Prologue
Weston
“Crosby Dashen, sit down and get that mud off your feet! I swear, if you get dirt on the carpet, you’ll blow our cover and we’re all going to get caught!”
Sometimes, getting this wild child to listen was like bossing around a house cat. She shrugged at me with indifference and plopped down on her butt. She was caked with mud up to the knee, and when she smiled at me, she was missing three of her four front teeth. I sighed in exasperation. Of course, Asa took off and left me to deal with the kid.
“Sorry I yelled. But you never listen.” I grabbed a towel and started to clean off the mud. She crossed her arms as if miffed. This kid was a hellion. But she was whip-smart, and on the rare occasion, she could also be a sweetheart.
We’d been in the creek, climbing muddy hills and searching for either trouble or treasure. Asa had to pee and jetted for the bathroom, but we needed to cover the evidence of our adventure before the Dashens got home and expected to find us finishing our homework. So, it was up to me to clean up his kid sister’s muddy feet.
“It tickles,” she said, squirming. I held her ankles still and ran the damp towel between her toes to clean out the mud. She had blonde hair on her tanned legs and was at that stage in life where her feet and legs seemed huge compared to the rest of her. I was too young to like girls, just a kid at the time, but I liked Crosby all right, even if she was a massive pain in the butt.
“You better hide your shoes, birdbrain.” She eyed the mud on my Jordans and continued to kick her feet in my lap.
“The things I do for you, Crosby. Someday, you’ll appreciate my love.”
“Gross, you’re worse than my brother, Weston!” With that, she rubbed mud from the side of her foot onto my brand-new white T-shirt.
“Pest!” I yelled after her as I chased her through the kitchen. It was the first time I’d worn it; I at least wanted to be the one to ruin it myself. I stared down at the stain and then shrugged off my shirt. Crosby was a menace, a huge freaking pain in the rear, but I laughed at the face she’d made when I told her I loved her.
1
Weston
How did you know when you’d met your match? Easy. She creamed you in air hockey, and you weren’t even mad at her.
That was the first time I considered her as a separate person, not an extension of Asa or a drag we had to babysit and censor our music and TV from.
“Save Crosby some pizza for after dance class. Turn the music down, Crosby doesn’t need to learn any swear words. Boys, go get your sister from Callie’s house. I don’t want her walking home in the dark. Wait for her outside the girls’ dressing room at the pool.”
I’d heard those admonishments from Mrs. Dashen half my life. Asa was a brother to me—I’d never had any siblings, and Crosby was part of the package deal, tagging along behind us dragging a stick, stopping to pet every damn mangy dog on the street. She drove me crazy like any little sister should. I guess that was her job, and she was pretty darn good at it.
The girl was a handful—there was nothing easy about her. And since the Dashens were starting up a new business, they weren’t always available. That meant Asa and I had to take Crosby with us. We were given free rein during much of our playtime, the only caveat: bring Crosby too. Which, when you’re a kid, isn’t much fun, bringing a spitfire six-year-old to the baseball dugout with you. It isn’t cool either when she can pitch like a pro, or is the first on your pickup team to actually break a window.
But we got used to it, we adapted, and she followed along. Crosby, unsurprisingly, was also the first of the three of us to break a bone. She was eight and we were twelve, tromping through a creek with a rushing spring thaw below. We passed over a log bridge that someone had pushed across the ravine. The water was cold, we could see our breath in the air, and dusk was fast approaching. The mini nutjob would have made it just fine; her motor skills were intact. Unfortunately, her common sense wasn’t. She did a karate kick in the middle of the log to show us how cool she was. Her curls were bouncing, and she was mean mugging.
“Weston, Asa, watch!”
I laughed at the display until Crosby toppled over the side.
Soaked and cold to the bone, we hauled her back to the neighborhood. She cried, sure, but not so much that we thought she was hurt. It wasn’t until later that night when Mr. Dashen made it home that he took one look at her wrist and declared it broken. Crosby bit her lip and held back the tears. When Mrs. Dashen tried to ground us, Crosby came to our defense.