Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Dex
Sayla’s house looks like a cottage ripped from the pages of a fairytale.
Her siding is the color of a cartoon sun, and the front door is bright red, like Snow White’s apple.
If I hadn’t read Tolkien back in middle school and learned that hobbits have circular doors, I could totally see Bilbo Baggins living in this place.
She stumbles from the house, dragging a suitcase behind her and shouldering a leather work bag stuffed so full the seams might split. The wheels of the suitcase stutter over the brick walkway. Interesting choice of luggage considering we’re headed to a rustic retreat. In the woods.
I know she won’t like the implication that she can’t handle her own bags, but I jog up the walkway to help anyway. I’m a gentleman, as we already established.
Even if Sayla will never see me as a genuinely nice guy.
When I reach for her suitcase handle, she blows a strand of hair out of her face and says, “I can manage on my own.”
Knew it.
So I beat her to the passenger door of the long brown Buick and hold it open for her instead. She hefts her suitcase into the back seat, then harrumphs into the car, dropping the leather bag by her feet.
“Nice morning for a road trip,” I say, climbing into the driver’s seat and starting up the car.
“We don’t have to talk.”
“I know we don’t have to talk.” I hitch my shoulders. “What if we want to talk?”
“I won’t,” she says, matter-of-factly. She’s using her teacher voice. Clipped and professional. Like there’s a divide between us.
So I set my phone’s GPS for Camp Reboot and turn up the volume. The app predicts our arrival in just about an hour. As I follow the first direction out of her neighborhood, Sayla glances at my phone and scowls.
“We’re going to be late.”
“We’ll be right on time.”
“On time is late,” she quips.
I puff out a laugh. “I’d love for you to show me that fact on Google.”
“Pass.” She reaches down to pull a slim book from her overstuffed bag. “As long as you’re driving, I’ll catch up on my reading.”
“What’s that?” I ask. “A play?”
“I can’t imagine you care.”
“Pretend I do.”
She exhales a long, slow breath, like dealing with me requires all her patience. “It’s Much Ado About Nothing.”
“Shakespeare, huh?”
“Wow,” she says flatly. “And you didn’t even have to Google it.”
“I’ve read Shakespeare.” I squint out over the hood of the wagon. “Hamlet. MacBeth. That one with the guy who turns into a donkey.”
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” she says. “That’s our fall play for this year. But I’m thinking about Much Ado for next fall.”
“Planning that far out?” I nod. “Impressive.”
“Just doing my job.” She clears her throat primly, then makes a big show of opening up the play and turning the first few pages.
“Will the GPS bother you?”
“Nope.” She really pops the p on that one.
“What about music?”
“Also no. I can focus under pretty much any condition.”
I eye her sideways. “Gold star for the drama teacher.”
“We prefer theater,” she says. “Try to remember.”
We’re only about ten minutes into the drive when my phone rings. Too bad I’ve got my earbuds packed because I didn’t want to be rude. “It’s my sister,” I say. “I need to take the call.”
“I’m not listening.” Sayla frowns at her play like the dialogue’s making her furious.
Yeah, Kroft. I get it.
Focus under any condition.
Congratulations.
“Hey, Jo,” I say, taking the call. “You’re on speaker in my car, so don’t talk about how awesome I am or you’ll embarrass me.”
“No danger of that,” she snarks. “But I thought you’d be at work.”
“We’re on our way to a professional retreat for the next couple of days.”
“We? Who are you with? Bridger?”
“Nah. You don’t know her.”
There’s a beat of silence. “Okayyyy.” The word is drawn out, and I can practically see the smirk on her face.
Her. Yeah. Don’t get any ideas, sis.
“So what’s up?” I ask.
“Did Mom call you yet?”
“No. Was she supposed to?”
Jo’s sigh fills the car. She’s back living with our folks right now, while pursuing her master’s in social work. This makes her the reluctant boots on the ground as far as disseminating information. “Man. Our parental units. Always so excellent at communication.”
I grip the wheel, hard, and glance at Sayla, wishing she weren’t here. Everything about her body’s gone still. She doesn’t even look like she’s breathing. There’s no way she’s not listening.
“What’s going on?”
“First of all, Dad’s fine.”
My shoulders tense. Fine is not my favorite word. Our family’s got a real bad history with fine. But Jo was only six back then. Too young to remember that detail now, twenty years later. “What’s going on?”
“He started to feel dizzy doing yard work yesterday. Raking leaves. Pulling weeds. Stuff like that. Mom got a little panicky, like always. So she took him to the hospital. Turns out he was not having a heart attack. He’s just super dehydrated.
And he has a UTI. Which is common with old dudes. Apparently.”
“He’s sixty-five.”
“Yeah. Like I said. Old.”
When she snickers, my shoulders relax a bit. Jo wouldn’t be laughing if something was seriously wrong. “So what did they do for him?”
