CHAPTER6
At four thirty,Will woke Andy and gave him a ten-minute warning for breakfast. He’d spent half the night stressed and had barely slept because of it. Although that was Luke’s fault.
After Corey left, the phone calls had started. Most everyone took him at his word. That he was fine. Except Luke. His twin had to throw in his two cents.
He wasn’t sure whether it was the breakup with Genni, he said, or the new girl—as Luke referred to Aly—but he wanted Will to take a good hard look at why he was taking the kid. Of the two of them, Luke was the superman, the saver. If Luke had shown up with a kid? No one would have batted an eyelash. But now Luke had Will almost convinced that he didn’t know what he was doing.
After hours of staring at the ceiling and replaying his conversation with Luke, the obvious knocked him in the teeth. Will had taken care of his younger brothers after his parents died. Will had been the one helping Beth and Marc with the kids. He knew exactly what he was doing. Starting with communication and consistency. This morning’s breakfast conversation would revolve around those two things.
He had a plan organized as the blender whirred, liquefying the frozen fruit.
“What’s that?” Andy asked as he flopped into one of two bar stools in Will’s kitchen. He took in the room that looked like it belonged in 1995, his lip curling and his nose scrunching. Wallpaper, fruit-tiled backsplash, shiny cabinet pulls, Formica countertops, white appliances. Yep, it was a late-nineties time warp.
The house had belonged to his parents. He was the only brother who stayed in Ambra, so he had taken it over. He’d done some work, but the idea of remodeling the kitchen was overwhelming, so he hadn’t touched it yet.
“You want to talk about the ugly kitchen or what’s in the blender?”
Andy’s mouth wobbled, almost lifting to a smile, before he locked his jaw. “The kitchen’s pretty bad, Coach.”
“Will,” he corrected.
Andy cocked his head to the side.
“At practice, I’m Coach. At home, I’m Will.”
The kid gave him a clipped nod before he examined the green liquid in the blender. “What is that,Will?” he said, his voice pitched high in trepidation, and disgust was painted on his every feature.
“Breakfast. It’s a banana, pineapple, honey, and kale smoothie.”
Andy swallowed thickly but didn’t respond, his focus never leaving the contents of the blender.
“Good source of vitamins. It’ll give you a quick energy boost while staying light before swimming laps. We’ll grab something heavier after practice,” Will said. Then he added, “Did you know most of the country’s kale comes from California orGeorgia?”
Andy’s spine snapped straight, and he lifted his chin defiantly. “Alytold you.”
Will turned to the blender and answered with feign nonchalance. “That you didn’t turn in your report for school? Yup.” He split the smoothie between two glasses before turning to hand one to Andy. “Guess we’ll be busy with more than swim practice this weekend, huh?”
Andy opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again, scanning the room for several seconds. “We?” he finally whispered, turning his attention back to Will.
Will released his breath at the hope he heard in the one word. “Yeah, if I’m in charge, it’s my job to help you make sure all this stuff gets done. We’ll sit down at the computer and learn all about Georgia, because the only thing I know is that it smells like burning sewage when you drive down I-95.”
Andy tried and failed to hide a smile. “Really?”
“My parents drove us to Florida every summer for vacation when I was little, and the first two times I thought it was a fluke, but it turns out it’s because of the paper mills.”
“Making paper smells like burning poop?” Andy let out a laugh. “Poop? That is definitely going in my report. The poop- smelling state.”
Will lifted his smoothie and took a sip, hiding his own smile. Oh, to be eleven again. “Drink up.” He nodded to the smoothie when Andy had settled. “I’m going over a few ground rules.”
Andy froze with his smoothie halfway to his lips. “Rules?” His tone went flat.
“Yeah, I have rules at swim team, so why wouldn’t I have them at home?”
“Of course you do,” Andy muttered, but he lifted the drink and took a sip. Silently, he placed the glass back down before swallowing. “I expected this to be gross. But it’s not that bad.”
Will fought a smile when the kid took a bigger gulp of the green smoothie. There might be a hint of the leafy green in the drink, but the banana and pineapple flavors dominated, combining perfectly with the smoothness of the honey and tart of the Greek yogurt.
“Tell me the team’s rules.”