Ignite (25 page)

“Nope,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I’m pretty sure my guess is better.”

“And that is?”

“He likes you,” she said, squealing like the sixteen-year-old that she was. Sometimes I forgot what it was like to be a bubbly teenager who believed in all-consuming love. Probably because my fantasy came crashing down right around then.

“I don’t know,” I pulled a bottle of water from the fridge.

“You
do
know,” she said matter-of-factly. “You just don’t want to admit it. I don’t think he does either, according to Jenny, but it looked like he was a whole lot closer than you.”

“Wait, you talked to Jenny?”

She took her time chewing, which was torture for me.

“Duh. It’s not like Dean’s ever spent this much time on someone before. It’s usually kind of the love-em, leave-em kind of thing. If you really want to call it ‘love-em’ anyway.” She trailed off.

I shut my eyes.

“Ew, can we not go there please?”

She gave me a look. “Sorry, homeboy’s got a past.”

I laughed at her word choice. “Don’t I know it.”

“I’m kind of excited,” she said.

I nearly choked on my water to hear that come out of her mouth.

“About what?”

“If you tell anyone I said this I’ll lie, but you guys are adorable together. It just works. I kind of wish I had someone like that, minus the whole man-whore past, thing.”

I bit my lip and shrugged.

“Suit yourself.” She got up and put her bowl in the dishwasher, which shocked me to no end. I’d been doing her dishes for weeks.

As she walked upstairs, I realized it was time to make an all-important phone call.

After I’d showered, I felt like myself again. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to relax. I was startled by a knock on the front door. Part of me thought it would be Dean, but I definitely wasn’t expecting Jed.

“You have to make a decision,” he said, brandishing papers in my face.

“Hello to you too,” I said as sarcastically as I could, shutting the door as he wandered into the living room.

He slapped them down on the table.

“What are they?” I asked as I observed the stack.

“Legal guardian papers,” he said. “They need to be signed within thirty days. Either you’re taking them, or you’re not.”

“What happens if I can’t?” I asked, crossing my arms. I didn’t sit down, and neither did he.

He rubbed his face with both hands.

“All three will go into the foster care system. There is no other choice.”

“And there’s a possibility that they will all go to the same place?” I asked. “So they can still be a family?”

Jed shook his head.

“No,” he said gruffly. “Three kids? It’s almost impossible. That would be like getting struck by lightning. Twice.”

“So what you’re saying is that if I don’t take them, I’m splitting them up for good?”

He nodded.

“I strongly suggest that you think about this, Lauren.
Think
about what you’re doing.”

I knew that was a guilt trip.

“I
am
thinking!” I couldn’t help but raise my voice slightly. He didn’t need to treat me like I was still a child. “I’m trying to do what’s best for them, but a month ago I didn’t even know them. I called today and deferred a semester of my own classes. So I
am
trying. I didn’t know I had such a strict time frame to decide. I never asked for this.”

“Asked for this?” Jed said, raising his own voice now. “No one asks for these kinds of things to happen to them! You’ve had your fair share of tragedy in your young life, I’ll give you that. But think about what it would do to these kids if they didn’t have you. If they didn’t have each other.” He paused and considered his next words carefully. “I’m willing to bet you’ve heard Dean’s story. Do you want to do that to them?”

“Don’t you dare try to guilt me, Jed. This is my life too.” I scoffed. “And how dare you compare what he went through to this. I’m not a crackwhore who shoots up my own kids.”

He walked towards me and I knew he was about to leave.

“You’re right,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “You’re not. But something tells me that if your father were here, he would want you to stay with them. He would think it was right.”

“Don’t drag him into this,” I told him. “If he were here, I wouldn’t be.”

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Think about it, Lauren.”

With that, he was gone as quickly as he had arrived.

I hid the papers in my room and stared at them until it was time to pick up Chase and Emma from school. Callie knocked on my door and told me she would go and get them, and I was grateful that she wanted something to do. I felt numb from my conversation with Jed. It was a huge life decision, not only for me, but also for them. I was in control of their destiny. I was so incredibly scared to do it because of how it would impact my life, but I felt like I couldn’t say no. I would feel like I was single-handedly taking everything away from them. How could I be that selfish?

I didn’t have the money to pay for it if I transferred to Dean and Kenzie’s university. My current school was much less expensive. I had the grades to transfer, I knew that, but money would be a problem. At this point, it was my future, or theirs. Who was I to take all of their opportunities away in favor of my own? Maybe I could dance again. I could start teaching. I just wanted to finish out my degree before I did that. There had to be another way.

