Cinders

~14~ Project

"It's nice to meet you, Brooklyn," she says with her best 'Ellie' smile. That smile would make anyone feel at ease.

"Nice to meet you too, ma'am," Brooklyn says, taking the hand mom offered and shaking it.

"Ellie," Mom corrects with another gentle smile.

Brooklyn just nods, obviously relaxing a little.

"Sorry you have to put up with this guy for a while,"Mom chuckles, giving me a playful shove.

"Thanks," I roll my eyes, smiling as I sit down next to Brooklyn.

Brooklyn lets out a soft chuckle.

"Alright, I'm gonna go take a quick shower," mom announces as she leaves for her room.

"Your mom is great."

"Yeah, she is."

There's an awkward silence for a minute. "Is something wrong?" I finally ask.

"No—I'm just surprised. The way I heard a bunch of girls talking today, I thought your mom was horrible."

"What were they saying?"

"Obviously all lies," she dismisses. "Let's get to work."

We work for a while, getting quite a bit done, when mom comes back out.

"Can you stay for dinner, Brooklyn?" Mom asks as she opens the fridge.

"Umm, sure if that's ok. I'd like to keep working on this for a while."

"Of course it is," mom says, pulling out hamburger. "Do you like Tacos?"

"I love them," Brooklyn nods.

"I like you already," Mom says with a smirk as she gets out the skillet.

Mom cooks silently as we discuss part of our project.  Suddenly she gets a phone call.

"Hey Alex," mom answers. She's quiet for a long moment.

"Ummm. Yeah that's fine I guess. His grounding is almost up anyways. Want me to ask him? Ok, hold on." She puts down the spatula and turns to me.

"Liam, dad got tickets to the Eagles game for Saturday, and wants to know if you wanna go."

"Can I?"

"How about your last day being grounded is Friday. I'll let you off early for good behavior," she says with a goofy smile.

"Yes!" I say, pumping my fist. "How many tickets did he get?"

"Three. He won them in a contest at work or something."

"Tell him to ask Megan," I blurt out without thinking.

Crap!!!

"Why would you ask Megan?" Mom asks into the phone. She's silent for a minute while she listens to dad.

"Mmhmm. Well, we'll be talking about that later," she says, trying to act casual. "Ok, he'll be ready by 3 on Saturday. Ok, bye."

She's quiet as she continues cooking. I know she's wanting to ask me about Megan, but she won't do that while Brooklyn is here.

We eat dinner, and mom and Brooklyn talk the whole time. I've learned so much about her. She has three sisters, and a brother—Her grandparents live down the street from them. They moved here from Ohio two years ago. She wants to be a nurse when she graduates—The nurse conversation opened up a whole conversation about what mom does. I didn't feel left out at all. It was nice listening to them talk.

Dinner is over and Brooklyn and I help mom clean up. Once that's done, we go back to working on our project.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," mom says, as she leaves. I think she's just trying to give us some privacy for a bit.

"You're lucky. Your mom is wonderful," she says, not as shy as she was earlier.

I just nod, quietly.

"So were you grounded for punching out John Matthews?"

I nod and chuckle "yeah, and for skipping and cheating on my math test."

"Oh wow," she says, picking up the History book again.

"Yeah. Mom was so mad."

We spend a little bit longer working until we get to a good stopping point. "Alright, I think I'm gonna head out," Brooklyn says as she starts packing up her stuff.

"Ok, do you need a ride?"

"No. My dad's supposed to be outside in a minute. Tell your mom thanks for me."

Suddenly there's a knock at the door. I open it, and it's dad.

"Hey dad," I say as I move out of his way.

"Hey Liam," he says quietly.

Brooklyn smiles at him and leaves quickly. Mom comes back in as soon as Brooklyn leaves, and is just as surprised to see dad as I am.

"Hey Alex!"

"Hey El," he says, still staring at me. "Can I borrow Liam for a second?"

Shoot. I think he's mad about the Megan thing.