldn’t help it; I veered into Millie levels.
Keme’s eyes widened. Some of the color left his face. The fork dangled from his hand, forgotten.
“It’s your birthday,” I said. “It’s your birthday. Keme, it’s your birthday!”
“I know it’s my birthday.” He glanced around. “Shut up.”
“And you’re eighteen, and that means—”
“Dash, I’m serious, stop—”
“—we can get matching tattoos, and we can rent a car and take a road trip, and we can find one of those clubs that lets in eighteen-year-olds, and we can buy cigarettes—Keme, I swear to God, if I catch you smoking, I’ll make Bobby spank you.
Wait, can you spank someone who’s eighteen?
I’ll make him take a switch to you! And you can join the military, but don’t do that either because we’d miss you! ”
“Be quiet,” he whispered furiously. “What is wrong with you? It sounds like you and Millie swapped meds.”
My grin was so big it made my cheeks ache.
Keme must have figured it out because he gave a tiny, despairing shake of his head.
“Yep,” I said. “Yes. Uh huh. It’s happening, bucko.”
I could tell he wanted to roll his eyes at the bucko part, but all he managed was a horrified whisper: “No.”
“Where do you think everybody has been all day?” I grabbed him by the shoulder in case, you know, he tried to escape. “It’s time for your birthday party.”