Sweet Venom
Page 78

I pause to take a deep breath before punching the call button.
If I’m going to be brave in some areas of my life, I might as well be brave in all of them.
It rings twice before he answers. “Hello?”
I almost hang up.
“Um, hi, Milo.” I bite my lip and then blurt, “It’s Grace, Thane’s sister.”
“Oh, hey Grace,” he says, like he’s happy to hear from me. “What’s up?”
My insides kind of melt. Even though I’m pretty sure I’m going to hork on the perfectly manicured grass, I say, “I wanted to ask you something.”
“What’s that?”
“Have you heard from Thane?” Okay, so it’s going to take me a minute to build up the courage.
“Oh, uh, sure,” Milo says, sounding uncomfortable. “He ran out to, um, get new laces. For his—”
“I know he’s not there, Milo,” I say to relieve his stress. “I was just wondering if you knew where he’d gone.”
“No,” he says, his voice back to normal. “No clue. Just asked me to promise to cover for him if it came up.”
“You’re a good friend.”
“Thanks,” he says, and I can picture his grin. “But I’m an epic failure at lying.”
I laugh. “Me too.”
Something we have in common. That makes me feel a little more at ease with Milo. And a little more ready to ask the real question I called to pose.
“Would you—” Oh no, I was wrong. I can’t do it. I can’t, I can’t, I— “Do you want to go out sometime?”
I smack my hand over my mouth after the blurted question, as if I can take it back. In the moments of silence afterward, my hopes sink lower and lower.
Finally, he sighs.
I drop my head into my hand. Great, Grace. Just great. That’s what you get for being bold, for taking the initiative and not sitting around waiting for things to happen. A giant slap in the face, that’s what.
“I wanted to ask you out first.”
I jerk upright. “What?”
“I was getting up the guts,” he says. “But you beat me to it.”
“Really?” I practically sob. Relief courses through every last inch of my bloodstream. “Really really?”
“Yes, really.” He laughs, and I can’t help but laugh too. “How about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow is—” I remember my plan to talk to Gretchen. I don’t want to put that off any longer than I have to. “I have an, um, appointment right after school,” I say. “But maybe after that?”
“Perfect,” he says. “How about I stop by your place after soccer practice?”
No, bad idea. Then Mom will wonder why Thane isn’t with him, and we’ll have to either lie or tell her what we know.
“How about we meet at the dim sum place?” I suggest, hoping there’s no repeat of the minotaur sighting. Knowing that even if there is, I can handle it. “At six o’clock?”
“It’s a date.” I can hear the smile in his voice.
I’m sure Mom will forgive me missing another dinner for a date—a date!—with Milo. We say good night, and I head inside. I’m positively bouncing as I push through the apartment door.
“You missed dinner,” Mom says.
She is clearing the dining table.
I drop my backpack by the door and then take the stack of dishes from her hands. “Oh, sorry, the study session ran late,” I say, the now-familiar lie slipping easily off my tongue. “We ordered sushi.”
“Next time let me know, please,” she says. She’s trying to sound like a cool mom who doesn’t make her kid call home every two seconds, but I hear the undertone of concern. I’m not sure which would be worse: the truth of where I’ve been or the worst-case scenario of what she might imagine I’ve been doing. Hopefully she’ll never find out.
“I promise.” I can’t stop grinning. It takes all my self-control not to tell her about my date with Milo. But I can’t risk her asking about Thane.
As I help her do the dishes, mindlessly drying every piece she hands me, I think more about my plan to bring my sisters and me back together. I start reciting phrases in my head, trying them out so they’re perfect when I use them on Gretchen tomorrow. This feels like the most important thing I’ve ever done, and I don’t want to leave anything to chance.
And then I’ll have my date with Milo.
“Everything okay?” she asks, handing me a wet glass.
For a heartbeat I want to say no. I want to tell her what’s been going on, about my sisters and the monsters and how I’m a descendant of a mighty guardian. She’s my mom and, no matter how clichéd it sounds, my best friend. All my life I’ve told her everything, from crushes to betrayals to worrying to failures. And she’s always listened with a patient and nonjudgmental ear. Even when I told her about my disastrous first kiss in the back of the bus on my freshman end-of-the-year field trip.
But I can’t tell her this. I can’t tell her any of this.
Just the part about finding my sisters could break her heart, to know that I’ve found some of my blood family. I know she’d be happy for me, but she and Dad try so hard to be more than enough. I love and care about her too much to do that to her.
“Yeah,” I finally say. “Everything’s fine.”