Knew Sulli could do it.
Luna starts nodding. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve read about poly relationships in some fics online.” Her lips rise more, reddening her cheeks. “That’s really cool, Sulli.” She bursts into a bigger smile, then says, “You’re dating two dudes at once. It’s like the ultimate fantasy.”
“But it’s real,” Sulli emphasizes.
“Yepyep, I know,” Luna says fast. “I won’t judge. Everyone likes all sorts of different things.” Luna shrugs. “It’s something I like reading about in sci-fi fics, but I don’t know if I could ever do it.”
Sulli nods a hell of a lot.
Akara and I exchange a look. She’s nervous. Maybe because Luna is someone who seems game for most daring things. But Sulli is the one swimming towards those rapids.
We’re with you, mermaid.
Luna continues, “Dating one guy is already a lot of work, especially with our parents…” She trails off. “Are you keeping it secret from them?”
“Not really,” Sulli says. “My dad already knows. It’s a long story.”
Luna looks horrified. “Uh-oh.”
Akara whispers to me, “That’s putting it mildly.”
“Rah.” I drop the ooh to the rah.
“Maybe you, uh, shouldn’t tell Moffy,” Luna says. “If your dad had a bad reaction, then my dad would be out for blood. And you know Moffy goes three-fourths Loren Hale.”
Three-fourths out for blood.
Pack me up and ship me out, I’m prepared for war.
Surprisingly, Sulli is too. “I have to tell him, Luna. I can’t keep anymore fucking secrets. It’s hard enough dating, but dating in secret sucks.”
Luna’s gaze goes gentle. “I get it. Not that I’m dating anyone in secret.” She looks right at Akara.
Akara stiffens. “Is there something I should know?”
“No,” Luna says quickly. “Forget I was here.” She hops on the skateboard and rolls away. What the fuck…?
“She’s dating one of the guys?” I ask Akara.
“Quinn,” Akara guesses with heat. “Shit.”
“No,” Sulli snaps. “She just said she’s not in a secret relationship. Believe her.”
He touches his chest. “I’m not not believing her. But she is definitely hiding something, Sul. And if it’s not being with Quinn, then what else?”
Sulli buries her face in her hands and groans. “Don’t make me break a secret.”
I bite on the toothpick. “I’ll be fucking damned, she knows.”
“Our little secret-keeper,” Akara muses with a sigh.
Sulli reappears. “I’m not little!”
We smile, and Akara tells her, “Banks and I will figure out the mystery without you, so you don’t have to break a thing.”
I cock my head to her. “Looks like you’re dating the Hardy Boys.”
She laughs into a smile, but just as she opens her mouth to speak, we hear a voice echoing from the kitchen. A voice that deadens the air around us. That drops Sulli’s face. That tenses my muscles.
I turn to Sulli. “What in the hell is your grandmother doing here?”
6
SULLIVAN MEADOWS
Grandmother Calloway.
All my life my mom and dad made sure to limit my exposure to my grandparents. Every single one.
Like Grandma Sara, my dad’s mom, who I see even more sparingly. She lives a modest life in New Jersey, but I know it wasn’t always that way. At one time, my dad said she lived for money and revenge.
At one point, she was even married to Jonathan Hale. I barely knew my alcoholic grandfather before he died. The one who ensured Nona and I had money set-up from Hale Co. When I was younger, I even tried to contact him at summer camp. I partook in a stupid séance. After our cabin rattled, I raced outside with a baseball bat. I was sure it was him.
Recently, Luna told me it’d been Eliot and Tom playing a prank.
Sometimes I wish I could ask Jonathan why he cared about me and my sister. He cut my dad out of everything financially in the end. But he gave us something.
But Mom and Dad always told us that our grandparents had made some irreparable mistakes raising them. Mistakes that they didn’t want to slide down the generational ladder and affect us.
So most my life I’ve had stadium seats watching the close relationships Grandmother and Grandfather Calloway had with my cousins. There were times I did envy the sleepovers the Cobalts had at the big mansion in Villanova, the Hales usually included too (with the exception of Moffy). He never spent much time around our grandmother.
I remember my jealousy from Jane having our grandfather’s number (in case of emergencies). He’s not even in my cellphone contacts. Growing up, I loved the small moments when Grandfather Calloway would bring me chocolates, because he knows Mom and I could live off chocolatey things. Un-fucking-fortunately, he’s so often quiet and hidden behind his wife.
But even more recently, all that envy has evaporated into dust. Grandmother Calloway’s true colors have all but farted out into the air, and they’re not pretty.
Being frank, I always knew she had a royal stick up her ass. She thinks my mom could’ve landed someone better than my dad. Someone proper. Someone with less fucks. And if I weren’t an Olympian, I sometimes wonder how much I’d be worth to her.