Lex and Lu by J. Santiago

Author:J. Santiago [Santiago, J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781938416897
Amazon: B00LEWHQI2
Publisher: River Grove Books
Published: 2014-06-28T23:00:00+00:00

22

Seething at her sister but ever conscious of her niece watching the exchange, Willa tamped it down and headed to get herself a drink. Nina filled the awkward silence with a running commentary on the shopping she had done with her aunt. When she paused to take a breath, Pete managed to slip in a question and send her off in another direction.

“How’s school, Bit?”

“Good. It’s different.”

“Do you miss your friends?”

A small frown formed on her face.

“Way to go for the jugular,” Willa muttered from her place across the kitchen.

Pete glared at her. Lu jumped into the uncomfortable silence. “Dinner’s almost ready. Nina, why don’t you tell them what you can do with my phone.”

At this, Nina smiled big. “I FaceTime with my friends at home. It’s really cool. We can see each other and everything.”

“Ah,” Pete managed. “How come we don’t get to FaceTime?”

“Mommy says you’re too busy with school and you have an antique phone.”

“Antiquated,” Lu corrected.

“Antiquated,” Nina mimicked.

“Only nine-year-old in the world to use that word,” Willa muttered again.

“True,” he acknowledged, while shooting Willa a death look. “What about your grandparents? Are you getting them to FaceTime with you?”

“No,” she said. “We Skype with them.”

“Wow, you know more about all this stuff than I do.”

“Well, you’re cutting up dead people so you can be a doctor, Uncle Pete.”

They all laughed. Pete looked at Lu with a baleful glare.

“Sorry,” she said, unapologetically. “When we don’t talk to you for a couple of weeks, that explanation always seems to make her feel better.”

“Great. You’re teaching her to be morbid.”

“Whatever works!” Lu replied saucily.

Pete rolled his eyes. Lu smiled sweetly at him and shoved the turkey into his hands. “Put this on the table, please.” Doling out dishes for everyone to take to the table kept the tension to a minimum. Lu grabbed another bottle of wine for the table and refilled Pete’s glass with Scotch, hoping the alcohol would keep things from getting too tense, although she knew the chances of that were slim to none. Willa couldn’t pretend if her life depended on it. And Lu thought she may have misjudged how truly hurt Willa had been as she took note of the rage emanating off of her.

Rather than put Pete and Willa next to each other, Lu put them across from each other, hoping that Nina and she could provide some buffering. Pete couldn’t do mad, but he did hurt pretty well. Lu could tell that Willa’s anger was killing him. Lu tried hard to keep the conversation moving, but the tension continued to mount. Somehow they made it through dinner. Lu sent Nina off to shower and forced Willa to do the dishes so she could have a few more minutes with Pete. Pulling him over to the couch, they sat down to chat.

“Do I get story time tonight?” he asked.

“Of course.” Taking a deep breath, Lu plunged forward. “I’m sorry. I misjudged Willa’s anger.”

Pete smiled. “To be honest, I think I did too.” He sighed. “Do you know why I held off for so long?” At Lu’s shake of her head, he continued.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.