Christmas Sugar (Insta-Spark)

She was giggling again as I left. The sound made my chest warm.

After I helped Seth for a while, I leaned against the handle of the shovel, watching as he finished cutting another wide pass through the thick snow. When the engine cut off, I walked over and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good job.”

He grinned shyly.

I glanced at the still thick sky. “I’m not sure it’s done yet.”

He lifted his shoulders in agreement. “Probably not. But I like doing this. It’s something that makes me feel like I’m helping.”

I felt a slight pang of guilt for scolding him earlier. “I’m sure you do lots to help, Seth.”

“I try. Alex and Noelle . . . they’re my family. I hafta look out for them, you know?”

“I know.”

He stepped forward. “Dylan, can I ask you something?”

His voice made me a little anxious. I swallowed, hoping he wasn’t going to ask me anything about Alex.

“Sure.”

“I, ah, I need some advice.”

“Advice?”

“Yeah. There’s, um . . . a girl.”

My eyebrows shot up. “A girl?”

He nodded, moving closer. “I like her, Dylan. I really like her.”

“And?”

His voice dropped. “I feel . . . stuff when she’s around. We text every day, and I think about her . . . all the time.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Shouldn’t you, ah, talk to Alex about this?”

He frowned. “She’s a girl. She doesn’t understand about this stuff.”

“This stuff?”

“Guy stuff. You know . . .”

My brow furrowed.

“I think about her all the time,” he reiterated. “I wake up thinking about her . . . and, um, I have, ah, problems . . .”

Jesus. Now I understood.

He was talking about sex. Seth was looking for advice about sex. And morning wood.

I tried not to laugh. I could imagine how Alex would react to those conversations.

Then I realized he was serious. He needed to talk, and he wanted to talk to me. I draped my arm over his shoulder.

“Let’s talk about respect, Seth.” Then I grinned. “We’ll move on to long morning showers and learning to do your own laundry after that.”

I left a somewhat shell-shocked Seth outside and went to my room. After my shower, I flung myself on my bed and looked at my phone, surprised I had a signal. Weak, but it was still there. A message waited for me from Arlene.