“Gave him some fluids and antibiotics. Sent him home with strict instructions to be better about drinking something other than coffee. Mom bought out an entire aisle of electrolytes.”
“Yeah. Good. Okay.”
“I figured she wouldn’t tell you herself, but I wanted you in the loop. Just carrying out my duties as keeper of the Michaels family intel.”
“Lucky you.”
“Yeah, well, we kind of suck at sharing stuff besides funny TikToks and memes.”
“True story,” I say. “Thanks for the update.”
“Speaking of not communicating, why haven’t I heard about this coworker you’re traveling with?”
Sayla lets out a little snort from the passenger seat.
Totally listening.
“Wilford’s sending me and one of the other directors on a retreat in Asheville. Camp Reboot. You’d know this if you’d bothered to go to pizza with us after the game. I told Landry all about it.”
“Polly Warner? I definitely know her.”
“Not the activities director. The performing arts director.” I take a beat. Might as well introduce them. “Sayla Kroft? Meet my sister, Josephine Michaels. We call her Jojo. Or Jo. Or Jehoshaphat.”
Sayla looks up from her play as if she hasn’t been eavesdropping all along. “Hi there.”
“You’re the pretty one from the theater department,” Jo says.
I glance at Sayla. Arch a brow. “You think she’s pretty?”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Jo scoffs.
“Never,” I protest.
Sayla mumbles, “Always.”
“I loved your production of Fiddler on the Roof last spring,” Jo says. “Also? You’re definitely pretty.”
“Thanks.” Sayla smiles at me smugly. “I’m so sorry your brother’s an idiot.”
Jo busts out a snort. “I like her already, Dex.”
“Well, she hates me, so don’t get too attached.”
“In her defense,” Jo says, “you are annoying.”
Sayla puffs out a laugh. “Vindication.”
“Hey.” I smirk. “Kendal and Landry like me.”
“I think Mom still pays them an allowance for that,” Jo quips.
“Okay.” I chuckle. “Now I really have to go.”
“All right, but good luck, you two,” Jo says. “Don’t kill each other.”
“No promises,” Sayla says under her breath.
After the call, we both get quiet for a while, me concentrating on the road, and Sayla focused on her play. The GPS directs us closer to the mountain pass we’ll have to take to get to the retreat, and eventually, my peripheral vision tells me Sayla’s not reading anymore.
She hasn’t turned a page in that play in at least five minutes.
“You feeling all right? Getting carsick?” I shoot her a cringe of sympathy. “I never was able to read in the car.”
Sayla glances up. Hikes a brow.
“Before you make some kind of stereotypical crack, yes, I read, Kroft. And not just Sports Illustrated.”
“I’ve heard the articles in their swimsuit edition are excellent,” she says. “But I wasn’t questioning your reading skills. And I’m not carsick.” She shifts her gaze back out the windshield to the tree-lined road in front of us. “I was just thinking about your sister. Jo. She’s really funny.”
I bob my head. “All my sisters are.”
“Sounds like your family’s close.”
I puff a breath. “Understatement of the century.”
“Must be nice.”
“It is. Mostly.”
A furrow forms between her brows. “Mostly?”
I take a moment to debate whether or not to reveal anything more. On the one hand, Sayla’s not exactly a friend. Why would I want to be honest with her? Then again, her opinion of me can’t get any worse, so I’ve probably got nothing to lose. And maybe she’ll actually understand me a little better.
“I love my family. A lot,” I say. “They’re great people. But there’s also this lingering pressure with us to be … I don’t know,” I hedge. “Relentlessly optimistic?”
“Relentlessly optimistic,” Sayla repeats. “What does that even mean?”
“It means I grew up with a big sign in our kitchen that reads Happiness is a Choice.” I shrug. “And that sounds good, but choosing anything besides happiness was never an option, you know? It’s exhausting sometimes.”
Sayla looks down at her lap. Says nothing. So I probably said too much.
“What about you?” I ask to switch the topic.
She lets out another long sigh. “Let’s just say my experience was the opposite of yours,” she admits. “My mom always braced for the worst and had her heart broken over and over. Kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Which meant my heart got broken a lot, too.”
“That sounds … not great.” I fight a full-on grimace. “What about your dad?”
“Non-existent.” She hitches her shoulders. “All my mom ever said is that she wanted me, and he didn’t want us.”
“Wow.” I squint, navigating the curve in the road ahead. “That’s rough. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You weren’t the dad who abandoned us. And you weren’t the mom who dragged me to eighteen states by the time I escaped to college.” She lets out a sharp laugh. “I guess that’s one thing I can’t blame you for.”
I glance at her and decide to build on that laughter, sarcastic as it was. Might as well keep the mood trending to light. “Not to get all math-y on you,” I say, “but I think I counted two things you can’t blame me for.”
“Well, don’t get cocky.” She smirks. “We’re not at the retreat yet.”
“Man, Kroft.” A smile tugs at my mouth. “This is gonna be a long three days.”