Caly's Piece by J.M. Miller

Author:J.M. Miller [Miller, J.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J.M. Miller
Published: 2012-12-11T08:00:00+00:00

*****

"Are you coming out?" Ava asked, over all of the poker players as they made their way onto the porch, buckets of pennies in hand and game faces on.

"I hadn't planned on it," I replied, sitting on one of the patio chairs, sketching.

She held the porch door open after everyone else entered. "I've got to talk to you. And I need to show you something interesting." She had lowered her voice for the last part. That got my attention, but only enough to lift my eyes from the meaningless lines I had been drawing for the last couple of hours.

She winked. "You'll want to see this, believe me."

I looked back in the cottage. The poker game was in session and Pop Pop was by the fridge, preparing snacks. "I'm going out with Ava," I announced as I stepped out of the door.

"Not too late," Pop Pop called out to me as the screen door slapped against its frame.

"Where are we going?" I asked Ava, walking behind her on the sidewalk.

She bounced as she stepped, almost skipping, down the sidewalk. She stopped four doors down and swung her arm toward the cottage opposite the big maple tree with sprawling ivy vines covering every inch. "My place."

"Your place?" Aden's place. "This isn't a good idea, Ava." I shook my head at her and turned around.

She yanked my arm back. "You're my friend, right?"

I looked at the front of her shirt: Haters Gonna Hate. "Maybe not."

She looked down at her shirt, too. "Funny. Anyway, you wanted to get online, right? I can't exactly bring my laptop to your place if you aren't supposed to use one."

"Good point," I agreed, with some uncertainty. I couldn’t stop the anxiety from striking. I was about to cross over an unwanted barrier, a line of personal territory where an ex-girlfriend surely wasn’t welcome.

Ava jumped up the stone steps and held the porch door open for me. Their cottage was larger in width than Pop Pop’s, an extra patio chair fit onto their porch, with room to spare. The inside wasn’t much different from ours: a mostly open floor plan with the bathroom in the back. The largest difference was how the beds were situated. This cottage had bunks. A set of queens stacked up beside the bathroom and a set of twins directly in front of them, separated by a divider wall. I wondered which one was Aden's.

"This is our place. I can stay here as long as Aden or Alex is here, otherwise, with Mom gone, I have to bunk next door with the old guys." Ava sat on the full-sized couch. Its fluffy gray cushions looked inviting as they folded around her body, not like the cushions of Pop Pop's uptight, corduroy loveseat. She opened the laptop on top of the thin, wire coffee table in front of her. "All set," she said and slid the laptop over.

I took a seat in front of the opened screen and the fluffy cushions nestled around my body, too.

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