Almost Perfect - Brian Katcher [58]
“Yep. I have the number at home. If you like, I can have them contact you.”
She turned to her daughter. “What do you think?”
Sage had been spastically shaking her head, but stopped just in time to say, “It’s something to think about.” She was not enthused.
“Great,” I said with a politician’s grin. “I’ll call them tomorrow.”
Mrs. Hendricks smiled warmly at me. “It was very nice to meet you, Logan.” She patted my shoulder. Sage glared at me until they reached their car.
I raced my bike back to the trailer, determined to get home before Sage did. The phone was ringing as I passed through the door, just like I expected.
“Hi, Sage,” I answered before she spoke a word.
“Logan, I’m going to hurt you,” she said evenly and with great seriousness.
“Why?” For once, I was only faking my ignorance.
“Do you really think I want to spend a weekend listening to the history of the campus with some twenty-two-year-old stranger breathing down my neck? I want to go there to meet people, not hear some lecture about safe sex and drinking responsibly!” She was bellowing, yet her voice was still unmistakably that of a girl.
“You really don’t think much of me, do you?” I responded, trying to project my smarmy smile over the telephone line.
Sage paused. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you’re going to be staying with the least responsible nonauthority figure this side of St. Louis. My sister, Laura.”
There was a long silence. “Do you really think she’d let me stay with her?” asked Sage meekly.
“She’d be happy to help out any of my friends. Maybe not Jack. The point is, she’s the most skilled liar I’ve ever met. Your parents will think you’ll be bunking at a convent when she’s through.”
I waited for the laughter, but it didn’t come. “Logan, you’re my best friend. Thank you.”
I was totally not used to being friends with a female, even a female like Sage. All this lovey-dovey sharing of feelings was giving me a complex. I mumbled goodbye and hung up.
Laura wouldn’t be back at her dorm until the evening. I was sure she’d go along with my plan; my sister was always willing to bend the rules on principle, if nothing else. My only concern was that I’d opened my big mouth at Thanksgiving and admitted to liking Sage. I’d just have to tell Laura that it hadn’t worked out and we were only friends.
Smiling, my mind drifted to the year ahead. Funny, I’d always pictured doing things at Mizzou with Jack and Laura. But I’d probably need frequent breaks from my future roommate, and Laura … well, she was my sister. She didn’t need her little brother tagging along all the time.
But Sage was my friend. And we were both a little frightened about the future. For the first time since winter, I was completely happy that we’d be going to school together. Now that any chance for romance was gone, we could actually enjoy each other.
I stripped and jumped in the shower, but not before admiring my body in the mirror. When school started, I could be like a brother to Sage. I’d make sure no guys got too close to her, while she could build me up to the pretty coeds. It was a win-win situation. What could go wrong?
chapter twenty
TIM CAREFULLY WIPED down his bookends with a rag. They looked as if he’d painstakingly carved them out of mahogany instead of smacked them together out of the cheap pine we worked with in the wood shop.
I studied my spice rack. It looked like something a fifth grader would make with his daddy’s tools.
If my daddy had any tools, he’d taken them with him when he left. Tim’s dad was a bank manager, but he’d still showed his son how to use a table saw and router. I could barely drive a nail.
Tim swabbed away a last blob of stain. “So, Dawn is on my case again.”
Tim and Dawn had been dating for months. For a while, Jack and I had been worried that Dawn was actually a brain-eating alien in disguise. Tim, however, continued to survive, so we concluded that she actually really liked him.
“What is it this time?” I asked. The honeymoon was over; the lovers were now sniping at each other over little things.