The garage door opened and I heard Callie’s keys jingle as she hung them on the rack. I was going to talk to her about the papers, but I saw she wasn’t alone. Dean was behind her, carrying Emma. Chase brought up the rear and carried two handfuls of grocery bags to the kitchen.

Callie winked at me and ran upstairs. “I’m going to call Jenny and tell her to come over,” she said.

I nodded and bit my lip nervously.

“Hey,” I said, waving to Dean.

“Hey yourself,” he said, beaming at me. “Look who I found.”

Emma was hanging onto him for dear life sporting a smile of her own.

“Come here,” I told her, needing some kind of comfort.

“No!” she shouted unhappily. She would never leave him if it wasn’t necessary.

How could I take the kids away from not only their home, but their friends? Their entire lives? They had already lost so much, but so had I. I wanted to crawl into a hole until all of this was sorted out.

Dean laughed at Emma’s refusal.

“He needs to take his coat off, Emma.” I reached out for her once more.

“I’ll take you back in three seconds,” Dean told her. “Just let Lauren hold you.”

She didn’t look happy, but she launched herself into my arms and started counting.

He pulled off his coat quickly and hung it up next to mine just in time for her to get to three. She kicked off of me, which was actually sort of painful, and latched onto Dean again as she snuggled her head into his chest. I paid more attention to the sight of our coats in a closet next to each other than I did to where Emma launched off of me.

I couldn’t help but smile. When I looked at him, I saw safety, and no matter how much I hated to admit it to myself, I envied Emma for being able to cling to him whenever she wanted.

“You know I’m going to have to put you down to cook, right?” he said to Emma.

“No!”

She snuggled even deeper into his arms.

“I guess you won’t be able to show Lauren how you play your brand new game then, will you?” he said, brushing her nose.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Fine,” she said. “But can I sit by you at dinner?”

He nodded and she seemed satisfied.

Chase ran upstairs to his room to play his video games, and Jenny arrived a few minutes later. Dean started cooking and wouldn’t let anyone else in the kitchen while he did, so he convinced Emma to show me her game.

“What is it?” I asked as she led me by the hand to the living room.

“It’s called manacla,” she said, desperately butchering the order of the letters, but I didn’t correct her. I could read it on the box so I knew what she meant.

She set it up like a pro and showed me how to move the marbles from one dish to the next. Surprisingly, she won six games out of seven without me trying to lose.

“I’m the master of mancala!” she shouted, and led me back into the kitchen when Dean called us in.

Emma sat down at the table and patted the chair next to her.

“I want to sit next to Lauren,” she said.

“Hey!” Dean said, setting plates in front of us. “I wanted to sit next to Lauren.”

Emma shook her head.

“Nope, she gets to sit next to me and you get to sit by me too!”

He winked at me and a huge smile lit up his face.

“Oh good,” he said. “I was beginning to worry I wouldn’t get to sit next to
any
of my favorite people tonight. I guess I still win.”

Emma seemed pleased with herself.

“No,” she said. “I get you both. I win.”

“Jeddediah, Jeremiah, and Josiah?” Jenny asked, cutting her lasagna apart. “That’s as lot of J’s.”

“I know,” I sighed. “My grandma loved J names and the bible, apparently. I never met her.”

“Oh,” Jenny said, smirking. “She would have
loved
Dean then, considering his real name is−”

“Jenny.” Dean cut in, giving her a look that warned her not to finish that sentence.

Real name? What was she talking about?

“What?” she said. “I think it’s cool.”

She and Callie gave each other stifled smiles and Dean knew she was really making fun of him.

“No, our parents were just really weird,” he said quickly. “More lasagna?”

“Stop trying to shut me up,” she retorted, refusing the dish.

“Stop trying to embarrass me,” he said back.

Chase cut in.

“Does it start with a J?”

Jenny nodded evilly.

“John?” he guessed.

Jenny shook her head.

“Jeff?”

“Nope.”

“James?” I said, surprising myself.

Everyone stared at me.

“Bingo!” Jenny shouted, raising her hands in the air.

Dean narrowed his eyes at her.

“Sorry, James Dean Powell. We have a winner,” she laughed through her next bite.

“James Dean?” Callie asked. “As in that hot guy who crashed his car in the fifties?”

“Yes,” Dean said, rolling his eyes. “Our parents were weird. End of story.”

“Why don’t you go by your real first name?” I asked, feeling like I shouldn’t have.

“Because,” he said, not looking up from his food. “That was
his
name.”

By that, I figured he meant his dad, because Jenny quickly changed the subject and told us all how Shayna Perkins now had to wear a hat to school to cover up how much hair she’d lost when Callie got out her scissors.