Chapter 4 Adventures In Chaperoning #3
There’s a line in the sand we just don’t cross, because she has strict boundaries, and I have nothing but respect for those boundaries, even though I’d have zero complaints if they disappeared tomorrow.
But what do you tell your little brother when he’s looking to you as the fount of all carnal knowledge and it’s becoming obvious that he’s way more of a red-blooded ladies’ man than you are?
“Uh, well.” I clear my throat, turning into the school parking lot. “What comes after that probably isn’t a card you wanna play on the first date. You’ve gotta give a girl something to look forward to, you know?”
Henry smirks. “Yeah. Yeah, I know what you mean. Leave them hungry for more.”
“Exactly.” I nod smoothly. “You just have to follow her lead.” But in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, Hungry for more? Jeez. Maybe Mom has good reason to be concerned about her precious baby boy. Maybe he’s not as innocent as we all think he is.
I pull up to the entrance of the high school and drop Henry off, giving him finger guns as we part ways.
It’s not until I pull out of the parking lot that it hits me:
Did I just seal my brother’s fate? Did I just give him terrible advice and let him loose on Vivi Reynolds? Now, if he does get into some kind of trouble, and I’m not there to watch out for him, Mom will hold me responsible for giving him bad advice.
Damn it.
There’s only one way to save my skin. I’ll have to stick to the promise I made Mom last night. As much as it pains me to stalk my brother and possibly mortify him for the rest of his life, it’ll be easier than facing the consequences of being the big brother who corrupted him.
I slide my phone out of my pocket and punch in Tessa’s number. She answers on the second ring, her sweet voice filling my ear.
“Hey, sunshine.”
“Hey, beautiful. Want to go out tonight?”
TESSA
It doesn’t take much to make me say yes to a surprise date with Weston Ludovico.
Any time of day, any day of the year, I’m his.
It doesn’t matter if the date consists of a romantic dinner out or playing ultimate Frisbee with his brothers or cuddling and watching a movie at home, which usually ends in the two of us falling asleep on the couch together.
Over the past year, I’ve learned a lot about love.
How it doesn’t need to be packaged in fancy paper and a bow.
Real love is perennial—it blooms in any kind of weather.
That’s how I feel about Weston. He is the sunlight of my life.
So when he calls me randomly to ask me out and tells me where we’re going is a surprise, I don’t press him for answers.
I just ask him how I should dress (since his interests range wildly in variety, from rock-climbing to shark-diving).
He says, “Like you usually dress.” Which isn’t exactly helpful.
In the end, I decide that a pair of jeans and a cashmere sweater are appropriate for almost any setting.
When Weston picks me up at seven, I’m relieved to see him wearing jeans too.
“So, where are we going?” I ask, too curious to hold back any longer. “Hopefully somewhere to eat, because I’m starving.”
Weston nods, lacing his fingers through mine over the center console. “I thought we’d go out for pizza first.”
“Pizza?” I volley back the word with raised eyebrows.
Not that I have anything against pizza; it’s just that we haven’t followed our typical protocol for deciding where to eat.
Usually, Weston asks me where I want to eat, I tell him I don’t know, then he says he already has reservations somewhere (though he never actually does) and tells me I have three guesses as to which restaurant that may be.
One of those three options always ends up being the place we go to eat.
It’s safe to say Weston has cracked a code I didn’t even know I had.
But tonight, he puts me through no such inquisition. He simply declares he wants pizza, and the topic is closed.
“Okay,” I say with an easy shrug. “Pizza’s fine with me.”
“Good.”
I tilt my head, studying his profile with a quizzical smirk. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah.” He nods quickly, squeezing my hand. “Yeah, everything’s great. How was your day?”
We make pleasant small talk about our respective days for the rest of the drive, until at last Weston parks the truck outside the pizza place, and we head inside, hand in hand. Weston stops short as soon as we walk in the door, scanning the restaurant as if he’s looking for someone.
It’s the sort of place where you seat yourself. Usually, at moments like these, Weston’s standard operating procedure is to turn to me and ask where I prefer to sit. But tonight, he simply takes my hand and leads me over to a booth at the far corner of the restaurant.
“This okay?”
I nod and slide onto the bench seat across from him. He immediately snatches a menu from the table and holds it up in front of his face. I glance over my shoulder, scanning the pizza place, but nothing looks amiss.
