Juno hated lying.
She had to do it with her dad (sometimes) because he was just so…so…gah!
But she didn’t like it.
And she didn’t want to do it to the blonde lady. She was real pretty and dressed cute and looked like she was nice.
Man!
Why couldn’t he have just come when Juno—?
Before “Loopy Loo,” with that worried expression on her face (which said totally that she was nice), made it to Juno, the bell over the door chimed.
Juno looked right there.
And even though she’d never met him, only ever heard her mom and her mom’s crew talking about him, she knew it was him.
It was the suit.
No one else in that place was wearing a suit.
She jumped up from her chair and ran right to him.
So all the people who’d been watching her since she got there would know she was okay, Juno threw her arms around his hips, pressed her cheek to his stomach, hugged him tight and cried, “Finally!”
She felt a hand wrap around the back of her neck (it was a big hand, and it was warm, so it felt nice) and the deep voice of the man she was holding asked, “Juno, is everything okay?”
She tipped her head back and looked into his eyes.
He was worried too.
And she could tell, not even knowing him, he was worried about 5,287 times more than Loopy Loo was.
And Loopy Loo was a mother!
There it was.
Proof.
Juno had done right.
This was the guy to ask.
Of course, in her text, she’d told him he’d had to meet her there right away, and the way she did that made it sound like there was something to worry about.
This didn’t feel very good because it wasn’t a nice thing to do, scaring someone like that.
But sometimes you had to do what you had to do.
Right?
“You know me,” she stated, something else that proved she was right.
It was him. He knew her. Even if they’d never met, like she knew him, he knew her.
He so totally was the person to ask.
“I do, honey, now answer me, are you okay?”
Juno nodded, fast and happily.
He watched her do that, but he didn’t seem to get any less worried.
“Is your mom all right?”
That time, she didn’t nod fast and happy.
She shook her head, slow and not happy at all.
Because her mom was not all right.
She tried to hide it, but she was never all right.
If it could be just them, Pepper and Juno, the dream team, they’d be okay. When it was just them and her dad didn’t mess things up, or her grandfather, or all that other stupid stuff, it was awesome.
But it wasn’t just them.
Juno’s mom had to put up with so much more and it was a serious pain.
And she thought Juno couldn’t help her, and the sad truth was, for some of it, Juno couldn’t.
But her mom couldn’t do it alone.
Not anymore.
It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair all the stuff Juno’s dad pulled, and it wasn’t fair all the crap her mom’s family did.
None of it was fair.
It was too much.
And Juno’s mom was strong. The strongest mom in the whole world.
But she needed a break.
His body seemed to get tight at her answer before he asked, “Why are you here alone? Is she—?”
Juno let him go and stepped away. “She’s fine. She’s home. I’m supposed to be at a friend’s house. My friend is covering for me. She lives close to here, so she’s there…covering. And I walked here to meet you. But I need to get back before her parents figure out what we’re doing.”
“You’re here alone?”
Juno nodded.
Unluckily, but not surprisingly considering the look on his face and the fact he was a grown-up, he kept talking about that.
“You walked here from a friend’s house…alone?”
Oh man.
“Uh…”
“Can you explain why you did that?” he asked.
“You’re Mr. Cisco, right?”
He nodded but said, “You can call me Brett.”
Um.
She didn’t know about that.
Mom didn’t like her to call people by their first names unless they were super close friends or family.
When they talked about him, Juno could tell Auntie Ryn and Auntie Hattie and Auntie Evie liked Mr. Cisco a lot.
But Juno never called a grown-up by their first name, unless her mom said it was all right.
(Though she did call Auntie Ryn, Auntie Hattie and Auntie Evie, Rinz, Hatz and Ehvz, but only because her mom said she could.)
“Okay then, uh…” she started. “I did that because I need you to help me.”
“Help you with what?”
“Help me make Mom fall in love with Auggie.”
Mr. Cisco’s head ticked as his brows shot way up.
And it was then, in a big-guy, too-old way, she thought he was kinda okay-looking (and on top of that, she liked the suit he wore that had a vest—she’d seen Chris Evans in a suit like that, and Chris Evans was the world).
She thought Mr. Cisco was more okay-looking when his expression suddenly changed, and she liked the way his eyes got. They made her feel like one of her mom’s brownies warm out of the oven tasted.