Leaning across the table, I hook one finger over the top of Weston’s menu and pull it down to look him in the eyes. “You’re acting increasingly suspicious, Wes.”
He forks one hand through his tousled blond hair. “What do you mean?”
“I mean all of this. You choosing where we eat, choosing where we sit, looking around like someone’s going to catch you doing something wrong—”
“Look, if you didn’t want pizza, you should’ve said something—”
“It’s not that I don’t want pizza. I’m fine with pizza. I just—”
“Heyyyyy, my name’s Charlene. I’ll be your server tonight.” A waitress in a checkered apron stops beside our table, chewing gum impatiently. “Can I get you guys started with something to drink?”
I order an unsweetened iced tea. Weston orders a Coke. As soon as the waitress walks away, I tell him that he shouldn’t drink Coke—it’s full of sugar.
“You only live once,” comes his usual answer. Then up goes the menu once more, hiding his face from public view.
“Okay, what is going on?” I demand, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I’m… reading the menu.”
“You’ve been here hundreds of times. You know everything on that menu, and it doesn’t even matter what’s on the menu because you know we’re going to order one large cheese pizza, half with spinach and feta for me, half with bacon and pineapple for you.
” I snatch the menu out of his hand, stealing his security blanket and making his blue eyes flare in a way that is both frustrating and incredibly cute.
“Tessa—”
“What. Is going. On. Who are you hiding from?” I turn to glance over my shoulder again, scanning the occupants of the restaurant.
“Don’t look,” Weston hisses, nudging my foot under the table.
But it’s too late. I’ve already seen the person in question.
“Henry?” I turn back to Weston with a puzzled frown. “It’s your brother, Wes.”
“I know it’s my brother. Don’t let him see you.”
“Why?”
Weston sighs, slumping forward on the table and shielding the side of his face with one hand. “I don’t want him to know I’m here.”
“You mean…” I narrow my eyes, piecing it together. “This isn’t a coincidence.”
Weston shuts his eyes defeatedly. Busted.
Despite his warnings, I look again. Henry is sitting across from a pretty girl with long brown hair wearing a magenta miniskirt, fishnet tights, and combat boots.
I can’t tell if it’s just the edgy outfit, but she looks a bit older than Henry—though I suppose his string-bean height makes up for any age gap between them.
They appear to be halfway through a pizza and struggling with awkward first-date chat. Henry keeps drying his hands on the napkin in his lap, and the girl keeps fidgeting with her fishnets under the table.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Weston grumbles, reaching over to tip my chin back towards him. “They’re gonna see you watching them.”
I shake my head, fighting back a grin. “I don’t get it. Why did you decide to come here if you don’t want Henry to see you?”
Weston takes a deep breath, about to give me the answer, when—
“Here’s the Coke, and here’s the iced tea.” Charlene the waitress slides two frosty glasses onto the table. “Have we made up our minds?”
I order for us—the usual pizza we always order. When Charlene walks away, I rap my fingers on the table and stare Weston down, waiting for an explanation. He chugs his Coke to avoid talking until I finally reach across the table and take it away from him.
“Tell me what’s going on, or I’m not giving this back.”
Faced with these dire consequences, Weston finally comes clean. “Alright, fine. My mom asked me if I’d keep an eye on Henry. This is the first time he’s ever really taken a girl out on his own, and she’s… I don’t know. Worried he’ll get into trouble.”
“So you’re stalking him.”
“I’m not stalking him. Just… keeping an eye on him. And I don’t want him to know I’m keeping an eye on him.”
“That’s literally the definition of stalking, Wes.”
He lets out a dry laugh, dropping his face into his hands. “I know.”
I frown, taking a cautious sip of the Coke and shuddering as I set it back down. “That’s… kind of invasive, don’t you think? Poor Henry. He’s such a sweetheart—he won’t get into any trouble with this girl.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what I thought,” Weston agrees.
“But Mom was going to stalk him herself if I didn’t do it, so I told her I would.
It was kind of a lie at the time because I was planning on just dropping Henry off and going somewhere else with you.
But then he started asking me all these questions this morning, on the ride to school. ”
I narrow my eyes. “What kind of questions?”
Weston stifles a grin, sitting back smugly in his seat. “Y’know, just… guy stuff.”
“Okay, in that case, I don’t want to know.”
“It wasn’t anything that bad,” Weston clarifies. “But I may or may not have… given him more advice than I should’ve.”
My eyebrows jump. “Weston!”